Bowling Iron Works
A part of the works in 1861
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| Built | 1784 |
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| Location | Bowling, Yorkshire, England |
| Coordinates | 53°47′02″N 1°43′41″W / 53.783901°N 1.728078°WCoordinates: 53°47′02″N 1°43′41″W / 53.783901°N 1.728078°W |
| Industry | Ironworking |
| Products | Domestic and industrial iron products |
| Defunct | 1921 |
The Bowling Iron Works was an iron working complex established around 1780 in the district of East Bowling part of the township and manor of Bowling, now in the southeast of Bradford in Yorkshire, England. The operation included mining coal and iron ore, smelting, refining, casting and forging to create finished products.
Iron is said to have been worked in the vicinity of Bradford in Roman times. The monks of Rievaulx Abbey to the east were working iron on land owned by their monastery in 1150, and forgemen are mentioned in 1358. Surface coal was being extracted from outcrops and shallow pits by 1360, and coal mines were worked by 1502. The Bowling Ironworks were established in the 1780s to smelt and forge iron from the Black Bed ironstone deposits using coal from the Better Bed seam, both of which lay under the site. The ironstone yields about 32% iron. The Better Bed coal is free of sulfur, making it ideal for furnaces used in smelting, puddling and forging. The Black Bed coal, nearer to the surface, could be sold or used for firing boilers and other purposes.
Mining began in Jeremiah Rawson's estate, then extended into nearby estates as the deposits became exhausted, always mining the same beds of minerals. In 1794 the company purchased from Francis Lindley Wood (owner of Bolling Hall and Lord of the Manor) the rights to 90 acres of coal and iron stone in Hall Lane, Broomfields. In 1806 the company purchased additional mineral rights to parts of Sir Francis Lindley Wood's Bowling Hall Estate . The rights to other land was purchased in later years, often after extensive negotiation. In 1816 the company purchased from Sir Francis all his remaining lands and mineral rights in Bowling and in 1821 purchased from him the Lordship of the Manor.
The same seams of ironstone and coal were exploited by the Low Moor Iron Company, founded in 1788, and then by the Bierley Iron Company from around 1810.
The first foundry was established at Bowling around 1784 by a group of businessmen including John Sturges, an ironmaster with works at Wakefield, and Richard Paley, an iron merchant of Leeds. The other partners were John Sturges junior, William Sturges and John Ewell. Ewell left the partnership in 1792. The company took the name of John Sturges & Company.
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