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History
Largely unnoticed and ignored, corrugated iron buildings can be discovered scattered across Britain and the Empire. The initial proliferation of buildings constructed of corrugated iron was sparked off by an invention of 1828.  In that year, Henry Robinson Palmer invented the "Corrugation and Galvanisation" of sheet iron. The resulting increase in strength encouraged the rapid adoption of corrugated iron as a cheap and practical material. Suppliers such as William Cooper of Old Kent Road in London, realized the economic benefit and robustness of corrugated iron, and consequently rapidly adopted it as a building material. The Californian gold-rush of 1849, followed in 1851 by other discoveries of gold in Victoria, Australia became a stimulus to the manufacture of prefabricated corrugated iron buildings. Manufacturers mass-produced structures, from as small as a pigsty to the magnitude of a cathedral, deliverable to anywhere accessible on the planet. In 1854 alone, it is estimated that some 30,000 buildings were shipped to Australia. This trade was interrupted by the outbreak of the Crimean War. By the time the war and the gold-rush were over, the Australian climate had resulted in timber becoming their favoured building material, corrugated iron being reserved primarily for roofing. In Britain, between the 1860s and the Great War, the country underwent extensive increases in the production of coal, iron and lead, triggering large population movements into previously isolated and rural areas, such as South Wales and County Durham. With no existing infrastructures, these newly created communities had an urgent need for churches, chapels and schools. Corrugated iron buildings fulfilled this demand.  The quantity of "Tin Tabernacles" built also reflects the missionary efforts of the Anglican Church, at the time in competition with the Nonconformist movements - Methodist, Wesleyan and other dissenters. Initially intended only for the short term needs of these communities, whose life-span was not expected to outlast the availability of the coal and the other ores, few corrugated iron buildings now remain. Most that do survive, have done so because of their religious function. Now in the 21st Century, vanishing congregations, accelerating rust and dry-rot has hastened the disappearance of these buildings. A handful have been rescued by heritage museums, to where they have been relocated and preserved. For most of the others, few seem likely to survive. |
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Content Copyright Alasdair Ogilvie. Web design by Matizmo Ltd |
