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Large-Scale Iron and Steel Production in the Coromandel:The earliest and Longest Survived Porto Novo Iron Works (1830–1859)


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1 Charles Sturt University, PO Box 883, Orange, NSW 2800, Australia
 

Iron production was self-sufficient in 18th century India and the excess was exported. Iron smelting, usingmodern techniques, commenced with the efforts of Farquhar and Motte in Calcutta, who cooperated in establishingan iron foundry in Panchet in Bengal. But this effort of Farquhar and Motte was short lived. TheTata Iron and Steel Company Limited and Indian Iron and Steel Company Limited (IISCO) were launched in1907 and 1918 respectively. IISCO merged with the Steel Corporation of Bengal, established in 1939, andoperated under a different banner in the late 1940s–early 1950s. In the 1800s, many individual ironsmithsoperated in the Madras Presidency producing wrought iron, some of them using cone-shaped furnaces. Anassociation was formed in Madras with an objective of establishing a charcoal-fired iron works in 1830, becausethe iron ore that occurred naturally in much of the Madras Presidency was then detected. Consequently,one ex-Madras Civil Servant, Josiah Heath, ventured to establish a large-scale iron–steel works inParangipéttai (Porto Novo), 220 km south of Madras, naming it the Porto Novo Iron Works, which wentthrough turbulent phases during its performance. The remarkable aspect is that the Porto Novo Iron Workswas the singular large-scale iron and steel factory in the whole of India in the 1830s. Nothing matched with the Porto Novo Iron Works in size and production capacity, which also included state-of-the-art methods ofproduction of that time. The Porto Novo Iron Works serviced the needs of India and Britain for iron and steel for close to 30 years, although after 1849, it changed names to Indian Steel & Iron Company and East India Iron Company. In 1887, its prominent 150' (c. 50 m) tall chimney functioned as a beacon stand for theships faring along Porto Novo coast. The indiscriminate exploitation of wood for charcoal and other energyrequirements was one nasty practice the British Government encouraged to support Heath’s enterprise,which resulted in the loss of precious wood in the vast tracts of the Madras Presidency.
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  • 1 seer = 0.93 kg.

  • A report prepared by John Campbell published in the Public Consultations (16

  • August 1842, Madras Records Office, refers to multiple details of wrought-iron manufacture in India (southern India?), which I could not access. Campbell belonged to the Madras Army at the rank of Captain. He was the Assistant Surveyor General of Madras (1830s–1840s). He was a keen explorer of minerals and geology of India. A few articles by Campbell, such as on the formation of granite in Salem and Barramahal, solar radiation, the self-calculating sextant, and meteorology could be read in the Calcutta Journal of Natural History and Miscellany of Arts and Science in India (II, 1842).

  • Whether this association was a formal group or an informal gathering is not clear.

  • The 1–1.25 m long, sturdy iron rod, can be used to crack hardened soil and with some effort can even break rocks. This tool is variously referred as wrecking bar, pry bar, pinch bar, prise bar, jemmy bar, and pig foot.

  • My efforts to search more details of A.

  • Pierre de Closets were in vain. In his article in the Indian Engineering, de Closets does not explain why he was writing a story on Josiah Heath’s bid to manufacture iron and steel in Porto Novo, which would have finished at least 30 years before his article. The letters ‘C.E.’ after his name mean ‘Civil Engineering’. In part II of de Closet’s article (p. 383), I found a remark, which provided a link between him and the Heath story: de Closets trained under Robert Brunton, who was the Chief Engineer at Porto Novo Iron Works in the 1840s. During de Closet’s traineeship, he was directed to build puddling and reheating furnaces suitable for gas works.

  • An intricately decorated filigree casket is currently on display in the Addis Gallery of Islamic Art of the British Museum [BM] (http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/files/ 2013/05/BM-Casket-Final-PDF-19.08.14.pdf), which was taken away from Tippu Sultan’s palace, when the Sultan was killed by the British troops. This casket was handed to the BM by one Henry Fraser, to whom it was handed by Josiah

  • Heath. Heath seems to have acquired this casket through his wife Charlotte Catherine, whom he married in the Old Capper House, located towards the southern end of the Marina of Madras (presently it is a part of the Queen Mary’s College for Women).

  • Carburet of manganese is a heavy black powdery compound – pyrolusite (MnO2) and carbon – used extensively as a powerful oxidizer. Also used extensively also as a decolorizer in glass-making industry to remove the green shade of impure glass.

  • The location of the Salem Steel Plant of the Steel Authority of India in Salem is mainly because this region is rich in ferruginous and manganiferous sediments embedded in granulite terrains (https: //www.sail.co.in/special-steel-plants/salemsteel-plant).

  • Férangi means ‘foreign’ (ischolar_main: Arabic, Persian), here referring to the Portuguese; péttã refers to a residential locality (ischolar_main: Télugu). The capital city of Benin (West Africa) is also known as Porto Novo (629N, 236E).

  • A helve today would mean the handle of a weapon or a tool. In high possibility, helve meant a kind of a large hammer (sledge hammer?) used in iron-smithies in the 1880s.

  • The chimney existed in 1887, although the rest of the components of Heath’s factory were demolished. The 150 tall chimney was used as a beacon (and a landmark) for ships in 1887 (ref. 10).

  • From Cotton20, we get to know that at least the following four from UK worked at the Porto Novo Iron Company in differing capacities: John Milward

  • (smelter), Robert Wood (plate roller), John Jones (puddler), and William Brazier (shingler), who had died in 1836 and interred in Porto Novo.

  • An intermediate type between a blast furnace and a forge.

  • Robert Brunton trained at the Chain & Young Foundry, Claude Girdwood & Co.

  • in Glasgow, where he ‘informally’ graduated as an engineer. For sometime Robert assisted his brother William, who was a reputed engineer in Britain. Subsequently he joined Isaac Dodds, Horsley Iron Works, Staffordshire. Based on this experience he was appointed as the Engineer in Heath’s Porto Novo Iron

  • Company factory. Robert’s reports on the manufacture of iron and steel in India are invaluable. His failing health forced him to return to England, but his connexion with the East India Iron Company continued at intervals until his death in 1852.

  • The Brittania Bridge (Pont Brittania) was built across the Menai Strait connecting Anglesey and mainland Wales in 1850. George Stephenson (not Stevenson) (1781–1848) was a renowned engineer and inventor.

  • The Naval Hospital in Madras ceased to function in 1831 and the building was turned into a gun-carriage factory22.

  • The construction and working of a railway connecting Madras to the West Coast terminating at Beypore was completed in 1861.

  • John Smith (1839) indicates to the steam engine trialled in Porto Novo Iron Works as ‘Avery Steam Engine’. It was ‘Foster– Avery Steam Engine’ patented jointly by Ambrose Foster and William Avery of New York State in 1836 via an application lodged to the American Government in 1831.


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  • Large-Scale Iron and Steel Production in the Coromandel:The earliest and Longest Survived Porto Novo Iron Works (1830–1859)

Abstract Views: 228  |  PDF Views: 74

Authors

Anantanarayanan Raman
Charles Sturt University, PO Box 883, Orange, NSW 2800, Australia

Abstract


Iron production was self-sufficient in 18th century India and the excess was exported. Iron smelting, usingmodern techniques, commenced with the efforts of Farquhar and Motte in Calcutta, who cooperated in establishingan iron foundry in Panchet in Bengal. But this effort of Farquhar and Motte was short lived. TheTata Iron and Steel Company Limited and Indian Iron and Steel Company Limited (IISCO) were launched in1907 and 1918 respectively. IISCO merged with the Steel Corporation of Bengal, established in 1939, andoperated under a different banner in the late 1940s–early 1950s. In the 1800s, many individual ironsmithsoperated in the Madras Presidency producing wrought iron, some of them using cone-shaped furnaces. Anassociation was formed in Madras with an objective of establishing a charcoal-fired iron works in 1830, becausethe iron ore that occurred naturally in much of the Madras Presidency was then detected. Consequently,one ex-Madras Civil Servant, Josiah Heath, ventured to establish a large-scale iron–steel works inParangipéttai (Porto Novo), 220 km south of Madras, naming it the Porto Novo Iron Works, which wentthrough turbulent phases during its performance. The remarkable aspect is that the Porto Novo Iron Workswas the singular large-scale iron and steel factory in the whole of India in the 1830s. Nothing matched with the Porto Novo Iron Works in size and production capacity, which also included state-of-the-art methods ofproduction of that time. The Porto Novo Iron Works serviced the needs of India and Britain for iron and steel for close to 30 years, although after 1849, it changed names to Indian Steel & Iron Company and East India Iron Company. In 1887, its prominent 150' (c. 50 m) tall chimney functioned as a beacon stand for theships faring along Porto Novo coast. The indiscriminate exploitation of wood for charcoal and other energyrequirements was one nasty practice the British Government encouraged to support Heath’s enterprise,which resulted in the loss of precious wood in the vast tracts of the Madras Presidency.

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv113%2Fi05%2F984-989