The Steel Story（5）

As the Industrial Revolution progressed, so did demand for iron and steel. These metals were critical to trade and transport. There would be no railways without metal. And shipbuilders too, were demanding ever-higher quality metal components. As a supplier to the shipbuilding industry, Henry Cort developed two ground-breaking techniques to meet these needs, patented in 1783 and 1784.

With this combination, Cort set the scene for mass production of vital components for the new industrial world such as tracks for railways. It paved the way for industrial-scale rolling mills and the creation of sheet iron and steel for new applications, such as the building of iron ships.

By the 1800s, large-scale industrialisation was spreading throughout Europe. Pioneers took the latest techniques and technologies with them overseas, bringing industrialisation to North America, Japan, and the rest of the world.

Above all, steel played a key role in opening up the prairies of the Midwest. Wrought iron ploughs simply broke in the heavy soils, so a quick-thinking young blacksmith called John Deere created a plough with a steel blade. In the next 50 years, the steel plough and steam-driven equipment transformed agriculture, not just in the US but in Europe as well. Mechanisation had arrived on the land.