The Scottish Iron and Steel Industry

Guthrie Hutton  Stenlake 2021

softback  £11.95

It all began in the Iron Age of course, but the Industrial Revolution started with a vengeance in Scotland with the first blast from the great Carron Iron Works in 1760. By the 1830s iron works had proliferated across the Monklands and the ‘garden of Scotland’ had been turned into a hell on earth. Wealthy iron masters eventually found themselves overtaken by the steel industry in the 1870s which worked flat out through two world wars but in the 1950s had to restructure and face the new political and economic reality. The great Ravenscraig works opened in 1957 but had to close in 1992. Some steel working continued into the current century at Clydebridge and Dalzell, but competition in a globalised world. This rise and fall over 250 years is told in this illustrated history by Scottish canals, mining and heavy industry expert Guthrie Hutton by means of long and informative captions to accompany the period photographs.