Wrought iron was the backbone of Britain's Industrial Revolution—used to build railways, bridges, ships, and machines that powered the 18th and 19th centuries. At the heart of this transformation was a technique known as the Cort Process, long credited to an Englishman—but that origin is now under renewed scrutiny.
Were Jamaican ironworkers the missing link in one of Britain's greatest industrial breakthroughs? A forgotten chapter resurfaces.
In the late 18th century, Britain’s industrial growth accelerated thanks to a breakthrough iron-refining technique known as the Cort Process. Patented in 1783 and 1784 by Henry Cort, a former naval administrator turned ironmaster, the process enabled the large-scale production of malleable wrought iron—a material essential to building the empire’s infrastructure. For more than two centuries, Cort was celebrated as a key figure in the story of industrial progress.
But that narrative is now being challenged—not by oral tradition alone, but by recent scholarly research grounded in historical records. In 2023, Dr. Jenny Bulstrode, a historian of science and technology at University College London, published a peer-reviewed article in the journal History and Technology that has added serious weight to an alternative account: that the real origins of the Cort Process may lie not in Britain, but in Jamaica.
According to Bulstrode’s research and corroborating colonial-era documents, a group of 76 highly skilled Black metallurgists—many of them enslaved and of West African origin—developed a method of converting scrap and pig iron see Glossary into high-quality wrought iron at a foundry near Morant Bay in eastern Jamaica. Their work appears to have preceded Cort’s English patent filings by several years.
These men were not simply laborers—they were experts. They adapted centuries-old ironworking traditions from West and Central Africa to local Caribbean conditions, refining iron with remarkable efficiency using minimal equipment. Surviving names from the group include Devonshire, Mingo, Friday, Captain Jack, Kofi (Cuffee), and Kwasi (Quashie). Their skill was so advanced that their white overseer, John Reeder, reportedly admitted he was “quite ignorant of such a business” and described them as “perfect in every branch of the Iron Manufactory.”
At the time, Henry Cort was financially overextended and seeking ways to make iron production more profitable. Some accounts suggest he became aware of the Jamaican innovation through a cousin involved in colonial trade. Whether by word or by force, the knowledge appears to have made its way to England—where Cort patented the method and gained historical credit.
Bulstrode’s findings also indicate that the Jamaican ironworks may have been viewed by British authorities as politically dangerous. Not only was the foundry highly profitable—reportedly generating the equivalent of over £7 million a year in today’s currency—but its ability to produce tools and weapons made it a threat in a colony with a long legacy of resistance. According to the research, the ironworks was eventually dismantled under martial law, and its equipment—and perhaps some of its metallurgists—transported to England. While official records are silent on this transfer, the pattern fits broader colonial practices of appropriation and erasure.
The metallurgical traditions carried to Jamaica were part of a much older legacy.
Before turning to the story of Jamaica’s 76 ironworkers, historian Dr. Jenny Bulstrode of University College London (UCL) frames her groundbreaking 2023 research within a broader lineage of African metallurgical mastery. She opens with a striking scene from 1494: the German traveler Hieronymus Münzer visiting Lisbon and witnessing Black artisans in the Portuguese royal ironworks forging anchors, cannons, armor, and marine tools on a scale that left him in awe. He likened them to “cyclopses in Vulcan’s cave.”
This image is more than symbolic. It reflects the deep entanglement between African metallurgical skill and European technological development—an entanglement long overlooked. Many Africans trafficked to Jamaica came from the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra, and the Gold Coast—regions with centuries-old ironworking cultures. These traditions were both practical and spiritual, with iron serving not only as a material for tools but as a medium of ritual power and ancestral connection.
Bulstrode’s research situates the Jamaican ironworkers within this deeper continuum. Far from being mere laborers, they were bearers of inherited expertise—adapting and evolving their methods in a new environment. By tracing this lineage, the story of Jamaica’s 76 Black metallurgists becomes not just a colonial footnote, but part of a much older and globally significant legacy.
For centuries, the Cort Process has been treated as a British invention—an emblem of white industrial genius. But if the findings published by Bulstrode hold true, it was in fact an innovation, born in Jamaica from African knowledge systems and developed under the brutal conditions of slavery.
The article sparked both praise and controversy. In response to criticism, the editors of History and Technology issued a formal statement in November 2023 affirming the study’s scholarly rigor and historical accuracy. The evidence, they noted, had passed a thorough peer-review process and met all academic standards.
As Bulstrode herself writes, acknowledging innovation "based on use rather than ownership" allows us to see who truly drove progress—and who was written out of its story. In this case, 76 Black metallurgists in Jamaica may have authored one of the most important technological breakthroughs of the modern era—only to have their contributions buried, their names scattered, and their legacy claimed by empire.
Today, efforts are underway to recover that legacy and restore their place in the narrative—not as anonymous workers, but as inventors, innovators, and engineers who shaped the world beneath the shadows of history.
Pig Iron: Pig iron is a crude form of iron produced by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. It typically contains a high carbon content—between 3.5% and 4.5%—which makes it brittle and unsuitable for most direct applications. The name derives from the traditional casting molds used, which resembled piglets suckling from a sow. Pig iron must be further refined to reduce its carbon content and remove impurities before it can be transformed into usable wrought iron or steel.
