[P.W. KING]

It should be possible to get more detail of the convoy in which Abby was from the logs of the naval ships escorting it – Ramillies (74), Resource (frigate) as well as Princess Royal (90): captains’ and masters’ logs are in TNA and Lieutenants’ in National Maritime Museum.

Peter King

[P.W. KING]

John Baker Holroyd was Lord Sheffield from 1781.  She is engaging in a form of obscurantism by not using his title.

Peter King

[P.W. KING]

Cort is an unusual name, but it is a homonym of Court, which is likely to be much more common.  It is quite credible that Henry and John were related, but Bulstrode’s case depends on:

• John Cort having met John Reeder and seen his works or such like
• His Abby going to Portsmouth (which it did not)
• The vessel carrying Reeder’s useful equipment back to England going to Portsmouth.  We have no evidence (yet) of its destination or even precisely what was shipped.  It was to be shipped in one of HM Ships, but I would be surprised if it was a naval ship (which would not normally carry cargo).  The use of a hired transport is much more likely, but if there was a ship coming home from Jamaica, it would probably come laden with sugar, if such a cargo was available.

On a different point, there is the question of what Reeder was using his rolling mill for.  Any suggestions?  Mine is that he was rolling hoops for barrels, such as the hogsheads used to ship sugar or molasses.

I have started drafting an article in reply to Bulstrode’s.  I had a good day writing on Saturday, but need one or two more before I have a complete first (rough) draft.

Peter King

[P.W. KING]

Jenny Bulstrode displays a profound ignorance of British ironmaking.  It is clear that she did not consult any reference works or any articles, relevant to the subject.  It is true that the recent work was in a niche periodical (Historical Metallurgy), but this should have been in her university library.

Unfortunately, I know nothing of the quality of African iron, so that I cannot comment on issues of quality.  However it is clear that the African buyers, of what was called “voyage iron”, were discerning buyers and able to reject poor quality stuff.  This is reflected in instructions to suppliers.  This contrasts with the trade in guns, where guns for the Guinea market were of the worst quality.  Incidentally, I have seen an allusion to cannon and to muskets in succeeding sentences as if the author did not know how different they are.

Evidence of recycling iron is scarce, but it exists.  She has clearly not read Angerstein’s travel journal.  Chris Evans talked about it in his article on Bedlington.

She ought to have known about rolling because it is dealt with in a chapter in Mott’s book on Henry Cort. In the course of his specification, Cort talks about “common rolling mills”.  Cort’s originality was applying them to rolling bars from balls or blooms.  Previously they had been used to reshape or cut bar iron.

She should have found references to air furnaces, as there have long been works alluding to them, for example Raistrick, Dynasty of Ironfounders, 115; and I talked about them in my 2002 Newcomen article on Sir Clement Clerke.

[P.W. KING]

I  cannot access the Goucher article cited by Ray, but there is another by her: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25130565 in African Arch. Review 1993.  I am hoping to put together a first draft of an article in reply next week.  I will need to pass this around for comment.  Such an article was the solution that emerged from discussions at Coalbrookdale Museum last weekend.

Ray: can you e-mail me on peterkingiron@blueyonder.co.uk so that I have your contact details.  I will want to make use of what you have found out about the Abby’s voyage, with due acknowledgement to you.

Peter King

[P.W. KING]

They did not come up on my similar google search (to Richard’s).

Jenny Bulstrode’s paper is published.  We are unlikely to get her to retract it.

The equipment from Reeder’s foundry came to England later than John Cort’s Abby.  Is there any chance of working out what ships were in the convoy when it was shipped?  Unless there were goods to be shipped by the Navy, it is likely that hired transport ships returned with a cargo of sugar if they could.  Unfortunately port books for west coast ports in the late 18th century either do not survive or are in unlisted boxes of TNA, E 190.

Peter King

[P.W. KING]

There were several people who signed licence agreements with Cort on his way to Scotland to take out a Scottish patent, but that does not mean that they used the process.  At Lumley Forge, a lease was obtained for a site for a rolling mill, but there is nothing to indicate that a rolling mill was actually built.  I am writing form memory and will need to check facts in due course.

Peter king

[P.W. KING]

English Heritage should be strongly discouraged from changing anything on their website.  I have read it through and there is nothing on it (or the history page associated with it) that refers to puddling.  It is a steel furnace, not any kind of iron production furnace.  There was a finery forge there, but not revealed in the Time Team excavations.  They will be well-advised to stay clear of controversy.

Paul Rondolez wanted to publish a summary of these discussions in The Crucible.  I consider that this will be inadequate to prevent bad history finding its way into text books.  Further discussions on Saturday after Richard left suggested a short article sent to History and Technology by way of reply and rebuttal.  I will try to produce a draft of that next week and circulate it for comment.  I think that if it is a joint article from several of us, it may carry more weight.

I Looked up Jenny Bulstrode on the UCL website.  She is a lecturer in the History of Science there, not a mere doctoral student.

Peter KIng

[P.W. KING]

It looks to me like some kind of bolt with a rivet on it.

Peter King

[P.W. KING]

I have read the Jenny Bulstode’s History and Technology paper, perhaps not yet as closely as I should.  The leading work on Cort is Mott’s book, which is perhaps too uncritical and has some mistakes, not necessarily major ones.  However the paper is riddled with what I can only describe as leaps of faith:

• Iron was made in Africa, but only by a bloomery process.  But there is no evidence provided that any African ironmakers were enslaved.
• Maroons and escapees may have recycled old iron into useful goods.  But the evidence provided is only of blacksmiths, not ironmakers.
• There were also foundries in Jamaica, though it is not stated whether they were casting iron or brass.  Ironfounding at the period would probably involve an air furnace (a reverberatory furnace).
• John Reeder established an ironworks, with two reverberatory furnaces, four small forges, 2 larger ones, a water wheel and a rolling mill.  Unfortunately no detail is provided of the nature of these: the small forges may be for blacksmiths.  The rolling mill would be illegal under the British Iron Act 1750, but they probably did not know that.  One of the reverberatory furnaces may have been an air furnace for foundry work.  Another might have been a balling furnace for recycling scrap iron.  Therefore the larger forges may have been belly helve hammers (legal) or tilt hammers (illegal in colonies).
• There is no reference to a blast furnace (to produce pig iron), but such a substantial structure would undoubtedly have been mentioned.  As the nature of the structures built of brick is not clear.  The presence of fineries cannot be completely ruled out, but (if so) where was pig iron as its feedstock obtained?  The shipment of pig iron from Virginia (or other continental colonies) could have occurred before  the outbreak of the American War of Independence, but is improbable during it.  The war provided a period of hardship due to the disruption of trade.
• Bloomery ironmaking was effectively extinct in England by this time and no evidence is given of its use by the maroon community, so that this is unlikely to be involved in Reeder’s works.
• Reeder brought in 60 white artisans from England to instruct his black workers.  This implies that he was seeking to use English technology.  The use of all the processes described were  long established in England.  The emphasis in England was on the production of new iron in blast furnaces and forges.  This means that evidence for recycling iron is scattered in England, and that tends to be swamped by material on making new iron, but any process likely to have been in Jamaica was already established in England.  All the technology of which there is evidence was already well-known in England.
• Reeder’s works were suppressed in 1782.  In subsequent petitions say something of the works, but may reflect what he hoped to achieve if they were continued, rather than what he had achieved.  His reference to obtaining pig iron is in terms implying that he had not made any.  Similarly his hope to have coals from Newcastle or Wales cheaper than it was in London may sound improbable, but actually reflects the coastal customs duty charged (uniquely) on coal.
• Bulstrode makes a link between John Cort, a ship’s captain, who arrived in Portsmouth from Jamaica in c.1781, but that does not imply that he even knew of Reeder’s works, let alone how they worked.  Ironmaking was a technical process which would not have been easily reported by a casual observer.
• Anything useful from Reeder’s works, together with naval stores were taken on board naval ships and brought to England.  This would not include the brick of air furnaces, but might have included the machinery of the rolling mill and hammers.  We are not told that any of Reeder’s workers were brought to England.  Useful machinery may have arrived as scrap, but the knowledge of how to use it depends on the movement of those with the skills.  This is why Reeder had started by bringing in English artisans.
• Cort was not ‘near bankrupt’; to say so is a caricature of his situation.  He was the ironmonger to Portsmouth dockyard, making him the sole supplier of ready-made ironware required there.  There were separate contracts for the supply of bar iron (mostly Swedish) for use by dockyard smiths and also for anchors, but supplies from Cort (and later Cort & Jellicoe) would have run to thousands of pounds.  This was undertaken through a warehouse at Gosport, but it is not clear whence it was supplied.  This (rather than the ironworks at Funtley) was Cort’s main business.
• It is likely he was under pressure to accept scrap in part payment for what the Navy Board owed him for supplies.  British wars were conducted on credit.  There was a well-established system by which delivery was acknowledged and payment authorised but not immediately made.  Suppliers could obtain immediate payment by selling their bills at a discount, whose size would reflect the time the buyer of the bill expected to wait for payment.  Several years into the war, he would have been owed substantial sums, which is why he took a partner (Samuel Jellicoe) with an apparently rich uncle Adam.  This ultimately proved Cort’s undoing, but that concerns later events.

In summary, Jenny Bulstrode has told a tale based on a series of tenuous linkages, which do not stand up to scrutiny.  It is noticeable that she cites no general work on the history of ferrous metallurgy, meaning that it is far from clear that she understands the processes involved or the nature of different varieties of iron.  She certainly did not explore the English background to the processes established by Reeder’s English artisans at his works.  If she had done so, she might have realised that little or nothing being done in his works was novel.

In this she suffers from a common failing, one that has caused me difficulties on occasions.  A historian who tackles a subject beyond their particular area of expertise is liable to fall into error.  That, I fear, is what has happened here.

Peter King

[Author]

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