The Ironmasters' Associations in the Early Nineteenth Century

Integration of plant and finances among firms in the iron industry was paralleled with combinations among the ironmasters themselves. This procedure had its origins going back to the mid-seventeenth century, as when George Sitwell, the Derbyshire ironmaster, made an arrangement with two competitors to fix the selling price of bar iron. ¹ Indeed, subsequent research has shown that local combinations of merchants fixing selling prices, and prices of raw materials, were being organised, ² and that Ashton’s statement that ‘so long as charcoal remained the only fuel used in the making of iron, works were necessarily widely dispersed, combination was difficult …’ requires modification.