British saw blades: the revolutionary transition from iron to steel in the 18th century
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Published
Jul 13, 2024
Abstract
Saws for woodwork are a very ancient tool form, and the materials of their blades have been very little studied. This paper shows that although melted steels were known in London from about 1721, the introduction of Huntsman’s crucible cast steel in Sheffield in the mid 18th century was a major factor in effecting a rapid and permanent change of saw-blade material from iron to steel. Using original business documents it is shown that Sheffield saw makers were closely tied to the new steel industry, the growth of which depended on the increasing number of firms. Many of them supervised the making of their own steel, thus enabling quality control. It seems likely that the early combination of these industries was a powerful factor in establishing Sheffield’s long dominance of both.
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References
Ken Hawley Collection Trust (Sheffield): Sanderson Brothers & Newbould, Catalogue of steels c1900.
Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, Colonial Series (8) ref:392. https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=GEWN-print&mode=TOC
SA: Sheffield Archives
Fairbank: Notebooks FB16, 156-7 and FB17, 58-9. Boulsover, Thomas: permission from Duke of Norfolk for ‘a new work on the water at Whiteley Woods’ 1761.
Marsh 26: microfilm 130, Marsh Brothers correspondence 1839-1840.
WC1552: Kenyon & Co indenture 1757.
WC 1554: Jones and others indenture 1763.
Sheffield City Library: Local pamphlet vol 115, no 9: Kenyon & Co 1910.
Stockholm Royal Library: Schröder diaries, Dagbok rörande Handel, Näringar och Manufakturer m.m. Uti Danmark, Holland, England, Frankrike och Tyksland. Under verkstälde resor, Åren 1748-51 förd af Samuel Schröder. Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, 10: 303, vol 2.
Wilson & Co, Sharrow Mills Sheffield: ms ledgers numbered by the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts.
Ashton, T S 1939, An eighteenth century industrialist: Peter Stubs of Warrington 1756-1806 (Manchester).
Barley S L 2008, Hand tool manufacture during the Industrial Revolution: saw making in Sheffield c1750-c1830 (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield).
Barley S L 2014, British saws and saw makers from c1660 (Gloucester).
Barley S L 2015, ‘White saws – probably the best in the world’, Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association 68, 93–110.
Barraclough K 1984, Steel before Bessemer vol 2: Crucible steel, the growth of technology (London).
Belford P 2004, ‘Extra Special Best Best: Black country iron puddling and wrought iron manufacture in the nineteenth century’, Historical Metallurgy 38, 47–59.
Borg T and Borg P (trans) 2001, R R Angerstein’s illustrated travel diary 1753-1755 (London).
Custer K M 2004, Wrought iron hand tools from the underwater archaeological excavations of colonial Port Royal Jamaica c1692 (unpublished MA thesis, Texas A&M University). https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2004-THESIS-C86
Dietz B 1972, The port and trade of early Elizabethan London: Documents (London: London Record Society Publications 8).
Dilworth D 1976, The Tame Mills of Staffordshire (London and Chichester).
Dow G F 1988, Everyday life in the Massachusetts Bay colony, Reprint of 1935 edn (Toronto and London).
Evans C and Withey A 2012, ‘An enlightenment in steel? Innovation in the steel trades of eighteenth-century Britain’, Technology and Culture 53, 533–560. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2012.0116
Evans C 2012, ‘The Plantation Hoe: The rise and fall of an Atlantic commodity, 1650-1850’, William and Mary Quarterly 3rd series, 69, 581–610. https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.69.1.0071
Flinn M W 1961, Men of Iron (Edinburgh).
Gilliam J K 1997, ‘ “He wants a Sett of Tools”: the acquisition and ownership of tools in Virginia’, in J M Gaynor (ed), Eighteenth-century woodworking tools: papers presented at a tool symposium May 19-22 1994 (Williamsburg, VA).
Goodman W L 1964, The History of woodworking tools (London).
Harris, J R 1985, ‘First thoughts on files’, Tools and Trades 3, 27–35.
Horne H 1773, Essays concerning iron and steel (London).
Iles A 1993, Memories of a Sheffield tool maker (Mendham, NJ).
Ingraham E 2014, ‘The English handsaw before the Industrial Revolution’, Tools and Trades 16, 55–90.
Jackson G 1971, Hull in the 18th century: a study in economic and social history (Oxford).
Jars G 1774, Voyages metallurgiques Vol 1 (Lyon).
Jones P d’A and Simons E N 1961, Story of the saw (Manchester).
King P W 2007, ‘The north Worcestershire scythe industry’, Historical Metallurgy 41(2), 124–147.
Lloyd G I H 1913 (reissued 1966), The cutlery trades: an historical essay in the economics of small-scale production (London).
Mackenzie R J and Whiteman J A 2006, ‘Why pay more? An archaeometallurgical investigation of 19th-century Swedish wrought iron and Sheffield blister steel’, Historical Metallurgy 40(2), 138–149.
Mercer H C 2000, Ancient carpenters’ tools (New York).
Montgomery C F (ed) 1970, Joseph Moxon’s [1703] Mechanick exercises, or the doctrine of handy-works (Scarsdale, NY).
Pollard S 1959, A history of labour in Sheffield (Liverpool).
Rees J and M 1997, Christopher Gabriel and the tool trade in eighteenth century London (Needham Market).
Riden P 1985, George Sitwell’s letterbook 1662-66 (Chesterfield: Derbyshire Record Society 10).
Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts 1994, Guides to sources for British history based on the National Register of Archives. 9: Records of British business and industry 1760-1914: metal processing and engineering (London).
Tweedale G 1987, Sheffield Steel and America: a century of commercial and technological interdependence 1830-1939 (Cambridge)
Tweedale G 1995, Steel City: entrepreneurship, strategy, and technology in Sheffield 1743-1993 (Oxford). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198288664.001.0001
Tweedale G 2018, Directory of Sheffield tool manufacturers 1740-2018 (Morrisville, NC).
Tylecote R F and Gilmour B J J 1986, The metallography of early ferrous edge tools and edged weapons (Oxford: BAR BS155). https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860544012
Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, Colonial Series (8) ref:392. https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/default.xqy?keys=GEWN-print&mode=TOC
SA: Sheffield Archives
Fairbank: Notebooks FB16, 156-7 and FB17, 58-9. Boulsover, Thomas: permission from Duke of Norfolk for ‘a new work on the water at Whiteley Woods’ 1761.
Marsh 26: microfilm 130, Marsh Brothers correspondence 1839-1840.
WC1552: Kenyon & Co indenture 1757.
WC 1554: Jones and others indenture 1763.
Sheffield City Library: Local pamphlet vol 115, no 9: Kenyon & Co 1910.
Stockholm Royal Library: Schröder diaries, Dagbok rörande Handel, Näringar och Manufakturer m.m. Uti Danmark, Holland, England, Frankrike och Tyksland. Under verkstälde resor, Åren 1748-51 förd af Samuel Schröder. Kungliga Biblioteket, Stockholm, 10: 303, vol 2.
Wilson & Co, Sharrow Mills Sheffield: ms ledgers numbered by the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts.
Ashton, T S 1939, An eighteenth century industrialist: Peter Stubs of Warrington 1756-1806 (Manchester).
Barley S L 2008, Hand tool manufacture during the Industrial Revolution: saw making in Sheffield c1750-c1830 (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Sheffield).
Barley S L 2014, British saws and saw makers from c1660 (Gloucester).
Barley S L 2015, ‘White saws – probably the best in the world’, Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association 68, 93–110.
Barraclough K 1984, Steel before Bessemer vol 2: Crucible steel, the growth of technology (London).
Belford P 2004, ‘Extra Special Best Best: Black country iron puddling and wrought iron manufacture in the nineteenth century’, Historical Metallurgy 38, 47–59.
Borg T and Borg P (trans) 2001, R R Angerstein’s illustrated travel diary 1753-1755 (London).
Custer K M 2004, Wrought iron hand tools from the underwater archaeological excavations of colonial Port Royal Jamaica c1692 (unpublished MA thesis, Texas A&M University). https://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2004-THESIS-C86
Dietz B 1972, The port and trade of early Elizabethan London: Documents (London: London Record Society Publications 8).
Dilworth D 1976, The Tame Mills of Staffordshire (London and Chichester).
Dow G F 1988, Everyday life in the Massachusetts Bay colony, Reprint of 1935 edn (Toronto and London).
Evans C and Withey A 2012, ‘An enlightenment in steel? Innovation in the steel trades of eighteenth-century Britain’, Technology and Culture 53, 533–560. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2012.0116
Evans C 2012, ‘The Plantation Hoe: The rise and fall of an Atlantic commodity, 1650-1850’, William and Mary Quarterly 3rd series, 69, 581–610. https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.69.1.0071
Flinn M W 1961, Men of Iron (Edinburgh).
Gilliam J K 1997, ‘ “He wants a Sett of Tools”: the acquisition and ownership of tools in Virginia’, in J M Gaynor (ed), Eighteenth-century woodworking tools: papers presented at a tool symposium May 19-22 1994 (Williamsburg, VA).
Goodman W L 1964, The History of woodworking tools (London).
Harris, J R 1985, ‘First thoughts on files’, Tools and Trades 3, 27–35.
Horne H 1773, Essays concerning iron and steel (London).
Iles A 1993, Memories of a Sheffield tool maker (Mendham, NJ).
Ingraham E 2014, ‘The English handsaw before the Industrial Revolution’, Tools and Trades 16, 55–90.
Jackson G 1971, Hull in the 18th century: a study in economic and social history (Oxford).
Jars G 1774, Voyages metallurgiques Vol 1 (Lyon).
Jones P d’A and Simons E N 1961, Story of the saw (Manchester).
King P W 2007, ‘The north Worcestershire scythe industry’, Historical Metallurgy 41(2), 124–147.
Lloyd G I H 1913 (reissued 1966), The cutlery trades: an historical essay in the economics of small-scale production (London).
Mackenzie R J and Whiteman J A 2006, ‘Why pay more? An archaeometallurgical investigation of 19th-century Swedish wrought iron and Sheffield blister steel’, Historical Metallurgy 40(2), 138–149.
Mercer H C 2000, Ancient carpenters’ tools (New York).
Montgomery C F (ed) 1970, Joseph Moxon’s [1703] Mechanick exercises, or the doctrine of handy-works (Scarsdale, NY).
Pollard S 1959, A history of labour in Sheffield (Liverpool).
Rees J and M 1997, Christopher Gabriel and the tool trade in eighteenth century London (Needham Market).
Riden P 1985, George Sitwell’s letterbook 1662-66 (Chesterfield: Derbyshire Record Society 10).
Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts 1994, Guides to sources for British history based on the National Register of Archives. 9: Records of British business and industry 1760-1914: metal processing and engineering (London).
Tweedale G 1987, Sheffield Steel and America: a century of commercial and technological interdependence 1830-1939 (Cambridge)
Tweedale G 1995, Steel City: entrepreneurship, strategy, and technology in Sheffield 1743-1993 (Oxford). https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198288664.001.0001
Tweedale G 2018, Directory of Sheffield tool manufacturers 1740-2018 (Morrisville, NC).
Tylecote R F and Gilmour B J J 1986, The metallography of early ferrous edge tools and edged weapons (Oxford: BAR BS155). https://doi.org/10.30861/9780860544012
How to Cite
British saw blades: the revolutionary transition from iron to steel in the 18th century. (2024). Historical Metallurgy, 54(2), 65-76. https://doi.org/10.54841/hm.663
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How to Cite
British saw blades: the revolutionary transition from iron to steel in the 18th century. (2024). Historical Metallurgy, 54(2), 65-76. https://doi.org/10.54841/hm.663