120
Work & Industry in Tredegar during the 19th century A Key Stage 2 Educational Resource Pack Part 4—Making Iron
121
How was iron made in the 19th century? Making iron is like cooking. You need to prepare, mix and heat up the correct ingredients to make it – just like following a recipe! As a reminder, the ingredients needed for making iron are: Ironstone – a type of rock that contains iron but not as a metal. It is called an ‘ore’. It also contains substances that are not needed which need to be removed during the iron-making process. Coal – this was used to make coke, the fuel for the cooking! Coke is similar to charcoal but much stronger, allowing iron to be made in larger quantities. Coke converts ironstone into metallic iron. Limestone - a type of rock that is used to remove most of the unwanted substances from the ironstone that would otherwise make bad iron. Limestone was quarried locally.
122
Iron was used for making all sorts of things. Make a quick sketch of 4 different objects made from iron that are on display in the museum.
Name of object:
Name of object:
Name of object:
Name of object:
123
What happened to the rocks after they had been dug up? All the ingredients for making iron needed to be prepared before they were mixed and heated up together. Limestone and ironstone was broken up by hand.
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
124
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
125
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
126
After the limestone and ironstone was broken up, it was then roasted in buildings called kilns to remove unwanted impurities that would otherwise make brittle iron.
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
127
Coal was burnt slowly in huge piles out in the open to convert it into coke. Later on this was carried out in buildings called coke ovens in order to reduce the amount of coal being wasted. In the drawing below, coal is being burnt to make coke at Merthyr Tydfil around 1800. What effects might the making of coke have had on the environment?
128
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841 Many women and girls helped to make coke from coal. Coke was used as a fuel to supply the blast furnaces where iron was made. As the blast -furnaces usually worked around the clock, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, there was a constant demand for coke in the ironworks. This was the reason why Catherine Hughes worked 7 days (or nights) a week! How many hours did Catherine work in one week? What is the maximum number of hours that people are allowed to work in a week today?
129
Coke, limestone and ironstone was brought to the furnaces to make iron.
130
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841 Left: Filling a blast furnace. Ironstone, limestone and coke were emptied into the top of the furnace. The furnaces worked 24 hours a day and 7 days a week so all 3 ingredients needed to be fed into the furnace day and night. People filling the furnace needed to be careful as the heat and flames were dangerously hot.
131
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
132
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
133
Description of Tredegar Ironworks, Bristol Mercury, 12 April 1819
In less than 20 years, Tredegar Ironworks had grown from nothing to become the largest ironworks in Monmouthshire. Find out what is ‘Vulcan’s workshop’. In your own words, describe what the ironworks would have looked like at night. What was so special about the railway to Newport?
134
Layout of buildings at an Ironworks
135
The Blast Furnace Ironstone, limestone and coke were put into a huge oven called a blast furnace in order to make iron. If you could slice a blast furnace down the middle, it would look like the drawing on the right. The 3 ingredients needed to make iron were tipped into the top of the furnace. Inside the mixture of rocks reacted together to produce iron metal. The iron was so hot that it was liquid metal, which sank to the bottom of the furnace, from where it could be run out of a tap hole into channels to cool down.
136
What was Pig Iron? A building called a casting house protected the iron from the weather as it ran out of the blast furnace. The floor of the casting house was covered with sand which had channels dug into it. The liquid iron ran into these channels until it cooled, turning into solid iron. The shape of the channels reminded iron workers of a pig suckling its young so the bars of iron were called ‘pigs’ and the iron was known as ‘pig iron’.
137
Inside a casting house during the 19th century
138
After the pig iron had cooled and turned into a solid, it was taken out of the casting house and stacked. Each pig was very heavy and you would have needed to be quite strong to lift them up. Some of the pig iron was taken away to be melted and poured into moulds to make objects of different shapes. This type of iron was known as cast iron.
139
What was Cast Iron used for? Cast iron was suitable for making bridges, wheels, weapons and objects used in the home for cooking. However it broke too easily if twisted.
140
What if you needed iron which didn’t snap if it was bent out of shape? Cast iron was too weak for many uses and would break if twisted or bent out of shape. The strongest type of iron, which would not snap when bent or twisted, was called wrought iron. However until the Industrial Revolution, it took a lot of time and effort to make it. Ironworks in South Wales developed a way of making wrought or bar iron much more quickly than was possible before. Pig iron was melted in a special furnace and then iron ore was added by a ‘puddler’ to create almost pure iron.
Above: A puddler at work
141
Puddlers at work at a forge. Men often suffered with eye problems.
142
A puddler stirs a huge, molten lump of iron inside a puddling furnace. A puller-up boy opens and closes the door of the furnace with a chain.
143
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
How many hours did David Jones work each day or night? How old was he when he started work? How many hours did he have to work each week? David Jones earned 3 shillings a week. A shilling was enough money to buy 450g of butter. Comparing the cost of butter today with that of 1841, how much would David Jones’ weekly wages be worth today?
144
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
145
Next, the white-hot iron was taken from the puddling furnace to a giant hammer which removed impurities and shaped it ready for ‘rolling’.
146
After the iron was taken from the puddling furnace and giant hammers, it was then taken to the rolls. Here the iron was made into long bars of metal by being squeezed whilst still very hot through narrow and then narrower grooves between two huge rollers.
147
Drawing from the Children’s Employment Inquiry showing 3 boys passing a hot bar of iron back and forth through rollers. By forcing the bar through narrower grooves each time, the iron bar became thinner and longer. The bar iron was then taken away and stacked ready for sale.
148
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
149
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
150
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
151
152
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
153
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
154
By 1841, much of the iron produced at Tredegar’s ironworks was made into rails. New railways were being built across Britain and the world. Making rails was a skilled job although many unskilled workers helped.
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
155
Did making iron produce waste? The iron forges and furnaces produced ash and cinders which was dumped in huge tips that surrounded Tredegar. The job of getting rid of waste was often done by women who were called ‘tip girls’. The image on the right is called ‘Sackcloth and Ashes: Tip girl returning from work’ and was painted by T.H.Thomas in 1880.
156
Children’s Employment Enquiry, 1841
157
Right: Two mine-tip girls at Brynbach Pit near Tredegar in 1865.
158
Brick Making Most of the large ironworks in South Wales had their own brickworks and Tredegar was no exception. Making bricks involved pressing wet clay into a brick-shaped mould, leaving it to dry and then stacking it in a big oven called a kiln, which slowly ‘cooked’ the soft clay over a few days, turning it into hard brick. In the 19th century most of the workers making bricks were women, especially after 1842 when they were banned from working underground. Right: Wooden brick mould at Pontypool Museum
159
Tredegar Brickworks
160
Tredegar Brickworks about 1900
161
Brickmakers about 1900—a brick-making kiln or oven stands behind
162
3 brickyard girls standing at the entrance of their kiln (oven for making bricks) drawn in 1865.
163
Making iron in the 1700s Iron is a metal that has been used for thousands of years. In one of the display cases, there is an iron container found near the site of an old ironworks dating back to the 1700s. Draw it in the box opposite. Look for 4 small objects directly below the iron container in the same case. What are they? ______________________ Where were they found? _____________ _____________________________________ What fuel was used to make iron at Pont Gwaith yr Haearn in the 1700s? _____________________________________
Name of object:
From what material is this fuel made? _________________________________
164
The ironworks at Pont Gwaith yr Haearn would have looked like this in the 1700s