Barrow in Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is an industrial town and seaport in Cumbria, England. Often known simply as Barrow, the town is situated at the tip of the Furness peninsula bordered only by Morecambe Bay and the Irish Sea. It forms about half the territory of the wider Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. Barrow is located just over 220 miles (350 km) north-west of London and 60 miles (97 km) south of the Scottish border.
Historically a part of Lancashire, Barrow was a small fishing village before the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century. The building of the Furness Railway allowed iron ore to be transported to the area; the village's location made it ideal for smelting and then exporting steel. The natural harbour the booming town possessed allowed the locally produced steel to be put to another use: shipbuilding.
Barrow-in-Furness is a large industrial town which grew from a tiny 19th Century hamlet to the biggest iron and steel centre in the world, and a major ship-building force, in just 40 years. The railway was introduced to carry iron-ore, slate and lime-stone to the new deep water port. Its prosperity grew with the development of the steel and ship-building industries.
The monks of Furness Abbey smelted iron with wood in the 13th Century. In 1839 H.W. Schneider (who later had a home at Bowness-on-Windermere and commuted to Barrow via steam yacht and rail) came as a young speculator and dealer in iron. In 1850 he discovered large deposits of iron, and he erected blast furnaces at Barrow, which by 1876 formed the largest steelworks in the world.
The population grew from 300 inhabitants to over 8000 in 1864. James Ramsden, superintendent of the Railway, devised a plan for the town. There are few planned towns in England, and fewer still in the 19th Century. The wide tree lined streets to this day convey a sense of space and ease. Ramsden became the first Mayor of Barrow. Ramsden also conceived the idea of the Barrow Shipbuilding Company, which became Vickers in 1897. It is now the busiest shipyard in England, with the largest covered ship building hall in Europe. By 1881 the population had jumped to 47000, reaching a peak of 74000 in 1931, but has dropped now.
