Barrow is the second town which Asa Briggs mentions as a 19th century creation by the railways. F. Barnes, in his book Barrow and District, may take issue.
Barnes takes his reader through the long history of iron production in Furness dating back to the 13th century and earlier where the local population fashioned iron objects from the readily available iron ore smelted with charcoal. These were very much for their own use, with ore lying on or near the surface and with temperature high enough only to make the iron soft but not molten and filled with impurities which had to be hammered out.
Iron ore was plentiful on the Furness peninsula but wood for charcoal came to be rationed in the reign of Elizabeth I as I discussed in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. In Furness there was little option but to ship ore from Barrow to be smelted at Blackbarrow in the Lake District where wood and hence charcoal was more plentiful. Production continued on a relatively small scale without the use of blast furnaces until 1711.
The new Blackbarrow furnace was first blown in 1711/12 and was followed by other 'blown' furnaces in the area. The famous Furness name of Wilkinson (Isaac the father of John known as the 'father of the English iron trade') first appears in the building of the Low Wood Furnace near Blackbarrow. The supply of charcoal once again became an issue. This time ore was shipped to Scotland for smelting.
A dramatic change came in 1839 when H.W. Schneider and his brother purchased Whitriggs mine and began to export ore from Barrow to South Wales and Staffordshire. The building of the Furness railway in 1846 from Barrow to Kirby enabled movement but it was the Ulverston and Lancaster Railway which opened up the whole country and enabled the import of coke from Durham for use with the Furness ore and limestone. Blast furnaces were built. The iron ore was well suited to the Bessemer process for steel production and James Ramsden formed a company which merged with Schneider resulting in the Barrow Haematite and Steel Company. The plant was then the largest iron works and Bessemer plant in the world. Furnaces were opened at neighbouring Askam, Ulverston and Carnforth with production reaching its peak in 1870.
Barnes offers some figures which demonstrate the shift from shipping ore to local smelting. The peak of ore exporting came in 1857 when out of 592,390 tons mined, 562,095 were exported. In 1863, one third of ore mined was smelted locally and in 1877 out of 993,912 tons mined only 42,683 was exported. The peak year was 1882 with 1,408,693 mined; this declined to 116,393 in 1938.
Fundamental to the development of Barrow were two aristocrats who invested substantially in the docks and infrastructure: the Dukes of Devonshire and Buccleuch. Much of the early iron production had focused on Furness Abbey which passed down through a number of ownerships before ending up with the Devonshire family. The Duke of Buccleugh inherited the Manors of Furness and Hawkshead and so too had a landed interest.
I came across a fascinating blog describing the housing history of Barrow. As with Middlesborough, another 19th creation mentioned by Asa Briggs, the development of the iron industry led to a dramatic increase in population which needed housing. The blog traces the housing built in the different stages of development of Barrow starting with the 28 houses existing in 1843. Clearly this was insufficient and first of all huts were built for the workers coming in. This was then followed by more substantial 'Scotch Buildings', essentially five story tenement blocks which would have been familiar to the workers coming from Scotland. These were followed by Devonshire Buildings, Maritime Gardens and then terraced Roose housing and the mock Tudor terraces of Vickerstown: the Vickers name stemming from the next chapter in Barrow's life.
Barrow did seek to diversify its manufacturing. One issue that concerned the iron masters was the fluidity of their workforce and it was thought that finding jobs for women would add stability. The route taken was jute and the Barrow and Calcutta Jute company at one time employed 2,000 women; competition from overseas and Dundee forced its closure in 1930. Barrow Paper Mills faired better staying in business until the seventies. It became part of Bowater Scott. Other later additions were British Cellophane and K Shoes.
Manufacturing in Barrow had a second focus on shipbuilding resulting from both the production of iron and the earlier export of ore. Neighbouring Ulverston was a much bigger place and attracted the earlier shipbuilders. James Fisher was established in 1847 and built a number of ships. In 1870 the Barrow Iron and Shipbuilding Company was founded, again under the direction of James Ramsden and built a good number of ships including naval craft and importantly the first submarine in 1886 designed by the Swedish T. Nordenfeldt. In 1888 the Naval Construction and Armaments Company took over the yard and eight years later Vickers bought that company and production continued under the name Vickers Sons and Maxim. I write about the development of Vickers in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. There began a long history of naval construction especially submarines. Vickers claimed a unique position of supplying naval ships complete with armaments. Vickers added the manufacture of the early airships with designs by a young Barnes Wallis and then railway wagons.
The presence of Vickers in Barrow attracted Ferranti with semi conductor manufacturing and Marconi with radar and which eventually became part of BAE Systems along with Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Limited. With a major order book of work with submarines, Barrow's future looks healthy.
Further reading:
- J.C. Carr and W. Taplin, History of the British Steel Industry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962)
- F. Barnes, Barrow and District (Barrow in Furness, 1968)
- J.D. Scott, Vickers - A History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962)
- John F. Wilson, Ferranti - A History (Lancaster: Carnegie Publishing, 1999)