ABSTRACT
The preceding accounts of the establishment and early history of the ironworks, given in Part I, Chapter V, have already indicated the problems facing the pioneering ironmasters in providing capital for their blast furnaces and forges. Before discussing this provision of capital, however, we should comment upon another important factor which often enabled ironmasters with very little capital to make a venture of a concern. This was the mineral lease, which, as John has pointed out, was ‘the basis of industrial activity … the concession upon which nearly all industrial concerns of any size were founded’. 1 It is impossible to decide now how far the expansion of the industry was brought about by the initiative of landlords in offering land for exploitation and to what extent the landowners were persuaded by prospecting individuals, or other groups with capital to invest, to lease their land for industrial purposes. In some cases, as at Haigh, for instance, the landowner was forced by economic circumstances to develop his estates by actively taking part in an industrial enterprise.
