Australia's Age of Iron started in the 1840s when the first attempts were made to reduce Australia's dependence on Britain for imported iron. Australian iron ore was abundant and of good quality, but Australia still had difficulties in competing with cheaper imports. Ian Jack and Aedeen Cremin analyze Australia's efforts to smelt iron efficiently and examine in detail the physical remains of those pioneering ventures. Based on a decade of archival research and field work, the study brings together little-known source material and places it in broad historical context.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
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Metal Pioneers,
By Kathy De La Rue (GRAY, Northern Territory Australia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Australia's Age of Iron: History and Archaelogy (Paperback)
"Australia's Age of Iron" is unique in drawing together the historical and archaeological information on the early development of iron smelting in Australia. Due to Australia's comparatively recent European settlement (since 1788) industrial archaeology has a short perspective and has been largely neglected until recently. This book provides the basic information on the earlist attempts at establishing an iron industry and a review of the archaeological investigations. Jack and Cremin give a short introduction to the iron extraction traditions which contributed to the Australian scene, and then trace the history of the history of the various 19th century attempts to establish iron smelting and manufacturing operations. They also provide accounts of the archaeological situation of each of the sites. They document how the the economic survival of the local iron operations, particularly smelting, was dependent upon government support due to the difficulty of the 'infant ' industry becoming competitive with the cheap imports from long established European and North American manufacturers. The book is well illustrated with maps, period photographs of the pioneer iron works and modern black & white photographs of the sites. While the it is comparatively short at xiv + 175 pages it is comprehensively referenced and indexed. It covers a great deal of material and fills a major gap in Australian industrial archaeology. It is expensive, but worth the money, as there is nothing else available in this area.
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