ABSTRACT
Consett Iron Company was founded in 1864 by acquisition of the site and works of the Derwent Iron Company which had been in operation since 1840 (though from July 1858 as the Derwent and Consett Iron Company). The Derwent Iron Co. had been famous only for its size (with 18 blast furnaces the largest ironworks in England) and for its inability to make a profit. It had survived with the aid of lavish credit from the Northumberland and Durham District Bank. By the time of its collapse in the 1857 financial crisis, the bank had advanced £966,831 on the strength of £250,000 of promissory notes from the company’s directors and a £100,000 mortgage on the plant (the bank’s managing director, Jonathan Richardson, was himself a partner in the company). 2 The firm naturally went bankrupt along with the bank, and the works were in danger of being broken up. This fate was avoided by the intervention of the bank’s creditors and shareholders of the North Eastern Railway Co. (with annual freight receipts from the firm of £250,000 the railway had a strong interest in its continued existence), and although the company of 1858 failed to complete the purchase the new company was firmly established in April 1864.
