Historical Debate on the Charcoal Iron Era

Abstract

We now enter the period where, if controversy be the criterion, the interest of the iron industry must be at its greatest. Controversy centres on a number of its aspects: on output, whether it declined, remained stable or rose during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; whether the industry was at the limits of available fuel and water power and constrained to relocate by their costs; whether labour costs were the most adverse factor; what were the reasons for foreign penetration of the British market and what the foreign share was. It will, however, be easier to understand the much debated forces acting on the industry of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries if we first briefly look at how the industry operated.