Langley Lead Smelting Mills and James Mulcaster's description of 1806

Abstract

An outline history of the Langley and Blagill lead smelt mills at Langley, Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, both constructed by the Commissioners for the Greenwich Hospital, provides the context for plans of both mills dated to 1805, and for an 1806 'Description of the works at Langley Mill' written by a James Mulcaster, here published for the first time. This 'Description' complements a 1795 account of lead ore smelting in the North Pennine Orefield, also by a James Mulcaster, which was transcribed and published in 1971. The history and the 'Description' illustrate technical, economic, and to some extent social changes in the industry on the orefield which was always the most important in Britain, from the 1760s to its late nineteenth-century decline. The Greenwich Hospital's withdrawal from direct involvement in smelting in the 1830s, coupled with the considerable changes in its local administration, show the effect of a 'wind of change' blowing through the industry in the difficult thirties.