Abstract
Iron production in Russia in the eighteenth century centred on the Urals, but in time was encouraged by export markets to move to the north-west. A slump in the engineering and export markets encouraged its use in the home decorative architectural fields, particularly around the luxurious buildings of St Petersburg. The paper excludes consideration of bridges, but iron was also used for practical purposes such as in roofing plates and furniture, as well as replacing wood for support and constraint of building walls, floors and roofs, although the plentiful supply of wood from local forests encouraged its continued use in iron smelting and in building. Some local expertise had been lost with the slump and many iron-working experts from Britain feature in this account, some staying in Russia for long periods.
Abbreviations
HET | = | The International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology (formerly Transactions of the Newcomen Society) |
ICE | = | Institution of Civil Engineers |
TNS | = | Transactions of the Newcomen Society |
Abbreviations
HET | = | The International Journal for the History of Engineering and Technology (formerly Transactions of the Newcomen Society) |
ICE | = | Institution of Civil Engineers |
TNS | = | Transactions of the Newcomen Society |
Additional information
Notes on contributors
J G James
The late John G. James spent his career at the Road Research Laboratory, writing research papers on bituminous materials, the transport of solids in hydraulic pipelines and transport for the disabled and being awarded the Imperial Service Order. He also wrote four major Newcomen papers and was invited to give the Dickinson Memorial Lecture in 1988 which he duly prepared before his death — it was read by our present senior member, John Boyes. In all his historical studies he concentrated on original sources, each critically assessed against parallel evidence. His net was world-wide, extending to more than one visit to Russia and mastering enough of the language to follow his researches there. The extent of information which he collected in the form of books, papers, patents, slides and drawings was only matched by the acuteness of his analysis of information and his open-handedness in passing it on to others. His card index (this was pre-personal computers) had almost become a legend. It is no wonder that professors from Russia, America and elsewhere were anxious to visit him as fellow enthusiasts for engineering history in Britain.