The word “wrought” as in “wrought iron” is the former past tense of the verb to work. As with many other irregular past tense verbs in the English language, over time “wrought” was replaced with “worked.”

Although iron is one of the most abundant metals on Earth, it was very slow to evolve into a commonly used metal because of the difficulty involved originally in working with it. Early iron workers did not grasp the concept that in order to make it more malleable it was essential to reduce the carbon content by remelting the metal a second time and hammering the ingots to expel the impurities and carbon. One this was discovered, iron was no longer brittle like cast iron is.

Because of their ability to change the composition of wrought iron using fire and water, Blacksmiths were seen as magical sorcerers and put on the same level as doctors. Vulcan and Hephaestus were the first encounters in Roman and Greek mythology with Blacksmiths. These men were blessed with having created metals that were unable to break in battle. It was not until much later that iron artistically worked was used in the construction of buildings such as churches and monasteries, with the first recorded use being Notre Dame in Paris and Winchester Cathedral in England.

Originally, iron was smelted using bloomeries. A bloomery is a type of furnace with a pit and chimney with clay or stone walls for heat resistance. Clay pipes entered near the bottom of the pit to allow airflow either from natural source or through the use of a bellows (a type of air pump). Once a bloomery was filled with charcoal and iron ore it was lit and air was forced through the pipes to heat the mixture to just below irons melting point. The impurities would melt and run off and the carbon monoxide from the charcoal reduced the ore to iron in a sponge like mass. This material was then forged with hammers, which removed any more impurities in the process.

Later during the Middle Ages, water was used to power the bellows and eventually the hammers, making the job of working iron much easier, but in the 15th century the concept of a blast furnace was created in Europe. However, the iron created in a blast furnace was very brittle and needed to be refined. It would not be until the Industrial Revolution that a process was created for making durable wrought iron more efficiently.

A puddling furnace was invented in 1784 and it is credited with being (at the time) the most successful way of creating wrought iron without the use of charcoal. In the nineteenth century the demand began for stronger wrought iron, thus bringing to the industry a method to mass-produce puddle iron. This new mass production of wrought iron created a metal with a higher tensile strength and a small increase in carbon content. This made the chemical composition and consistency easier to control then previously.

Today the term wrought iron is often used to describe products made from mild steel. This is because traditional wrought iron is not forged as much anymore, which has given rise to the common conception that mild steel products are “wrought iron” and why the two terms are used interchangeably. Mild steel is a combination of mostly iron and carbon, but there can also be other elements present in quantities too small to affect the overall properties. The higher the carbon content the harder but less ductile the steel becomes. Mild steel has the lowest carbon content of between .05% and .26% making it quite easy to weld. Uses today for wrought iron are quite varied. Uses include water pipes, railway couplings, roofing sheets, nuts and bolts, as well as decorative ironwork such as handrails, fences and wine racks.

Wrought iron manufacture has experienced many changes over the years in its process and materials, while still providing us today with attractive and interesting products constructed from this sturdy material.