Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers Part 8

We now return to the history of the chief author of this great branch of national industry. As might naturally be expected, the princ.i.p.al ironmasters, when they heard of Cort's success, and the rapidity and economy with which he manufactured and forged bar-iron, visited his foundry for the purpose of examining his process, and, if found expedient, of employing it at their own works. Among the first to try it were Richard Crawshay of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of Penydarran (both in South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale. Richard Crawshay was then (in 1787) forging only ten tons of bar-iron weekly under the hammer; and when he saw the superior processes invented by Cort he readily entered into a contract with him to work under his patents at ten s.h.i.+llings a ton royalty, In 1812 a letter from Mr.

Crawshay to the Secretary of Lord Sheffield was read to the House of Commons, descriptive of his method of working iron, in which he said, "I took it from a Mr. Cort, who had a little mill at Fontley in Hamps.h.i.+re: I have thus acquainted you with my method, by which I am now making more than ten thousand tons of bar-iron per annum." Samuel Homfray was equally prompt in adopting the new process. He not only obtained from Cort plans of the puddling-furnaces and patterns of the rolls, but borrowed Cort's workmen to instruct his own in the necessary operations; and he soon found the method so superior to that invented by Onions that he entirely confined himself to manufacturing after Cort's patent. We also find Mr. Reynolds inviting Cort to conduct a trial of his process at Ketley, though it does not appear that it was adopted by the firm at that time.[6]

The quality of the iron manufactured by the new process was found satisfactory; and the Admiralty having, by the persons appointed by them to test it in 1787, p.r.o.nounced it to be superior to the best Oregrounds iron, the use of the latter was thenceforward discontinued, and Cort's iron only was directed to be used for the anchors and other ironwork in the s.h.i.+ps of the Royal Navy. The merits of the invention seem to have been generally conceded, and numerous contracts for licences were entered into with Cort and his partner by the manufacturers of bar-iron throughout the country.[7] Cort himself made arrangements for carrying on the manufacture on a large scale, and with that object entered upon the possession of a wharf at Gosport, belonging to Adam Jellicoe, his partner's father, where he succeeded in obtaining considerable Government orders for iron made after his patents. To all ordinary eyes the inventor now appeared to be on the high road to fortune; but there was a fatal canker at the root of this seeming prosperity, and in a few years the fabric which he had so laboriously raised crumbled into ruins. On the death of Adam Jellicoe, the father of Cort's partner, in August, 1789,[8] defalcations were discovered in his public accounts to the extent of 39,676L, and his books and papers were immediately taken possession of by the Government. On examination it was found that the debts due to Jellicoe amounted to 89,657L, included in which was a sum of not less than 54,853L. owing to him by the Cort partners.h.i.+p. In the public investigation which afterwards took place, it appeared that the capital possessed by Cort being insufficient to enable him to pursue his experiments, which were of a very expensive character, Adam Jellicoe had advanced money from time to time for the purpose, securing himself by a deed of agreement ent.i.tling him to one-half the stock and profits of all his contracts; and in further consideration of the capital advanced by Jellicoe beyond his equal share, Cort subsequently a.s.signed to him all his patent rights as collateral security. As Jellicoe had the reputation of being a rich man, Cort had not the slightest suspicion of the source from which he obtained the advances made by him to the firm, nor has any connivance whatever on the part of Cort been suggested. At the same time it must be admitted that the connexion was not free from suspicion, and, to say the least, it was a singularly unfortunate one. It was found that among the moneys advanced by Jellicoe to Cort there was a sum of 27,500L. entrusted to him for the payment of seamen's and officers' wages. How his embarra.s.sments had tempted him to make use of the public funds for the purpose of carrying on his speculations, appears from his own admissions. In a memorandum dated the 11th November, 1782, found in his strong box after his death, he set forth that he had always had much more than his proper balance in hand, until his engagement, about two years before, with Mr. Cort, "which by degrees has so reduced me, and employed so much more of my money than I expected, that I have been obliged to turn most of my Navy bills into cash, and at the same time, to my great concern, am very deficient in my balance. This gives me great uneasiness, nor shall I live or die in peace till the whole is restored." He had, however, made the first false step, after which the downhill career of dishonesty is rapid. His desperate attempts to set himself right only involved him the deeper; his conscious breach of trust caused him a degree of daily torment which he could not bear; and the discovery of his defalcations, which was made only a few days before his death, doubtless hastened his end.

The Government acted with prompt.i.tude, as they were bound to do in such a case. The body of Jellicoe was worth nothing to them, but they could secure the property in which he had fraudulently invested the public moneys intrusted to him. With this object the them Paymaster of the Navy proceeded to make an affidavit in the Exchequer that Henry Cort was indebted to His Majesty in the sum of 27,500L. and upwards, in respect of moneys belonging to the public treasury, which "Adam Jellicoe had at different times lent and advanced to the said Henry Cort, from whom the same now remains justly due and owing; and the deponent saith he verily believes that the said Henry Cort is much decayed in his credit and in very embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances; and therefore the deponent verily believes that the aforesaid debt so due and owing to His Majesty is in great danger of being lost if some more speedy means be not taken for the recovery than by the ordinary process of the Court." Extraordinary measures were therefore adopted. The a.s.signments of Cort's patents, which had been made to Jellicoe in consideration of his advances, were taken possession of; but Samuel Jellicoe, the son of the defaulter, singular to say, was put in possession of the properties at Fontley and Gosport, and continued to enjoy them, to Cort's exclusion, for a period of fourteen years. It does not however appear that any patent right was ever levied by the a.s.signees, and the result of the proceeding was that the whole benefit of Cort's inventions was thus made over to the ironmasters and to the public. Had the estate been properly handled, and the patent rights due under the contracts made by the ironmasters with Cort been duly levied, there is little reason to doubt that the whole of the debt owing to the Government would have been paid in the course of a few years. "When we consider," says Mr. Webster, "how very simple was the process of demanding of the contracting ironmasters the patent due (which for the year 1789 amounted to 15,000L., in 1790 to 15,000L., and in 1791 to 25,000L.), and which demand might have been enforced by the same legal process used to ruin the inventor, it is not difficult to surmise the motive for abstaining." The case, however, was not so simple as Mr. Webster puts it; for there was such a contingency as that of the ironmasters combining to dispute the patent right, and there is every reason to believe that they were prepared to adopt that course.[9]

Although the Cort patents expired in 1796 and 1798 respectively, they continued the subject of public discussion for some time after, more particularly in connection with the defalcations of the deceased Adam Jellicoe. It does not appear that more than 2654L. was realised by the Government from the Cort estate towards the loss sustained by the public, as a balance of 24,846L. was still found standing to the debit of Jellicoe in 1800, when the deficiencies in the naval account's became matter of public inquiry. A few years later, in 1805, the subject was again revived in a remarkable manner. In that year, the Whigs, Perceiving the bodily decay of Mr. Pitt, and being too eager to wait for his removal by death, began their famous series of attacks upon his administration. Fearing to tackle the popular statesman himself, they inverted the ordinary tactics of an opposition, and fell foul of Dundas, Lord Melville, then Treasurer of the Navy, who had successfully carried the country through the great naval war with revolutionary France. They scrupled not to tax him with gross peculation, and exhibited articles of impeachment against him, which became the subject of elaborate investigation, the result of which is matter of history. In those articles, no reference whatever was made to Lord Melville's supposed complicity with Jellicoe; nor, on the trial that followed, was any reference made to the defalcations of that official. But when Mr. Whitbread, on the 8th of April, 1805, spoke to the "Resolutions" in the Commons for impeaching the Treasurer of the Navy, he thought proper to intimate that he "had a strong suspicion that Jellicoe was in the same partners.h.i.+p with Mark Sprott, Alexander Trotter, and Lord Melville. He had been suffered to remain a public debtor for a whole year after he was known to be in arrears upwards of 24,000L. During next year 11,000L. more had accrued. It would not have been fair to have turned too short on an old companion. It would perhaps, too, have been dangerous, since unpleasant discoveries might have met the public eye. It looked very much as if, mutually conscious of criminality, they had agreed to be silent, and keep their own secrets."

In making these offensive observations Whitbread was manifestly actuated by political enmity. They were utterly unwarrantable. In the first place, Melville had been formally acquitted of Jellicoe's deficiency by a writ of Privy Seal, dated 31st May, 1800; and secondly, the committee appointed in that very year (1805) to reinvestigate the naval accounts, had again exonerated him, but intimated that they were of opinion there was remissness on his part in allowing Jellicoe to remain in his office after the discovery of his defalcations.

the report made by the commissioners to the Houses of Parliament in 1805,[10] the value of Corts patents was estimated at only 100L.

Referring to the schedule of Jellicoe's alleged a.s.sets, they say "Many of the debts are marked as bad; and we apprehend that the debt from Mr.

Henry Cort, not so marked, of 54,000L. and upwards, is of that description." As for poor bankrupt Henry Cort, these discussions availed nothing. On the death of Jellicoe, he left his iron works, feeling himself a ruined man. He made many appeals to the Government of the day for restoral of his patents, and offered to find security for payment of the debt due by his firm to the Crown, but in vain. In 1794, an appeal was made to Mr. Pitt by a number of influential members of Parliament, on behalf of the inventor and his dest.i.tute family of twelve children, when a pension of 200L. a-year was granted him. This Mr. Cort enjoyed until the year 1800, when he died, broken in health and spirit, in his sixtieth year. He was buried in Hampstead Churchyard, where a stone marking the date of his death is still to be seen. A few years since it was illegible, but it has recently been restored by his surviving son.

Though Cort thus died in comparative poverty, he laid the foundations of many gigantic fortunes. He may be said to have been in a great measure the author of our modern iron aristocracy, who still manufacture after the processes which he invented or perfected, but for which they never paid him a s.h.i.+lling of royalty. These men of gigantic fortunes have owed much--we might almost say everything--to the ruined projector of "the little mill at Fontley." Their wealth has enriched many families of the older aristocracy, and has been the foundation of several modern peerages. Yet Henry Cort, the rock from which they were hewn, is already all but forgotten; and his surviving children, now aged and infirm, are dependent for their support upon the slender pittance wrung by repeated entreaty and expostulation from the state.

The career of Richard Crawshay, the first of the great ironmasters who had the sense to appreciate and adopt the methods of manufacturing iron invented by Henry Cort, is a not unfitting commentary on the sad history we have thus briefly described. It shows how, as respects mere money-making, shrewdness is more potent than invention, and business faculty than manufacturing skill. Richard Crawshay was born at Normanton near Leeds, the son of a small Yorks.h.i.+re farmer. When a youth, he worked on his father's farm, and looked forward to occupying the same condition in life; but a difference with his father unsettled his mind, and at the age of fifteen he determined to leave his home, and seek his fortune elsewhere. Like most unsettled and enterprising lads, he first made for London, riding to town on a pony of his own, which, with the clothes on his back, formed his entire fortune. It took him a fortnight to make the journey, in consequence of the badness of the roads. Arrived in London, he sold his pony for fifteen pounds, and the money kept him until he succeeded in finding employment. He was so fortunate as to be taken upon trial by a Mr. Bicklewith, who kept an ironmonger's shop in York Yard, Upper Thames Street; and his first duty there was to clean out the office, put the stools and desks in order for the other clerks, run errands, and act as porter when occasion required. Young Crawshay was very attentive, industrious, and shrewd; and became known in the office as "The Yorks.h.i.+re Boy." Chiefly because of his "cuteness," his master appointed him to the department of selling flat irons. The London washerwomen of that day were very sharp and not very honest, and it used to be said of them that where they bought one flat iron they generally contrived to steal two. Mr.

Bicklewith thought he could not do better than set the Yorks.h.i.+reman to watch the washerwomen, and, by way of inducement to him to be vigilant, he gave young Crawshay an interest in that branch of the business, which was soon found to prosper under his charge. After a few more years, Mr. Bicklewith retired, and left to Crawshay the cast-iron business in York Yard. This he still further increased, There was not at that time much enterprise in the iron trade, but Crawshay endeavoured to connect himself with what there was of it. The price of iron was then very high, and the best sorts were still imported from abroad; a good deal of the foreign iron and steel being still landed at the Steelyard on the Thames, in the immediate neighbourhood of Crawshay's ironmongery store.

It seems to have occurred to some London capitalists that money was then to be made in the iron trade, and that South Wales was a good field for an experiment. The soil there was known to be full of coal and ironstone, and several small iron works had for some time been carried on, which were supposed to be doing well. Merthyr Tydvil was one of the places at which operations had been begun, but the place being situated in a hill district, of difficult access, and the manufacture being still in a very imperfect state, the progress made was for some time very slow. Land containing coal and iron was deemed of very little value, as maybe inferred from the fact that in the year 1765, Mr. Anthony Bacon, a man of much foresight, took a lease from Lord Talbot, for 99 years, of the minerals under forty square miles of country surrounding the then insignificant hamlet of Merthyr Tydvil, at the trifling rental of 200L. a-year. There he erected iron works, and supplied the Government with considerable quant.i.ties of cannon and iron for different purposes; and having earned a competency, he retired from business in 1782, subletting his mineral tract in four divisions--the Dowlais, the Penydarran, the Cyfartha, and the Plymouth Works, north, east, west, and south, of Merthyr Tydvil.

Mr. Richard Crawshay became the lessee of what Mr. Mushet has called "the Cyfartha flitch of the great Bacon domain." There he proceeded to carry on the works established by Mr. Bacon with increased spirit; his son William, whom he left in charge of the ironmongery store in London, supplying him with capital to put into the iron works as fast as he could earn it by the retail trade. In 1787, we find Richard Crawshay manufacturing with difficulty ten tons of bar-iron weekly, and it was of a very inferior character,[11]--the means not having yet been devised at Cyfartha for malleableizing the pit-coal cast-iron with economy or good effect. Yet Crawshay found a ready market for all the iron he could make, and he is said to have counted the gains of the forge-hammer close by his house at the rate of a penny a stroke. In course of time he found it necessary to erect new furnaces, and, having adopted the processes invented by Henry Cort, he was thereby enabled greatly to increase the production of his forges, until in 1812 we find him stating to a committee of the House of Commons that he was making ten thousand tons of bar-iron yearly, or an average produce of two hundred tons a week. But this quant.i.ty, great though it was, has since been largely increased, the total produce of the Crawshay furnaces of Cyfartha, Ynysfach, and Kirwan, being upwards of 50,000 tons of bar-iron yearly.

The distance of Merthyr from Cardiff, the nearest port, being considerable, and the cost of carriage being very great by reason of the badness of the roads, Mr. Crawshay set himself to overcome this great impediment to the prosperity of the Merthyr Tydvil district; and, in conjunction with Mr. Homfray of the Penydarran Works, he planned and constructed the ca.n.a.l[12] to Cardiff, the opening of which, in 1795, gave an immense impetus to the iron trade of the neighbourhood.

Numerous other extensive iron works became established there, until Merthyr Tydvil attained the reputation of being at once the richest and the dirtiest district in all Britain. Mr. Crawshay became known in the west of England as the "Iron King," and was quoted as the highest authority in all questions relating to the trade. Mr. George Crawshay, recently describing the founder of the family at a social meeting at Newcastle, said,--"In these days a name like ours is lost in the infinity of great manufacturing firms which exist through out the land; but in those early times the man who opened out the iron district of Wales stood upon an eminence seen by all the world. It is preserved in the traditions of the family that when the 'Iron King' used to drive from home in his coach-and-four into Wales, all the country turned out to see him, and quite a commotion took place when he pa.s.sed through Bristol on his way to the works. My great grandfather was succeeded by his son, and by his grandson; the Crawshays have followed one another for four generations in the iron trade in Wales, and there they still stand at the head of the trade." The occasion on which these words were uttered was at a Christmas party, given to the men, about 1300 in number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose princ.i.p.al trade consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving man, and eventually a large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined him, and in the course of the changes wrought by time, one of the Crawshays, in 1842, became a princ.i.p.al partner in the firm.

Ill.u.s.trations of a like kind might be multiplied to any extent, showing the growth in our own time of an iron aristocracy of great wealth and influence, the result mainly of the successful working of the inventions of the unfortunate and unrequited Henry Cort. He has been the very Tubal Cain of England--one of the princ.i.p.al founders of our iron age. To him we mainly owe the abundance of wrought-iron for machinery, for steam-engines, and for railways, at one-third the price we were before accustomed to pay to the foreigner. We have by his invention, not only ceased to be dependent upon other nations for our supply of iron for tools, implements, and arms, but we have become the greatest exporters of iron, producing more than all other European countries combined. In the opinion of Mr. Fairbairn of Manchester, the inventions of Henry Cort have already added six hundred millions sterling to the wealth of the kingdom, while they have given employment to some six hundred thousand working people during three generations.

And while the great ironmasters, by freely availing themselves of his inventions, have been adding estate to estate, the only estate secured by Henry Cort was the little domain of six feet by two in which he lies interred in Hampstead Churchyard.

[1] Life of Brunel, p. 60.

[2] SCRIVENOR, History of the Iron Trade, 169.

[3] Although the iron manufacture had gradually been increasing since the middle of the century, it was as yet comparatively insignificant in amount. Thus we find, from a statement by W. Wilkinson, dated Dec. 25, 1791, contained in the memorandum-book of Wm. Reynolds of Coalbrookdale, that the produce in England and Scotland was then estimated to be

c.o.ke Furnaces. Charcoal Furnaces.

In England ......73 producing 67,548 tons 20 producing 8500 tons In Scotland......12 " 12,480 " 2 " 1000 "

---- ------ -- ---- 85 " 80,028 " 22 " 9500 "

At the same time the annual import of Oregrounds iron from Sweden amounted to about 20,000 tons, and of bars and slabs from Russia about 50,000 tons, at an average cost of 35L. a ton!

[4] "It is material to observe", says Mr. Webster, "that Cort, in this specification, speaks of the rollers, furnaces, and separate processes, as well known. There is no claim to any of them separately; the claim is to the reducing of the f.a.ggots of piled iron into bars, and the welding of such bars by rollers instead of by forge-hammers."--Memoir of Henry Cort, in Mechanic's Magazine, 15 July, 1859, by Thomas Webster, M.A., F.R.S.

[5] Letter by Mr. Truran in Mechanic's Magazine.

[6] In the memorandum-book of Wm. Reynolds appears the following entry on the subject:--

"Copy of a paper given to H. Cort, Esq.

"W. Reynolds saw H. C. in a trial which he made at Ketley, Dec. 17, 1784, produce from the same pig both cold short and tough iron by a variation of the process used in reducing them from the state of cast-iron to that of malleable or bar-iron; and in point of yield his processes were quite equal to those at Pitchford, which did not exceed the proportion of 31 cwt. to the ton of bars. The experiment was made by stamping and potting the blooms or loops made in his furnace, which then produced a cold short iron; but when they were immediately s.h.i.+ngled and drawn, the iron was of a black tough."

The Coalbrookdale ironmasters are said to have been deterred from adopting the process because of what was considered an excessive waste of the metal--about 25 per cent,--though, with greater experience, this waste was very much diminished.

[7] Mr. Webster, in the 'Case of Henry Cort,' published in the Mechanic's Magazine (2 Dec. 1859), states that "licences were taken at royalties estimated to yield 27,500L. to the owners of the patents."

[8] In the 'Case of Henry Cort,' by Mr. Webster, above referred to (Mechanic's Magazine, 2 Dec. 1859), it is stated that Adam Jellicoe "committed suicide under the pressure of dread of exposure," but this does not appear to be confirmed by the accounts in the newspapers of the day. He died at his private dwelling-house, No. 14, Highbury Place, Islingtonn, on the 30th August, 1789, after a fortnight's illness.

[9] This is confirmed by the report of a House of Commons Committee on the subject Mr. Davies Gilbert chairman, in which they say, "Your committee have not been able to satisfy themselves that either of the two inventions, one for subjecting cast-iron to an operation termed puddling during its conversion to malleable iron, and the other for pa.s.sing it through fluted or grooved rollers, were so novel in their principle or their application as fairly to ent.i.tle the pet.i.tioners [Mr. Cort's survivors] to a parliamentary reward." It is, however, stated by Mr. Mushet that the evidence was not fairly taken by the committee--that they were overborne by the audacity of Mr. Samuel Homfray, one of the great Welsh ironmasters, whose statements were altogether at variance with known facts--and that it was under his influence that Mr. Gilbert drew up the fallacious report of the committee. The ill.u.s.trious James Watt, writing to Dr. Black in 1784, as to the iron produced by Cort's process, said, "Though I cannot perfectly agree with you as to its goodness, yet there is much ingenuity in the idea of forming the bars in that manner, which is the only part of his process which has any pretensions to novelty.... Mr.

Cort has, as you observe, been most illiberally treated by the trade: they are ignorant brutes; but he exposed himself to it by showing them the process before it was perfect, and seeing his ignorance of the common operations of making iron, laughed at and despised him; yet they will contrive by some dirty evasion to use his process, or such parts as they like, without acknowledging him in it. I shall be glad to be able to be of any use to him. Watts fellow-feeling was naturally excited in favour of the plundered inventor, he himself having all his life been exposed to the attacks of like piratical a.s.sailants.

[10] Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry. See also Report of Select Committee on the 10th Naval Report. May, 1805.

[11] Mr. Mushet says of the early manufacture of iron at Merthyr Tydvil that "A modification of the charcoal refinery, a hollow fire, was worked with c.o.ke as a subst.i.tute for charcoal, but the bar-iron hammered from the produce was very inferior." The pit-coal cast-iron was nevertheless found of a superior quality for castings, being more fusible and more h.o.m.ogeneous than charcoal-iron. Hence it was well adapted for cannon, which was for some time the princ.i.p.al article of manufacture at the Welsh works.

[12] It may be worthy of note that the first locomotive run upon a railroad was that constructed by Trevithick for Mr. Homfray in 1803, which was employed to bring down metal from the furnaces to the Old Forge. The engine was taken off the road because the tram-plates were found too weak to bear its weight without breaking.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE--DR. ROEBUCK DAVID MUSHET.

"Were public benefactors to be allowed to pa.s.s away, like hewers of wood and drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and enterprise would be deprived of their most coveted distinction."--Sir Henry Englefield.

The account given of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopedia of Biography, recently published in Glasgow, runs as follows:--"Roebuck, John, a physician and experimental chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718; died, after ruining himself by his projects, 1794." Such is the short shrift which the man receives who fails. Had Dr. Roebuck wholly succeeded in his projects, he would probably have been esteemed as among the greatest of Scotland's benefactors. Yet his life was not altogether a failure, as we think will sufficiently appear from the following brief account of his labours:--

At the beginning of last century, John Roebuck's father carried on the manufacture of cutlery at Sheffield,[1] in the course of which he realized a competency. He intended his son to follow his own business, but the youth was irresistibly attracted to scientific pursuits, in which his father liberally encouraged him; and he was placed first under the care of Dr. Doddridge, at Northampton, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh, where he applied himself to the study of medicine, and especially of chemistry, which was then attracting considerable attention at the princ.i.p.al seats of learning in Scotland.

While residing at Edinburgh young Roebuck contracted many intimate friends.h.i.+ps with men who afterwards became eminent in literature, such as Hume and Robertson the historians, and the circ.u.mstance is supposed to have contributed not a little to his partiality in favour of Scotland, and his afterwards selecting it as the field for his industrial operations.

After graduating as a physician at Leyden, Roebuck returned to England, and settled at Birmingham in the year 1745 for the purpose of practising his profession. Birmingham was then a princ.i.p.al seat of the metal manufacture, and its mechanics were reputed to be among the most skilled in Britain. Dr. Roebuck's attention was early drawn to the scarcity and dearness of the material in which the mechanics worked, and he sought by experiment to devise some method of smelting iron otherwise than by means of charcoal. He had a laboratory fitted up in his house for the purpose of prosecuting his inquiries, and there he spent every minute that he could spare from his professional labours.

It was thus that he invented the process of smelting iron by means of pit-coal which he afterwards embodied in the patent hereafter to be referred to. At the same time he invented new methods of refining gold and silver, and of employing them in the arts, which proved of great practical value to the Birmingham trades-men, who made extensive use of them in their various processes of manufacture.

Dr. Roebuck's inquiries had an almost exclusively practical direction, and in pursuing them his main object was to render them subservient to the improvement of the industrial arts. Thus he sought to devise more economical methods of producing the various chemicals used in the Birmingham trade, such as ammonia, sublimate, and several of the acids; and his success was such as to induce him to erect a large laboratory for their manufacture, which was conducted with complete success by his friend Mr. Garbett. Among his inventions of this character, was the modern process of manufacturing vitriolic acid in leaden vessels in large quant.i.ties, instead of in gla.s.s vessels in small quant.i.ties as formerly practised. His success led him to consider the project of establis.h.i.+ng a manufactory for the purpose of producing oil of vitriol on a large scale; and, having given up his practice as a physician, he resolved, with his partner Mr. Garbett, to establish the proposed works in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. He removed to Scotland with that object, and began the manufacture of vitriol at Prestonpans in the year 1749. The enterprise proved eminently lucrative, and, encouraged by his success, Roebuck proceeded to strike out new branches of manufacture. He started a pottery for making white and brown ware, which eventually became established, and the manufacture exists in the same neighbourhood to this day.

The next enterprise in which he became engaged was one of still greater importance, though it proved eminently unfortunate in its results as concerned himself. While living at Prestonpans, he made the friends.h.i.+p of Mr. William Cadell, of c.o.c.kenzie, a gentleman who had for some time been earnestly intent on developing the industry of Scotland, then in a very backward condition. Mr. Cadell had tried, without success, to establish a manufactory of iron; and, though he had heretofore failed, he hoped that with the aid of Dr. Roebuck he might yet succeed. The Doctor listened to his suggestions with interest, and embraced the proposed enterprise with zeal. He immediately proceeded to organize a company, in which he was joined by a number of his friends and relatives. His next step was to select a site for the intended works, and make the necessary arrangements for beginning the manufacture of iron. After carefully examining the country on both sides of the Forth, he at length made choice of a site on the banks of the river Carron, in Stirlings.h.i.+re, where there was an abundant supply of wafer, and an inexhaustible supply of iron, coal, and limestone in the immediate neighbourhood, and there Dr. Roebuck planted the first ironworks in Scotland.

In order to carry them on with the best chances of success, he brought a large number of skilled workmen from England, who formed a nucleus of industry at Carron, where their example and improved methods of working served to train the native labourers in their art. At a subsequent period, Mr. Cadell, of Carronpark, also brought a number of skilled English nail-makers into Scotland, and settled them in the village of Camelon, where, by teaching others, the business has become handed down to the present day.

The first furnace was blown at Carron on the first day of January, 1760; and in the course of the same year the Carron Iron Works turned out 1500 tons of iron, then the whole annual produce of Scotland.

Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved plans, and the production steadily increased. Dr. Roebuck was indefatigable in his endeavours to improve the manufacture, and he was one of the first, as we have said, to revive the use of pit-coal in refining the ore, as appears from his patent of 1762. He there describes his new process as follows:--"I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron in a hearth heated with pit-coal by the blast of bellows, and work the metal until it is reduced to nature, which I take out of the fire and separate to pieces; then I take the metal thus reduced to nature and expose it to the action of a hollow pit-coal fire, heated by the blast of bellows, until it is reduced to a loop, which I draw out under a common forge hammer into bar-iron." This method of manufacture was followed with success, though for some time, as indeed to this day, the princ.i.p.al production of the Carron Works was castings, for which the peculiar quality of the Scotch iron admirably adapts it. The well-known Carronades,[2] or "Smashers," as they were named, were cast in large numbers at the Carron Works. To increase the power of his blowing apparatus, Dr.

Roebuck called to his aid the celebrated Mr. Smeaton, the engineer, who contrived and erected for him at Carron the most perfect apparatus of the kind then in existence. It may also be added, that out of the Carron enterprise, in a great measure, sprang the Forth and Clyde Ca.n.a.l, the first artificial navigation in Scotland. The Carron Company, with a view to securing an improved communication with Glasgow, themselves surveyed a line, which was only given up in consequence of the determined opposition of the landowners; but the project was again revived through their means, and was eventually carried out after the designs of Smeaton and Brindley.