Author Description

This is an account of the 140-year history of one of Britain's most distinguished iron and steel companies. The great industrial expansion of the early Victorian decades passed into the uncertainty of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, then into the chronic interwar depression, and finally into the problems of slow growth and a de-industrializing Britain. Consett Iron Co. was involved in all of these stages of national and economic development. The history of the company, spanning a vital period, makes this an excellent test case for theories of Britain's industrial decline.