Welcome to my weekly newsletter, Age of Invention, on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation. You can subscribe here: I’ve been thinking a lot recently about metallurgy, and about how new industries came to be introduced to a country like England. In 1560, for example, although England had deposits of copper, it primarily produced tin, lead, and iron. There had been some small-scale mining of the stuff — after all, it had been smelted since the Bronze Age, but there was nothing like the kind of mining and processing that took place in continental Europe.
Thanks? Anton! Do you have a reference for the Queen’s banning the export of copper for military purposes? I’ve found references to Charles I banning gunpowder exports a century later, but I don’t think I have anything from the 16th C yet. These early export controls are something I’m trying to pull together as part of my book.
Thanks? Anton! Do you have a reference for the Queen’s banning the export of copper for military purposes? I’ve found references to Charles I banning gunpowder exports a century later, but I don’t think I have anything from the 16th C yet. These early export controls are something I’m trying to pull together as part of my book.