ABSTRACT

The modern English steel industry may be said to have had its beginnings in the early seventeenth century when the cementation process of converting bar iron into steel was perfected in this country. 2 Until the sixteenth century, England had been an importer and user of steel, indeed, from as early a period as that of the Celts of Anglesey, 150 b.c. to a.d. 50, 3 but, apparently, there was no native production of steel until 1523. 4 In that year, according to Wolf, 5 a steel furnace was built in this country. Dr. Schubert has described the efforts of forty years later, of Sir Henry Sidney to establish steel forges at Robertsbridge and Boxhurst in 1565. 6 However, this enterprise founded with the help of foreign migrant labour, which was at first successful, was undercut by the import of cheaper steel from the Swedish Baltic ports, and the works appear to have come to an end in the 1570s.