Jamaica's stolen iron innovation

Rewriting history - 7th August 2023

New historical research reveals Jamaican metallurgists were the inventors of an ironworking technique. This led to Great Britain becoming a major exporter of iron and an economic superpower by the end of the 18th century.

The technique replaced the time and labour intensive process of hammering out the impurities of low quality iron by using the grooved rollers that separated the juice from the husk of the sugar cane. The foundry was able to efficiently crush scrap metal for reuse.

Dr Jenny Bulstrode who studies the history of technology stated, "It’s like a mechanical alchemy" - turning trash into treasure.

Many of the ironworkers in the Jamaican foundry were enslaved having been trafficked from Central and West Africa, which had thriving ironworking industries. However, having patented the technique in the 1780s, Henry Cort was wrongly credited for coming up with the process.

Cort came across the technique while visiting John Reeder’s foundry in Jamaica. Months after Cort’s visit, Jamaica was placed under military law and the ironworks was destroyed under the pretence that it could produce equipment to assist in rebellion against colonial rule. Meanwhile, facing bankruptcy and the failure of his own foundry, Cort remembered what he’d seen in Reeder’s foundry. He managed to acquire and transport the machinery to Portsmouth in England.

Such was his success that upon his death he was lauded by The Times newspaper as the "father of the iron trade".

The true fathers of the iron trade, however, are the 76 metallurgists working at Reeder’s foundry. Only some of their names are known: Devonshire, Mingo, Friday and Kwasi.

Dr Bulstrode notes the significance of challenging the history of innovation which springs to mind the likes of "Elon Musk or some old white guy in a lab coat… They don’t think of black people, enslaved, in Jamaica in the 18th century."