I have at least three stories to tell here. All of them were taking place simultaneously but in such different fields of endeavor that I am going to pursue them one at a time rather than risk losing your attention by skipping back and forth among them. If the endeavors in each field had not come to fruition just in time to complement the efforts in other fields, our story might not have had such a happy ending. The Industrial Revolution could only have originated in Britain, as we shall see, and it was based on iron.
Your patience may be tested, but hopefully no more than your curiosity is piqued, as my narrative wanders in concentric circles to touch on aspects of the economy, the politics, the religion, the scientific achievements, and the delightfully idiosyncratic characters of that age. The 120-foot span of that first iron bridge may very well be the only straight line in our story.
We will begin with the history of making iron and how this new and superior iron was developed. Next we will take up the history of bridges so that you can appreciate how radical it was to build them in iron. This will include a brief detour to note how the use of iron revolutionized the historically deplorable English transportation system. We will reflect on why it could only have happened in Britain. Finally, we shall see how meeting the demands of this infant iron industry and the resulting explosion of iron products changed Three-times-Great Grandfather's world forever. I give you fair warning that by the time that the Bessemer and subsequent processes were able to mass-produce a steel that had qualities superior even to our iron, this narrator loses interest.
You have my permission to cut to the chase immediately if you are impatient to see these bridges for yourself. I encourage you to flip to the appendix, call the dog, grab your Wellies and your GPS and head out to visit the surviving iron bridges. After all, you can read all about them later at your leisure while toasting your stocking feet on the fire place fender beside a very wet and muddy dog.