It was not until the eighteenth century that the seed sown by Sir George germinated, and the iron industry began to spread in Scotland.
The iron furnaces in Glengarry, referred to by Captain Burt, are said to have been established by a Liverpool company, who bought the Glengarry woods about 1730.
The iron-smelting works at Abernethy, Strathspey, were commenced in 1732 by the York Buildings Company. This company was formed in 1675 to erect waterworks on the grounds of York House in the Strand, London, and was incorporated in 1691 as "The Governor and Company of Undertakers for raising the Thames water in York Buildings." The operations of the company have been described by Mr David Murray, M.A., F.S.A. Scot., in an able pamphlet entitled "The York Buildings Company: A Chapter in Scotch History." The company raised at the time of its incorporation the then immense capital of £1,259,575, and conducted not only the original waterworks, but also enormous speculations in forfeited estates in Scotland; the company also carried on coal, lead, and iron mines, the manufacture of iron and glass, and extensive dealings in timber from the Strathspey forests. Their agents and workmen in Strathspey are described in the Old Statistical Account as "the most profuse and profligate set that were ever heard of in this country. Their extravagances of every kind ruined themselves and corrupted others." Their ironworks were abandoned at the end of two years, i.e. in 1734, or, according to the Old Statistical Account, in 1737. They made "Glengarry" and "Strathdoun" pigs, and had four furnaces for making bar iron. The corporation of the York Buildings Company was dissolved in 1829.
The Loch Etive side, or Bonawe, ironworks, were commenced by an Irish company about 1730. They rented the woods of Glenkinglass, and made charcoal, with which they smelted imported iron ore. That company existed till about 1750. In 1753 an English company, consisting of three Lancashire men and one Westmoreland man, took leases, which ran for one hundred and ten years, and these were renewed in 1863 to the then manager of the company for twenty-one years, expiring as lately as 1884. By the courtesy of Mr Hosack, of Oban, I have seen duplicates of the leases under which the undertaking was carried on. The works comprised extensive charcoal burnings and the blast-furnace at Bonawe; they were discontinued before 1884.
Other important works of a similar character were afterwards established by the Argyle Furnace Company, and by the Lorn Company, at Inverary.
In a work on "The Manufacture of Iron in Great Britain," by Mr George Wilkie, Assoc. Inst. C.E., published in 1857, it is stated that the Carron works were established in 1760 by Dr Roebuck of Sheffield and other gentlemen; that in 1779 two brothers of the name of Wilson, merchants in London, established the Wilsonton ironworks in Lanarkshire; that in 1788 the Clyde ironworks were established in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, and that in that year there were only eight pig-iron furnaces in Scotland, of which four were at Carron, two at Wilsonton, one at "Bunawe in Lorn," and one at "Goatfield in Arran," the two latter being worked with wood charcoal for fuel. The furnace at Bunawe is that already noticed as on Loch Etive side. Of the alleged furnace at "Goatfield in Arran" there are no records or remains to be found in Arran to-day. Probably Goatfield was in Argyleshire.
But we need not here further trace the wonderful growth of the still existing series of Scottish ironworks. To establish our claim to precedence, it will suffice to shew that the furnaces on Loch Maree were commenced by Sir George Hay more than a century earlier than any of those just named.
Pennant, in his tour of 1772 ([Appendix B]), mentions the time of the Queen Regent as the period when Sir George Hay was head of a company who carried on an iron furnace near Poolewe; this statement is given on the authority of the Rev. John Dounie, minister of Gairloch. The regency of Mary of Guise extended from 1542 to 1560; so that the historical commencement of the ironworks on Loch Maree might date as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century. But Sir George Hay lived at a later date, and Mr Dounie must have been inaccurate in this respect.
From Donald Gregory's history of the Western Highlands, Alexander Mackenzie's history of the Mackenzies, and several old MSS., including the genealogy of the MacRaes ([Appendix A]), we glean the following facts:—