page_title: Fitzroy Iron Works
section_title: The first blast furnace (1864–1866)
hierarchical_section_title: Fitzroy Iron Works / History / Fitzroy Iron Works Company (1859–1869) / The first blast furnace (1864–1866)
caption_attribution_description: English: Fitzroy Iron Works - The sandstone blast furnace is visible just left of the centre of the picture.
context_page_description: The Fitzroy Iron Works at Mittagong, New South Wales, was the first commercial iron smelting works in Australia. It first operated in 1848.
  From 1848 to around 1910, various owners and lessees attempted to achieve profitable operation but ultimately none succeeded. More than once, new managers repeated more or less the same mistakes made by earlier ones. Over the second half of the 19th century, the name 'Fitzroy Iron Works' became almost synonymous with lost opportunities, repeated failure, lost capital, misplaced trust, and general misfortune.
  The Fitzroy Iron Works was—several times—a commercial failure, but it played a part in laying the foundations of the later success of the Australian iron and steel industry, and it was important in the growth of the township of Mittagong.
  Relics of the old iron-works were discovered during excavations for redevelopment of its site, during 2004, have been preserved and are on display. There are also some remnants and a commemorative cairn at the adjacent site of its former blast furnace.
context_section_description: Enoch Hughes had knowledge of iron working but little working experience of blast furnaces and their operation. The blast furnace he constructed was an old fashioned design—cold blast with an open top—similar to a Scottish design of the 1830s. The outer shell of the furnace was constructed of sandstone blocks and stood 46 feet high to its open top. The base of the furnace was a 28 ft square with the upper part being cylindrical and banded with iron bars holding the courses of blocks in place. It was lined with fire-bricks which were made at the works using clay quarried on the site.
  The blast furnace was located at the base of a hill, on the opposite side of Ironmines Creek, 250 yards to the east of the rest of the iron works (puddling furnaces, foundry and rolling mill). This area became known as 'the top works'. There was access to the furnace top from the top of the hill via a timber trestle. The furnace top had a five feet wide platform and three openings through which ore and other smelting materials could be added.
  On 30 July 1864, the first blast furnace in Australia made pig-iron—under Hampshire's management—but problems emerged immediately. Moisture in the foundations and lining turned to steam and cooled the iron preventing its being tapped. The furnace had to be shutdown and the resulting half-molten mass of iron had to be dragged from the hearth using hooks and metal bars. In September 1864, the company was admitting to "some difficulties with proceeding to production" and advising that the alteration of the blast furnace, to hot-blast operation, had begun. Only 80 tons of iron were made using the cold-blast process.
  Drainage trenches were cut into the rock around the base of the furnace, the furnace was relined with new fire-bricks and one 'stove' added to convert the blast furnace to hot-blast. Hampshire designed and supervised the hot-blast modifications himself, skillfully upgrading the antiquated cold-blast furnace's design.
  The upgraded blast furnace first made pig-iron using a hot blast, on 2 May 1865. Although production problems would emerge later, the furnace made iron—in taps of three to six tons and occasionally ten tons at a time—at an initial production rate of about 90 tons per week. Hampshire claimed that the ore—after it had been roasted in open heaps to remove moisture and extraneous matter—was producing 60% metal, an indication of its relatively high iron content.
  This initial success came just in time; the works had a contract to supply castings for the supporting columns of the Prince Alfred Bridge at Gundagai. It had been delivering these castings at such a slow rate that the construction of the bridge was affected. The first castings had been made using the cold-blast iron but more iron had been needed to complete the work.
  The blast furnace had made 2,394 tons of iron, by the time it was shutdown in January 1866.
caption: Fitzroy Iron Works - Blast Furnace and 'Top Works'. (From an engraving in the Illustrated Adelaide Post, 21 Feb 1873, Page 9).[63] The sandstone blast furnace is visible just to the left of the centre. The building to the left of the blast furnace is the foundry (cupola furnaces) and the chimney is for the blowing engine.[64]
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