The Iron and Steel Industry

Abstract

THE last of the present series of lectures on industrial affairs at the Imperial College of Science and Technology was delivered on February 23 by Sir William Larke who took as his subject “The Iron and Steel Industry”. He pointed out that although the smelting of iron ore with charcoal has been carried on since 2500 B.C. or even earlier, smelting with coal or coke was not established successfully until 1730–35. Between 1740 and 1840 the production of pig iron in Great Britain rose from 17,350 tons to 1½ million tons, but it was not until about 1860 that the ‘iron age’ gave place to the ‘steel age’. This change was signalised by the rapid development of railways and by the substitution of steel for iron in shipbuilding. As the birthplace of the iron and steel industries and of the blast furnace, the steel furnace and the rolling mill, Great Britain was for many years the leading producer, but owing-to intensive developments in other countries, especially the United States and Germany, it had fallen to third place in respect of pig iron production by 1913.