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L’acier en Europe avant Bessemer

 | 
Philippe Dillmann
, 
Liliane Hilaire-Pérez
, 
Catherine Verna

Des produits, des entreprises, des marchés

The best iron in the world Öregrund Iron and British Steel making in the eighteenth century1

Göran Rydén

Résumé

Le but de cet article est d’analyser ce que j’ai appelé ironiquement « le meilleur fer du monde », le fer Öregrund, produit dans quelques forges de Suède, et comment depuis le début du xviiie siècle il est devenu le principal matériau pour la fabrication de l’acier anglais. Ce fer était produit grâce à la combinaison heureuse du minerai de haute qualité de la mine du Dannemora dans l’Est de la Suède, des entrepreneurs hollandais, du capital et des ouvriers qualifiés. Pendant longtemps, ce fer a été vendu sur le marché d’Amsterdam mais à partir du début du xviiie siècle, le marché britannique s’est développé et rapidement un lien important a été établi entre ces producteurs et l’acier anglais. Le fer Öregrund est resté présent dans l’industrie de l’acier à Sheffield jusque dans les années 1940. Cet article examine des aspects de cette relation.

Texte intégral

  • 1 For an extended treatment of the argument in this article see C. Evans and G. Rydén, Baltic Iron in (...)
  • 2 For the purpose of this article I have used a Swedish translation. See F. Le Play, ’Om ståltillverk (...)

1In 1836 and 1842 did the famous French metallurgist Frédédric Le Play visit Sheffield with its many steelworks. At the time Sheffield was the leading steel making town in the world with numerous cone-shaped cementation furnaces, where blister steel was made, as well as many crucible steel furnaces, for the production of cast steel. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Sheffield had risen ahead of its two eighteenth century competitors, Newcastle and Birmingham, to epitomise the characterisation “Steel city.” In 1842, Le Play informs us, there were 60 steelworks in Yorkshire, with 97 cementation furnaces and many more crucible furnaces. The French metallurgist travelled to Sheffield with one aim only, and that was to investigate into the matters of British steel making in all its aspects. The year after his return from the second journey his findings were published in an article in the Annales des mines. A starting-point to his analysis was that British steel making was different compared to continental Europe, in that the latter foremost made steel directly from pig iron, or iron ore, where Britons used bar iron. The “natural steel” from central Europe was, as shown by Chris Evans in his article in this volume, often of higher quality than the British steel, but could only be made from very specific iron ores, while the cementation process was less demanding. According to Le Play, blister steel could, in principle, be made from any sorts of bar iron. However, at the time of Le Play’s visit to Britain the making of blister steel was foremost the domain of Baltic iron, and when steel of high quality was made bars from only a handful of Swedish ironworks were used.2

  • 3 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 100.

2In 1845, two years after its publication in French, the text by Le Play was translated into Swedish and published in Tidskrift för Svenska Bergshandteringen. The reason for this publication is easy to understand, Swedish bar iron played a pivotal role in the making of steel in Yorkshire, and was often seen as the foundation for the supremacy of Sheffield steel. Le Play was clear on that point. Even though blister steel, in principle, could be made from any sorts of bar iron, some brands were more coveted than others. High quality steel was only made from bars from a few ironworks in the county of Uppland, north of Stockholm. At these works, bar iron was made according to the Walloon forging method, contrary to the common pattern for Swedish iron making where the German method dominated. The Walloon method had been introduced to these works during the seventeenth century by migrant labourers from the southern Netherlands. It was the skills of their descendants, in combination with the quality of the ore from the Dannemora mine that produced the iron, often referred to as the “Oregrund iron” (after the Swedish port Öregrund), that was shipped to Sheffield. Le Play wrote that Sweden had “the ironworks that made the best steel iron [bar iron suitable for steel making].”3

  • 4 W. Ekman, “Vallonjärnet–en kvalitetsprodukt med världsrykte,” in Forsmark och vallonjärnet, Forsmar (...)
  • 5 For a discussion about the Walloons in Sweden see A. Florén, “Vallonen som metafor. Reflektioner kr (...)

3This link between the Walloon-forged Öregrund iron and Sheffield has been important in the historiography of Swedish iron making. It has, to use a title of an article, been seen as “a quality product of worldwide repute,”4 with a secure market in Sheffield. Few attempts have been made to undertake a critical analysis of this link, when it came into being, for how long it existed and what its foundation was? It is important to understand that features related to the Walloon migration to Sweden has often been treated in a very biased way. Scholars, and other writers, have depicted this process in a positive way, and the development of Swedish iron making has sometimes been understood only in relation to the Walloons. These migrant artisans have been noted for their skills, dexterity and their conscientious behaviour, and the iron they made has subsequently been hailed as, if not the best in the world, of impeccable quality. The presence of Öregrund iron on the Sheffield market for iron suitable for steel making has for that reason been seen as an area beyond analysis. The quality of Öregrund iron made it an obvious choice for the Sheffield steel makers! The starting-point for this article is to question all this, and to discuss the position of Öregrund iron in British steel making.5

  • 6 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 20.

4What qualities was it then that made Öregrund iron such an indispensable raw material for the making of blister steel? Le Play dwelled upon this question at length, and he began by asserting that “a good knowledge about the choice of iron had the largest impact on the success of blister steel making.” It was, however, not the easiest question to answer as the steel makers were very reluctant to share their views in this matter, and, as Le Play points out, they were also often ignorant when it came to the actual production. Knowledge about blister steel making, and its choices of bar iron, could only be gained from “the plain workers.” “These […] are the true metallurgists of Yorkshire, and it is only from them, that one can learn the foundations for steel making.” A suitable bar iron for steel production should have, what the workers called, body, and be sound and strong. Le Play claimed that it was difficult to understand what was meant by these terms, “as a common language between scientists and workers hardly exist,” and that different workers gave different meanings to the terms, but he did nevertheless make an attempt to understand the parlance of the workers as well as discuss the qualities of a good steel iron.6

  • 7 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 25-33; W. Ekman, “Vallonjärnet,” op. cit.

5The most important asset for a good steel iron was that it should be strong. For Le Play this meant that steel made from this iron would shine when polished, keep its hardness when heated, etc. He calls this “steel-creating abilities.” Wilhelm Ekman, a Swedish twentieth-century metallurgist who has followed in Le Play’s tracks searching answers to questions about the chemical content of Öregrund iron, concurred, and noted that a strong iron had a higher content of carbon compared to common bar iron. The second most important asset was for the steel iron to be sound, and that all parts of the iron had the same structure. If that was not the case different parts of the bars would react differently during the conversion to steel in the cementation furnaces. Ekman saw a sound iron as an iron without an unevenly distributed content of slag. The last, and also the most difficult, asset of a good steel iron was to have body. Le Play discussed that in relation to the concept of soundness, but there was a difference, and according to Ekman an iron with body could take much more heat than other sorts of iron.7

  • 8 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 21.
  • 9 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 22.

6A good iron for steel making should thus combine a number of different qualities. It should be strong but also have the capacity to keep that strength during the conversion to steel as well as during subsequent turns in the hearth. Steel made from a strong and sound iron should shine when polished and be sharp when grinded. It was further important that it had an even structure. How was one then to distinguish between these different capacities in bar iron from different producers, and how was one to rank different steel iron? Le Play was clear about that dilemma, “[…] questions about the choice for iron suitable for blister steel making are very complicated […]”8 and he clearly retreated from his position as one of the leading metallurgists of his time. “In an investigation of the qualities of steel iron one ought to, as a starting-point, take a comparison between the trade-value of these iron.”9 He qualified this in saying that the price, or “trade-value,” cannot be seen as “an absolute measure” for the suitability of different bar iron for steel making, but it could be used as a way of weighing between different assets of different brands. The metallurgist, thus, let the comparison be undertaken by the market!

  • 10 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 23f.

7If this is the case, with the market as a guideline to which iron was preferred by the steel makers, it can as well be stated that it was the steel workers that were the real brokers. They were, after all, the true metallurgists of Sheffield, and as such they decided which brands of bar iron they wanted. Around the mid nineteenth century, it was clear that these workers preferred bar iron made in Swedish ironworks around the Dannemora mine, the so-called Öregrund iron. The nine brands of bar iron with the highest “trade-value” among Sheffield steel makers originated from these works. Bars from Leufsta, Gimo and Österby were the most coveted.10 As Le Play very well knew, this market structure was not a novelty of the nineteenth century, as Öregrund iron had dominated British steel making ever since its expansion in the early eighteenth century. It was during this founding period that the link between Öregrund iron and English steel making was created, and it was also during these years that questions about assets and quality of the Öregrund iron were first negotiated and resolved. The aim of this article is to initiate a discussion about these matters by analysing the process whereby some actors in both Sweden and Britain tried to control the output of some brands of Öregrund iron, as well as also starting a discussion about what was to be demanded from this iron. The crucial questions were: what constituted Öregrund iron and what did distinguish it from other sorts of iron?

Fig. 1. Le Play’s price list of Swedish bar iron used in steel making in Sheffield, 1842

(Source: F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen i Yorkshire, samt jemförelse mellan de förnämsta ståltillverkningsorterna i Europa,” Tidskrift för Svenska Bergshandteringen, häfte 1 och 2, 1845, p. 23)

Swedish iron

  • 11 K.-G. Hildebrand, Fagerstabrukens historia, band I. Sexton- och sjuttonhundratalen, Uppsala, 1957, (...)

8The Swedish iron industry began to expand during the first decades of the seventeenth century. Iron had been exported since the Middle Ages, but the volumes of iron that went to towns in the southern Baltic in the sixteenth century were rather small. From the 1620s, they underwent a revolution in scale and scope. Iron exports, which had averaged little more than 3,000 tons per annum in the late 1620s, rose to 11,000 tons in 1640, then to 18,000 tons in 1650, and 27,000 tons in 1680. In the mid eighteenth century, more than 40,000 tons left Swedish ports for foreign markets. Their destination changed too. Swedish iron began to be shipped through the Sound in large volumes, and during the seventeenth century it was bound for Amsterdam, the centre of European commerce.11

  • 12 For a treatment of the relationships between the Swedish state and Dutch entrepreneurs see M.-B. Ne (...)

9The rapid expansion of Swedish iron making was a result of a very conscious policy from the Swedish state, as well as of the ambitions of some adventurous Dutch merchants. Swedish territorial aims could only be fulfilled if the poor and sparsely populated kingdom could exploit its latent mineral wealth more effectively. This did, in turn, create an opportunity for a group of Amsterdam-based merchants to extract Swedish iron on very preferential terms. The Dutch Republic in its Golden Age, with its busy shipyards and bustling towns, consumed iron on a grand scale. Yet the Thirty Years’ War disrupted the supplies of German iron that usually came down the Rhine. Iron was needed in the capital-rich Netherlands; iron was to be had in capital-poor Sweden. This realisation spurred the intervention of Louis De Geer, Wilhelm de Besche and other Dutch merchants in the 1620s. The Dutchmen were awarded wide-ranging privileges by the Swedish state, allowing them to establish a network of processing plants, mainly concentrated in the county of Uppland, around the Dannemora mine. In this area, Louis De Geer built a formidable empire of ironworks and mines. To a large extent his empire was populated with skilled migrant workers from his native southern Netherlands, who also brought with them quite distinct work practices. At these works, often called “Vallonbruk,” bar iron was, for instance, made according to the Walloon forging method.12

  • 13 A. Florén and G. Rydén, Arbete, hushåll och region. Tankar om industrialiseringsprocesser och den s (...)

10This dramatic change of Swedish iron making involved more than an influx of Dutch capital, entrepreneurs and artisans. It was based upon a widereaching restructuring of the social matrix of iron production. Mediaeval iron making was founded on the work of peasant miners (Bergsmän) who smelted ore at communally owned furnaces and then refined the pig iron into crudely shaped lumps of osmund iron. It was this iron that was exported to towns in the Baltic, where it was drawn out into bars, the form that malleable iron took as an international commodity. Changes imposed by the Swedish state from the 1620s onwards were intended to improve the quality of iron, and to ensure that the production of bars (the high value-added part of the production process) was carried out in Sweden. A new social division of labour was introduced. Henceforth, Bergsmän were restricted to the smelting of ore, while the refining of pig iron was entrusted to a new class of professional ironmasters. These, deploying greater capital resources and a more specialised workforce, were charged with improving the quality of output. The export of the finished bars was to be the province of international merchants based in Stockholm, Göteborg and a few other towns. The entire production process, from forest clearings to the Stockholm quayside, was policed by a special state agency, the Bergscollegium (Board of Mines), founded in 1649.13

  • 14 L. Müller, The Merchant Houses of Stockholm, c. 1640-1800. A Comparative Study of Early-Modern Entr (...)

11To a large extent this new policy was a success: the rise of export is a clear sign of this. Also when dealing with the new division of labour it is obvious that the new policy was a triumph. The trade gradually became more separated between the pig iron producers and the ironworks making bar iron. It was only in one region that this separation never took root, and that was in Uppland, among the ironworks owned by Dutch entrepreneurs. At these places, pig iron and bar iron making became functionally integrated within large iron making communities furnished with both blast furnaces and forges. At these works, the links to the merchants in Stockholm was also much closer. Louis De Geer, for instance, merchandised his own iron through his own organisation in the Swedish capital.14

  • 15 S.-E. Åström, From Cloth to Iron: the Anglo-Baltic Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century. Part 1: T (...)
  • 16 W.S. Unger, “Trade through the Sound in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” Economic History (...)
  • 17 Mitchell Library, Glasgow, SR 352, Adam Montgomerie to John Crosse Senior & Co, 27 April 1701.
  • 18 L. Müller, The Merchant Houses, op. cit., p. 84ff, and Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol (...)

12When Swedish iron first appeared on west European markets in the 1620s and 1630s, it was funnelled through Amsterdam, the headquarters of Louis De Geer and the other Dutch merchants. From the 1660s, however, the locus of the European iron market swung westwards, to England.15 In 1700, the British market took almost half of the iron exported from Stockholm, with less than a quarter going to the once dominant Dutch Republic.16 Even if the Dutch share of the Swedish iron export dwindled in the second half of the seventeenth century the De Geer family, and other Dutch descendents, remained in close contact with Amsterdam throughout the century, selling most of the iron made at Leufsta, Österby and Gimo in Amsterdam. In 1701, it was said that Öregrund iron was exported nowhere “save to Holland […] so yt it’s only to be had through Holl [and] factors,”17 and as late as the 1720s it was still shipped to the Dutch market by the Grill family, also of Dutch origin.18

Öregrund iron and Britain

  • 19 R. Plot, The natural history of Staffordshire, Oxford, 1686, quoted from T.S. Ashton, Iron & Steel (...)
  • 20 C. Sahlin, Svenskt stål före de stora götstålsprocessernas införande. Historiska anteckningar, Stoc (...)
  • 21 The National Archives: Public Record Office, ADM 106/2545, 17 March 1731
  • 22 The National Archives: Public Record Office, ADM 106 Navy Board Records, vol 3601.

13It is difficult to say for certain when Öregrund iron first ended up in Britain. The quotation from 1701 can be read as an indication that this iron was available at the British market, but that it was difficult to get hold of. Swedish iron was used in British cementation furnaces in the seventeenth century, when one John Heydon made steel at Bromley, but we do not know whether this was Öregrund iron or any other sorts.19 Some scholars have thought so, probably based on what was to come,20 but no other sources give any hints of any usage of iron from the Swedish Vallonbruk in Britain during the seventeenth century. After the turn of the century the situation changed, and Öregrund iron could be found in at least two sectors of the British economy; steel making and the making of naval wares. In the latter branch, it was made clear that when the Navy Board in the 1720s began to make their own wares, and thus consume iron, they preferred Öregrund iron. Annually they contracted for three types of Swedish iron ( “Orground Iron of the best Sort,” Öregrund of the “2d Sort,” and “Stockholm Iron”), together with smaller amounts of Spanish, and occasionally Russian, iron.21 In the 1740s and the 1750s, these volumes amounted to between 200 tons and 700 tons annually.22

  • 23 Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 106, Georg Swebilius to Jean Jacques De Geer, 9 Septe (...)

14Concerning steel making, we know more about the consumption of Öregrund iron. The Grill family dominated the distribution of iron from De Geer’s works. They shipped bars from Leufsta, Österby and Gimo to Amsterdam. However, they let some of it go directly to Britain, through intermediaries. Francis Jennings, the Belfast-born Stockholm merchant, was one such, who brought Öregrund iron to Britain in the first decades of the eighteenth century. Of the main Öregrund brands, Åkerby was the only one that seems to have been contracted directly towards the British market. It was in the hands of the Stockholm merchant Johan Adam Pettersson, and Sheffield steel maker Samuel Shore was his main customer.23

15The Swedish iron export, thus, gradually gravitated away from the Dutch economy during the second half of the seventeenth century towards the British economy, and London was replacing Amsterdam as the main recipient of Swedish bars. In this process, iron made at the ironworks around the Dannemora mine, owned by Dutch descendents, was laggard, and the bulk of Öregrund iron still made its way to the Holland capital in the early years of the eighteenth century. The Grill family, who dominated this trade, shipped Leufsta iron and other Walloon-made bars to Amsterdam as late as the 1720s. This does not mean that smaller volumes of Öregrund iron did not end up in Britain during this period, but when that happened it had passed the hands of a “Holland factor,” or was purchased on the Dutch market.

  • 24 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Graffin Prankard to Francis Jennings, 16 August 1732. Consumer choice, (...)

16The year 1730 was the real watershed in this development when Öregrund iron, on a broad front, was contracted directly from Britain. The Scottish-born Stockholm merchant Robert Campbell managed to leapfrog the Grill family in the queue to the premium iron bars from Uppland, those from Leufsta, Åkerby and Österby. Campbell was well connected, and behind him, in the thick of the British market, acted Henry Norris and Abraham Spooner. The former was one of London’s premier Baltic merchants, supplying the Navy Board with Öregrund iron, while the latter was the most powerful ironmonger in Birmingham and the West Midlands. At that time, it had become clear that steel making in Britain could not do without Öregrund iron and that large measures were undertaken in order to get access of it. The Bristol merchant Graffin Prankard wrote in 1732 to his Swedish correspondent Francis Jennings that “no other marks will answer here for steel,” while Georg Swebilius, the Leufsta manager, also testified to its superiority: “The Leufsta, Österby and Gimo brands are the best in the country Åkerby apart.”24

  • 25 As will become clear, we disagree with the interpretation advanced in P. W. King, “The cartel in Or (...)

17The magnitude of the urge for Öregrund iron that developed from the late 1720s is clearly visible in the fierce competitive situation that erupted. As Chris Evans shows in his article in this volume, British steel making was developing in three regions from the late seventeenth century, around Newcastle, Birmingham and Sheffield. In the first decades of the new century, it is likely that they were all supplied with iron from London, being as it was the main iron market in the kingdom. Soon, however, regional actors appeared on the market, with Bristol and Hull taking larger shares of Swedish iron. In the 1720s, Birmingham steel makers got their Öregrund iron via Bristol, while Sheffield was supplied from Hull. The Crowley works around Newcastle still depended upon supplies from London. In Bristol, Prankard, who got iron from Jennings and the Grills, dominated, while the Hull-Sheffield axis was ruled by Shore, with iron from Pettersson. The benefits of contracting directly with the works around Dannemora were obvious, and by the end of the 1720s Prankard and Shore had decided to do so. They aimed at engrossing the entire import of Åkerby and Leufsta bars to Britain, and in this process they hoped to extinguish an open market in London for these key steel making brands. Their initial thought was to reach an accord with the Grills in negotiating with Carl De Geer, the Leufsta ironmaster. The two Englishmen would take sufficient Leufsta and Åkerby bars to supply the entire British steel trade, bringing the whole quantity through Hull and Bristol. Grill would be left in sole command of the Dutch market, provided that he would agree not to release any iron onto the London market.25

  • 26 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Graffin Prankard to Francis Jennings, 16 August 1732.

18This scheme came to naught, as we have seen, as Robert Campbell got the lucrative contract with the De Geer’s. This was a setback, for despite the misgivings Prankard and Shore had entertained about Grill, they had at least enjoyed a settled relationship with the firm. The Grills had been orientated upon the Dutch market, allowing Prankard and Shore to control the English market. Campbell’s commercial affinities, linked as he was to Norris and Spooner, were different and potentially more threatening. Spooner was the bitter rival of John Kettle, the Birmingham steel maker who was Prankard’s main customer. If Spooner could aggrandise supplies of iron from Leufsta and Åkerby, he would not merely shut Prankard out of the market, he could permanently impair Kettle’s steel making business in Birmingham. For Prankard, it was a painful experience to watch Åkerby iron from Norris being landed at Bristol on its way to Spooner. He told Jennings that it was “very hard on me to See it Pass by me here & up into ye Markett & Sold by a Person that wont Sell it on any reasonable terms or really not at all to my best Chapp [i.e. Kettle].”26

  • 27 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore to Francis Bird, 15 August 1735. The east-west division c (...)

19After loosing out on the contracts for De Geer iron another couple of years, Prankard and Shore finally concluded a two-year contract with the De Geer’s early in 1734. In this process, they used their correspondents in Stockholm, the already mentioned Jennings and two other associates, Samuel Worster and Samuel Wordsworth. The combined output of Leufsta and Åkerby was secured in a contract where it was stipulated that: “Mr Prankard hath the Bristoll London Birmingham and Ireland marketts to himself,” while Shore had “the Hull & Newcastle Marketts as we may not prejudice each other.”27 Getting access to these brands was a startling success for the two Britons, but it also meant problems, as the two works made far in excess of what they had anticipated: “the Quantity […] Struck Yearly is near About 1470 Tons […] at least 270 Tons More than Wee realy had a Notion off.” The problem was not overwhelming, but it required careful management. The excess production could be directed partially into the provincial markets that Shore and Prankard had command of, and some of it could go to Holland or London.

Managing qualities

  • 28 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Graffin Prrankard to Francis Jennings, 13 October 1731.
  • 29 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore & Son to Worster, Wordsworth & Jennings, 15 August 1735.
  • 30 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore & Son to Worster, Wordsworth & Jennings, 7 August 1738. S (...)

20The developments on the market for steel iron in Britain during the 1730s points towards an eagerness for Öregrund iron: it was the only material suitable for steel making. The period does, however, also indicate that English steel makers were very special about the qualities they appreciated with Öregrund iron. The first property they wanted was an iron with “steel creating abilities,” what Le Play called a strong iron. This was most likely something that was coming from the iron ore at Dannemora. However, some works had access to better ore than other works, as the best quarries belonging to Österby, Leufsta and Åkerby. A further distinguishing feature within the iron made from Dannemora ore was workmanship. Prankard rated bars from Åkerby as the top quality, as they “have less raw Ends in it than Either [Leufsta] or bullets [i.e. Österby].”28 Using the Le Play vocabulary, it seems plausible that Prankard stated that bars from Åkerby were more sound, and probably also had more body, than other bars, with the slag inclusion more evenly distributed throughout the bars. This was achieved by skilled hammermen! Such an interpretation is further strengthened by the remarks Samuel Shore made a couple of years later, when he no longer was sure about the Åkerby quality. It was not up to “Its usual Goodness So that Instead of making it Sound good & Free from Flaws & Cracks it dont Prove So good in that respect.”29 The iron was not “realy Clean from ye drossy part […] which causes it to be so rotten… [that it is] not fit for Conversion into Steel.”30

  • 31 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore & Son to Worster, Wordsworth & Jennings, 15 August 1735.

21During the decade, other brands of Öregrund iron were discussed and tested. In 1734, Campbell, Norris and Spooner were ousted from its privileged position as the main supplier of the top Öregrund brands on the British market, by the efforts of Prankard and Shore. Norris and Campbell were, however, not willing to give in, and they tried another path to control English steel making. Campbell managed to get a contract for some of the “second” Öregrund brands; iron from Ullfors, Hillebola and Strömsberg, and Norris began to broadcast its excellence. He stated that it was of equal quality as that of Leufsta and Åkerby. Prankard moaned: “Norris has used all Possible means to represent it of equall goodness […] & Still Continues his Endeavours for So doing by Prevailing on Sundry Noted Steel Converters for make Assay & Tyralls of it.”31 The hierarchy within the Öregrund brands was thus turning on its head, and Prankard was really worried. A few years later, however, he was himself implying that Leufsta bars were worse than iron from Wattholma, a poor Öregrund iron.

22The market for Öregrund iron was from the 1720s in a state of transition. Walloon forged iron from Sweden expanded on the British market, used for naval wares and steel making. From the start, this iron was purchased on the Dutch market, but from 1730 or slightly earlier, men like Henry Norris, Graffin Prankard and Samuel Shore were contracting it directly from Britain. No other iron was seen suitable for making quality steel, but the period is also one in which the quality of Öregrund iron was being disputed and discussed. The quality of top brands like Leufsta and Åkerby was questioned and lesser brands were being elevated by some actors on the market.

23When all this happened in Britain, the situation in Sweden was hardly stable, and the conditions for making the Öregrund iron was also rapidly changing. Iron making in the county of Uppland, around the Dannemora mine, expanded during the first half of the seventeenth century under the rule of many Dutch entrepreneurs. The most important of them was Louis De Geer, who controlled Leufsta, Österby and Gimo, three of the most important works in the region. During the second half of the century, and the beginning of the next, did the pace of development slow down, and it is likely that iron making in Uppland was in decay. The situation turned from bad to worse at the end of the Great Northern War, when Russian troops raided along the Swedish coast, destroying many ironworks, including Leufsta.

24The De Geer family was deeply affected by this event, Leufsta was the largest ironworks in the country, but at the same time they were also the sole actor within the region powerful enough to initiate a restart for iron making in Uppland. Åkerby had been tied to the family domains already by 1699, but during the decades after the Russian raids a process was set off in which the family came to totally dominate the output of Öregrund iron. In the 1720s, they purchased Harg and founded Carlholm, and in the following decade they added Ullfors, Hillebola, Wessland, Strömsberg, Wellnora and Forsmark to the three works of Leufsta, Österby and Gimo they already possessed. At the end of the 1730s, they controlled about 80 percent of a total output of about 5,000 tons of Öregrund iron.

  • 32 Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 105, Louis De Geer to Eric Touscher 6 October 1735.

25This total remake of Uppland iron making during the 1720s and 1730s did not just involve a change of ownership to many of the region’s ironworks. It also meant a more efficient use of charcoal and water resources as well as a radical modernisation of workshops, furnaces and forges. The production of Öregrund iron both expanded and improved in quality. When Henry Norris began to market iron from Ullfors and Strömsberg as of equal quality as the more famous brands from Leufsta and Åkerby this was most likely not empty words. After these works had been taken over by the De Geer’s, the new works manager had worked restlessly to improve quality. After only a year he had succeeded in doing so, to the degree that Samuel Worster, the correspondent to Shore, was complaining. Louis De Geer, the head of the family, wrote to the Leufsta manager: “It is fun that Worster is complaining that the material from Strömsberg, Hille & c works is too good, in all cases as good as Leufsta, which he says should have precedence, and wishes us to make it slightly worse. I smiled at him.”32 De Geer did not smile for long. He soon found out that they were selling an improved iron from Ullfors and Strömsberg to Campbell and Norris and a deteriorating iron from Leufsta and Åkerby to Prankard and Shore, and that these two parties were competing with each other on the same market in England. Louis De Geer was thus competing with himself!

  • 33 Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 105, Louis De Geer to Eric Touscher, 28 October, 4, 1 (...)

26This could not go on, and De Geer had to do something about it. A year later, in 1736, he gave orders to Eric Touscher, the manager at Leufsta: bar iron made at Leufsta and Åkerby was to be made with the utmost care when it came to the “inner quality of the material.” The hammermen could, however, be less exact about the dimensions. With iron from Strömsberg and Ullfors, the opposite should govern the forgemen, their iron “must always be slightly worse in quality, and a difference shall exist in its price, as otherwise everything will end up in disrepute.” De Geer was thus instructing Touscher to make a worse iron at the new works, and to ask for a lower price. Otherwise all iron sold by the De Geer’s would face declining prices. Touscher was even getting instructions to restrain the manager at Strömsberg in his ambition to improve bar iron made at Strömsberg.33

27The situation at the market for Öregrund iron reached its culmination in 1738. At that time, the De Geer family had strengthened its grip of this precious material, controlling 80 percent of the output as well as all the top brands. In Britain, the Prankard-Shore partnership had fought of the threats from Campbell, Norris and Spooner. The Bristol and Sheffield men dominated the market for steel iron, but their victory had been gained at a cost. In 1738, they had the old contracts for bars from Leufsta and Åkerby along with a new contract on bars from the most recent of the De Geer’s acquisitions. At that point in time, the English steel industry was still in its infancy, and could not swallow the entire output of Öregrund iron, so Prankard and Shore had to find ways of selling the excess iron on other markets. Their aim was to limit the supply of Öregrund iron to the steel industry and thereby winning a monopoly profit.

28At this moment, they reiterated their argument of old that the iron from Leufsta and Åkerby was deteriorating in quality. Letters were sent from England with complaints that if quality was not improving, it would be impossible to sell these two brands to steel makers. Louis De Geer forwarded these letters to the Leufsta manager, together with “an austere and earnest letter” by his own hand where he demanded answers to questions about the quality of the bars made at the two works. This prospect was taken seriously at Leufsta, and a special meeting was convened by the manager Touscher in the works office in August 1738, with six senior workers and eight clerks. The aim was to consider the allegations made by the English contractors. Touscher started by reading out the letter from De Geer, along with the copied letters from England, requiring a full account of recent work in the forges. The assembled clerks and workers, Touscher went on, were to respond to the points made: to “answer in plain and confess.”

  • 34 For this and much else on events in the summer of 1738 see Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, (...)

29The forgemen were in no mood to confess to any failings on their part. They rejected the suggestion that their iron was of an inferior nature. They were more than willing for such iron as was left in the country to be closely examined, confident that the bars were superior to anything made at other works in the region. Touscher, himself, was certain that the quality of the iron had not suffered, and Louis De Geer also sympathised: “That Mr Directeur is very upset by the Englishmen’s complaints, I wonder not […] I have myself been so provoked that I have felt an urge to hang them.” Yet the forgemen themselves were aware that their product had been subject to criticism for some time, even though, in their eyes, its essential goodness remained unsullied. Complaints about Leufsta and Åkerby iron had first been heard when the former manager Georg Swebilius had made the contracts with Robert Campbell and the forgemen were not wrong in thinking that closer ties to the English market had brought a new, harsher tone to working life at Leufsta and Åkerby. Once, they lamented, the forge had been their own domain; they had governed the pace of work themselves. The criterion by which their work was judged was “the goodness of the iron.” Little attention was paid to “the fineness of the sorts”; that is, the exactness with which the bars were finished.34

Conclusion

30The aim of this article was to start a discussion about what I slightly ironically called “the best iron in the world”: Öregrund iron. This iron was made at a few ironworks in the county of Uppland, around the Dannemora mine. These works did develop from the first half of the seventeenth century with the influx of Dutch entrepreneurs, capital and skilled workers. The quality of the ore from Dannemora together with the Dutch influences created a very special feature within Swedish iron making; large integrated ironworks communities where Walloon descendents made a special bar iron. For long, this iron was sold on the Amsterdam market but from the early eighteenth century did the British market rise in importance, and soon an important link between these producers and the English steel making was forged. Öregrund iron was used in the Sheffield steel industry as late as the 1940s.

31When the French metallurgist Frédéric Le Play visited Sheffield in the 1830s and 1840s, he was very clear that this particular Swedish iron was an essential raw material in blister steel making. It could be stated that its reputation was founded upon the quality of iron from works using Dannemora ore and the Walloon forging method. It had, what Le Play called, “steel creating abilities”–it was strong. Le Play also noted that the steel workers in Yorkshire wanted an iron which they said should be sound and to have body. A century before Le Play came to Sheffield, the knowledge about Öregrund iron was not that large. It was during that period when iron bars from Uppland became integrated in English steel making. Views on quality were not fixed and the period was one when the preferences of Öregrund iron in general, or Leufsta and Åkerby bars in particularly, were tested, scrutinised, disputed and discussed. This “conversation” took place both in Sweden and Britain, and a general conclusion to all this might be that the quality, or rather assets of different qualities, of Öregrund iron took shape during this first period of using Öregrund iron in the English steel industry.

Notes

1 For an extended treatment of the argument in this article see C. Evans and G. Rydén, Baltic Iron in the Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century, Leiden, 2007. This article is thus based on the combined research by myself and Chris Evans.

2 For the purpose of this article I have used a Swedish translation. See F. Le Play, ’Om ståltillverkningen i Yorkshire, samt jemförelse mellan de förnämsta ståltillverkningsorterna i Europa, ’ Tidskrift för Svenska Bergshandteringen, häfte 1 och 2, 1845.

3 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 100.

4 W. Ekman, “Vallonjärnet–en kvalitetsprodukt med världsrykte,” in Forsmark och vallonjärnet, Forsmark, 1987, p. 120-149. See also the other articles in this volume, dealing as they are with the link between Öregrund iron and the Sheffield market.

5 For a discussion about the Walloons in Sweden see A. Florén, “Vallonen som metafor. Reflektioner kring arbete och etnicitet,” in Svenskt järn under 2500 år. Från gruvpigor och smedsdrängar till operatörer, Dædalus 1997. One of the few examples trying to understand the position of the Öregrund iron on the Sheffield market is W. Ekman, “Vallonjärnet.”

6 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 20.

7 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 25-33; W. Ekman, “Vallonjärnet,” op. cit.

8 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 21.

9 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 22.

10 F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen,” op. cit., p. 23f.

11 K.-G. Hildebrand, Fagerstabrukens historia, band I. Sexton- och sjuttonhundratalen, Uppsala, 1957, p. 35-59.

12 For a treatment of the relationships between the Swedish state and Dutch entrepreneurs see M.-B. Nergård, Mellan krona och marknad. Utländska och svenska entreprenörer inom svensk järnhantering från ca 1580 till 1700, Uppsala, 2001. See also G. Behre, L.-O. Larsson, and E. Österberg, Sveriges historia 1521-1809. Stormaktsdröm och småstadsrealitet, Stockholm, 2001, p. 190-194.

13 A. Florén and G. Rydén, Arbete, hushåll och region. Tankar om industrialiseringsprocesser och den svenska järnhanteringen, Uppsala, 1992.

14 L. Müller, The Merchant Houses of Stockholm, c. 1640-1800. A Comparative Study of Early-Modern Entrepreneurial Behaviour, Uppsala, 1998, p. 84ff.

15 S.-E. Åström, From Cloth to Iron: the Anglo-Baltic Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century. Part 1: The Growth, Structure and Organization of the Trade, Helsinki, 1963.

16 W.S. Unger, “Trade through the Sound in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,” Economic History Review, XII, 2, 1959, p. 217.

17 Mitchell Library, Glasgow, SR 352, Adam Montgomerie to John Crosse Senior & Co, 27 April 1701.

18 L. Müller, The Merchant Houses, op. cit., p. 84ff, and Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 106, Georg Swebilius to Jean Jacques De Geer, 5 April, 1731.

19 R. Plot, The natural history of Staffordshire, Oxford, 1686, quoted from T.S. Ashton, Iron & Steel in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester, 1924, p. 54.

20 C. Sahlin, Svenskt stål före de stora götstålsprocessernas införande. Historiska anteckningar, Stockholm, 1931, p. 133f.

21 The National Archives: Public Record Office, ADM 106/2545, 17 March 1731

22 The National Archives: Public Record Office, ADM 106 Navy Board Records, vol 3601.

23 Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 106, Georg Swebilius to Jean Jacques De Geer, 9 September 1730, and 13 August 1733.

24 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Graffin Prankard to Francis Jennings, 16 August 1732. Consumer choice, so Swedish observers reckoned, oscillated between a limited selection of brands: Leufsta, Österby, Åkerby and Strömsberg. K. C. Barraclough, Steel Making before Bessemer, vol. 1, Blister Steel and the Birth of an Industry, p. 184, 215, 218. Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 106, Georg Swebilius to Jean Jacques De Geer, 11 and 18 June, 1733.

25 As will become clear, we disagree with the interpretation advanced in P. W. King, “The cartel in Oregrounds iron: trading relationships in the raw material for steel,” Journal of Industrial History, VI, 1, 2003, p. 25-48, where it is claimed that Öregrund iron was from the beginning of the eighteenth century under the control of a cartel of Sheffield steel makers.

26 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Graffin Prankard to Francis Jennings, 16 August 1732.

27 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore to Francis Bird, 15 August 1735. The east-west division can be seen very clearly in the subsequent trading patterns of Francis Jennings and Samuel Worster. In 1737, Jennings exported 444 tons of Öregrund (of all sorts) to Britain: 343 tons went to Prankard, 7 tons to Ireland, and 94 tons to London. During the same season, 22 ships left Stockholm at Worster’s behest with Öregrund iron on board. Apart from individual ventures to Amsterdam, Newcastle upon Tyne, and an unnamed Scottish port, all of them sailed to Hull or London. Worster landed 851 tons of Öregrund in the capital and 525 tons at Hull. Manufakturkontorets arkiv, Peter Westmans utskeppningsböcker 1729-45, vol. 490, RA.

28 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Graffin Prrankard to Francis Jennings, 13 October 1731.

29 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore & Son to Worster, Wordsworth & Jennings, 15 August 1735.

30 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore & Son to Worster, Wordsworth & Jennings, 7 August 1738. See also Graffin Prankard to Francis Jennings, 13 December 1735.

31 Somerset Archive, DD/DN 425, Samuel Shore & Son to Worster, Wordsworth & Jennings, 15 August 1735.

32 Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 105, Louis De Geer to Eric Touscher 6 October 1735.

33 Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 105, Louis De Geer to Eric Touscher, 28 October, 4, 11 and 18 November, 1736.

34 For this and much else on events in the summer of 1738 see Riksarkivet, Stockholm, Leufsta arkivet, vol. 167, Eric Touscher to Anders von Drake, the governor of Stockholm, 19 August 1738: and vol. 105, Louis De Geer to Eric Touscher 17 August 1738.

Table des illustrations

Légende Fig. 1. Le Play’s price list of Swedish bar iron used in steel making in Sheffield, 1842
Crédits (Source: F. Le Play, “Om ståltillverkningen i Yorkshire, samt jemförelse mellan de förnämsta ståltillverkningsorterna i Europa,” Tidskrift för Svenska Bergshandteringen, häfte 1 och 2, 1845, p. 23)
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