ABSTRACT
'A Welsh tinplate mill', declared a writer in 1915, 'seems as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. Various modifications of the individual processes took place; the manufacture of tinplate underwent no major technical change from that time until the development of the strip-mill method of manufacture in the USA in the nineteen-twenties. The tinplate industry was not technically reorganized during the classical period of the Industrial Revolution but at a much later date. From about 1870, the British tinplate industry was highly localized in south Wales, most of the works being within fifteen miles of Swansea. Besides the shopkeepers and local tradesmen, tinplate makers were recruited from the suppliers of raw materials such as coal, tin, and sulphuric acid and from the manufacturers of tinplate equipment. In the later nineteenth century, the tinplate area of south Wales was comparatively isolated and self-contained.
