Abstract
AT the annual general meeting of the Newcomen Society on November 9, Mr. W. A. Young was elected president for the ensuing year. The membership of the Society now stands at 870. After the conclusion of the business, the first part of a paper by Mr. Rhys Jenkins was read entitled “Iron-founding in England, 1490-1890”. Though there are objects of cast-iron to be seen in museums, probably made 1,500-2,000 years ago, iron-founding in Europe as a regular trade is of comparatively modern origin. In Great Britain iron-founding followed the substitution of the primitive hearth, the bloomery, by the high furnace, known as the blast furnace. Sussex was the cradle of English iron-founding and there is a reference dated 1490 to a payment on behalf of the Archbishop-of Canterbury to “ye Ierne founders of Buxstede”. The industry was based mainly on the production of war material, though there was a certain amount of production of chimney backs, fire dogs and grave slabs, and also of gear for the forges. King Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 and he at once set about the provision of armament. He brought over foreign workmen to cast bronze guns, and a year or two prior to his death the first cast-iron guns were made. The credit for initiating this departure belongs to William Levet, the parson of Buxted. In the early days of Elizabeth, an export trade in cast-iron guns commenced. Guns were sent to the Low Countries, France and Germany, and in 1582 Portugal took no fewer than 132 pieces. In 1601 it was, stated the total output was about 800 tons per annum. The earliest account of any real value of the methods of casting guns is given by Sirurey de Saint Remy in his “Memoires d'Artillerie” published in Paris in 1693.
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History of Iron Founding in England. Nature 142, 910 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142910a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142910a0