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5 unusual facts about Carron Company


Carron Company

Taking iron ore from Bo'ness and water from the Carron, they decided to use the new method pioneered by Abraham Darby at Coalbrookdale, using coke from coal mines in the vicinity as fuel rather than the usual charcoal.

Benjamin Franklin visited the factory, leaving works and is said to have left a design for a stove- 'Dr Franklin's stove or the Philadelphia stove'

In the 1960s, it produced cast-iron rings to line the Tyne Tunnel under the River Tyne from Jarrow to Howdon and the Clyde Tunnel under the River Clyde from Whiteinch to Govan near Glasgow.

The company was founded as a partnership by three men, two Englishmen, Dr John Roebuck, a chemist, Samuel Garbett, a merchant, and a wealthy Scottish shipowner, William Caddell.

The British government tried to prevent the company from supplying plans and equipment to the Russian Empire, intended to improve Catherine the Great's weapons foundry at Petrozavodsk; nonetheless, Gascoigne delivered the Russian's orders, and travelled to Russia in May 1786 to supervise the works.



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