Which statements explain why the iron industry started in England?

Choose all answers that are correct.

a. England needed a new navy with iron-clad ships.

b. England had plentiful supplies of iron ore.

c. England had many forests, providing fuel for the iron industry.

d. English iron makers were able to improve the process of smelting.

e. English iron makers developed ways to shape iron into tools and parts of machines.

The correct answers are B, D and E.

In the beginning, charcoal was used to obtain iron as a source of heat and as a reducing agent. In the eighteenth century, in England, charcoal began to become scarce and expensive, and this led to the start of the use of coke, a fossil fuel, as an alternative. It was first used by Abraham Darby, at the beginning of the 18th century, who built a "blast furnace" in Coalbrookdale. Likewise, coke was used as an energy source in the Industrial Revolution. In this period the iron demand was increasing, for example for its application in railroads.

Towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, iron was widely used as a structural element (in bridges, buildings, etc.). Between 1776 to 1779, the first iron smelting bridge was built, by John Wilkinson and Abraham Darby. In England it was used for the first time in the construction of buildings, by Mathew Boulton and James Watt, at the beginning of the 19th century. Other works of that century are also known, for example the Crystal Palace built for the 1851 Universal Exhibition in London, by the architect Joseph Paxton, which had an iron frame.