Iron: Cast and Wrought Iron in Canada from the Seventeenth Century to the Present

Norman R. Ball was Engineering Archivist, Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa.

This is an important book. Many years from now dog-eared, well-worn copies will still be used in libraries. It is also the sort of book which in the fullness of time people will look back to and ask, “How could a book so flawed have been so important?”

The late Eric Arthur, architect and historian, and Thomas Ritchie, a scientist now retired from the Building Research Division of the National Research Council, are both well known for their significant roles in helping Canadians take a broader, more enlightened view of their past. Both have helped create an understanding awareness of our built environment. Ritchie’s Canada Builds, 1867-1967 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967) is an unsurpassed and invaluable history of construction materials in Canada.

Iron combines the interests and perspectives of two important Canadian figures. Its stated purpose “is to provide an introduction to iron: its preparation, forming, applications and decorative properties and uses. The focus is primarily Canadian” (p. xiii). Iron artifacts provide the focal point, and the many illustrations make this book distinctive. Parts of the historical narrative are muddled, hard-to-follow, and certainly not based on recent scholarship. Chapter 9, “Iron Ships and Iron Horses,” is an embarrassment, and there are better places to look for the basics of iron history. However, the book is truly exciting when the authors turn to the wide variety of iron products, particularly those of cast iron. Here the perceptive reader is taught how to look at the built environment in a new way, how to begin looking for new facets of the past. Iron shows how fences, railings, grills and gratings, hinges and hardware, gates, stoves, and even manhole covers are visually interesting and are a clue to understanding the technological abilities and design sense of the past. It puts the well-worn phrase Industrial Revolution in a broader and more meaningful light. Here again Iron brings a new twist to popular appreciation, for, as well as the usual steam vessels and locomotives, it highlights (pp. 176-179) the Hamilton Pumping Station, now incidentally open to the public as the Hamilton Museum of Steam and Technology. It is one of Canada’s most awesomely beautiful expressions of iron and steam combined.

Undoubtedly, Iron will inspire others to look more carefully at our legacy of functional but beautiful iron. The sounder scholarship to come will surpass Iron but will not alter the fact that Messrs. Arthur and Ritchie led the way — and that is how a flawed book will play a very important role in Canadian historical studies.