R. W. Winfield & Co. Birminham, 19th century cast iron and wrought iron furniture

Cast iron is produced by heating iron with a high carbon content until it liquefies, and then casting the iron into moulds of compressed sand.

Cast iron was invented in China in the 5th century BC and poured into moulds to make ploughshares and pots as well as weapons and pagodas. Although steel had been invented, was in use, and was more desirable, cast iron was cheaper and thus was more commonly used for warfare in ancient China.

In the west, cast iron did not become available until the 15th century, and its earliest uses included cannon and shot, and later, cast iron cannons, which, while heavier than the existing bronze cannons, were much cheaper to manufacture and enabled more to be produced..

Cast iron pots were made at many English blast furnaces from about the 17th century. In 1707, Abraham Darby patented a method of making pots and kettles more... thinner and thus cheaper than his rivals could. This meant that his Coalbrookdale furnaces became dominant as suppliers of pots, an activity in which they were joined in the 1720s and 1730s by a small number of other coke-fired blast furnaces.

The ability to manufacture lighter items led to the popularity of cast iron for furniture and garden decoration during the 19th century, of which the Coalbrookdale company was the leading exponent.

Wrought iron became very popular again in the 1920s during the Art Deco period, and its uses included chairs, firescreens, decorative lamps and legs for tables.

Wrought iron differs from cast iron in that articles made from it cannot be mass produced. Each piece must be individually made (wrought) using a hammer on an anvil and a blacksmith's forge. less...