The origin of Henry Cort’s iron-rolling process: assessing the evidence

This paper examines the available evidence relating to the disputed origin of Henry Cort’s iron-rolling process. The principal primary sources, reproduced in the Appendix, do not support the contention that Cort acquired the process from enslaved metalworkers at John Reeder’s foundry in Jamaica; nor that the foundry was dismantled and shipped to Portsmouth for Cort’s benefit. The sources instead suggest that ordinary and widespread ironmaking processes were in use at Reeder’s foundry; that no innovation occurred there; that the chain of events by which Cort is supposed to have heard of the foundry’s activities certainly did not occur; that Reeder’s foundry was destroyed because of the threat of a Franco-Spanish invasion force; and that no part of the foundry was removed from the immediate vicinity of the island, let alone taken to Portsmouth.