The Innovations of the coke blast furnace, of puddling and rolling
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Gap between demand for iron and indigenous supply met by imports from Sweden – around 1750 65% OF British bar iron supply imported – with import duties incentive to increase domestic supply – could not be done with expensive charcoal – needed new method.

Transition took whole of 18^th century – initially difficult for high cost, low quality coal pig iron to compete against charcoal iron – BUT location iron ore near to coal supplies important advantage over continental competitors.

Abraham Darby first to successfully operate blast furnaces using coke – from 1709 onwards – before 1750 Darbys only ironmasters to apply this technique – until 1750 still cheaper to produce wrought iron charcoal – Darbys used inferior pig iron for thin casting products – expansion and diffusion of coke pig iron after 1750 mainly due too the increasing use of the product for castings

Puddling in combination with rolling prevailed in the production of wrought or bar uron from coke pig iron (The British Model) – import duties rose and mineral fuel iron substituted for imported iron BEGINNING 19^TH CENTURY BRITAIN WAS A NET EXPORTER OF IRON PRODUCTS – FORMERLY BEEN AN IMPORTER – SWEDISH AND RUSSIAN BAR IRON STILL MET DEMAND FOR HIGH QUALITY USERS – CUTLERY

British iron industry 100 yrs. Transform small high cost producer in early 18^th century to leading supplier of iron products for world market – long process of innovation, diffusion and improvement – Britain got over the wood brake – Wrigley: limits to growth of the advanced organic economy could only be overcome by the mineral-based energy economy.

Case of iron seen as an example of leapfrogging – rather slow transfer of modern iron techniques to continental Europe example of this – Broadberry explains productivity gap between US and UK in this way

Continental Transfer Patterns

Landes: new techniques superior technically and economically – ought to have spread over continental Europe rapidly – so charcoal iron industry should have disappeared fast and new iron work clustered around coal fields – Landes is wrong and blames continental entrepreneurs for not adopting seemingly superior technology more quickly

Continent: traditional or partly modernised procedures could endure very well within their innate districts and old markets – new techniques did not strictly follow British model – GB as cheapest supplier created conditions to which continental markets reacted in different ways.

Other Notes in this Category

1. Adaptations of the Traditional Sector
2. Conclusions
3. Definitions and Historiography
4. Direct Transfer
5. Economic Growth in france and britain, 1830-1910 –a review of the evidence
6. Grantham: survey of cliometric contributions to french economic history
7. Growth Rates, Data and Methods
8. Indirect, Embodied Transfer
9. Kindelberger’s review of keyder and o’brien
10. Pioneer industrialiser
11. Post 1750 Growth Coke-Smelting Sector
12. Richard roehl – french industrialisation: a reconstruction
13. Structural Change
14. Technological Transfer: failure, partial adaptations, success
15. The Innovations of the coke blast furnace, of puddling and rolling
16. The modern technology breakthrough ‘right down the line’
17. Tom Kemp – industrialization in nineteenth century europe

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