the key to developing an effective native smelting industry was the diffusion of advanced technology and production techniques from Swansea. Luis Valenzuela has argued that the vital introduction of modern smelting techniques occurred in the 1830s as Charles Lambert introduced reverberatory furnaces, and along with his smelter David ‘Luis’ (Valenzuela implies that his real name was David Lewis, which one could speculate indicates a Welsh connection) introduced a new method of treating regulus.5 Valenzuela is keen to emphasis the importance of Charles Lambert as the individual who modernised copper smelting in Chile, by purposefully setting out to replicate European smelting techniques.6 In 1840 Lambert travelled to Swansea and sought the help of the Bath family (who were copper merchants and ship owners), who supplied Lambert with firebricks, coal, coke, and machinery for smelting in Chile.7 Lambert’s Compania smelting works along with the works of Mexican and South American Co. at Herradura were both equipped with the latest technology from Swansea, which at that time was the world leader in copper smelting.8 This suggests that the key to the growth of copper smelting in Chile was the introduction of the ‘English (i.e. Welsh) principle’ of smelting.9 This demonstrates the importance of the spread of technical knowledge from Swansea to Chile. At that time the copper industry in Swansea was a world leader in terms of technological development, and Swansea was ideally placed to export this technology being well served by shipping companies from around the world. However, new technology could not simply be shipped to Chile, it needed to be implemented by skilled workers well versed in how to operate it. Parties of British workers were recruited by smelting works in Chile to oversee new smelting techniques. In 1847 the Mexican and South American Co. sent a complement of smelters and materials to their Herradura works, and amongst those who migrated were a works manager, a chemist, a blacksmith, a carpenter, two masons, a refiner and fourteen smelters.10 Clearly a wide variety of workers were needed to implement new smelting processes. These same workers also played a crucial role in developing one of the largest smelting plants in Chile - the Guayacan Works owned by the firm Urmeneta y Errazuriz. The Guayacan works were built c.1856 in Herradura bay in the province of Coquimbo, and by 1858 the site contained 21 furnaces producing 702 tonnes of copper bars and ingots per annum (the apex of Ibid., p.511. Ibid., pp.511-512; for further accounts of Charles Lambert’s activities see Claudio Veliz, ‘Egana, Lambert, And The Chilean Mining Association Of 1825’, The Hispanic American Historical Review, 55.4 (1975), 637-663. 7 Valenzuela, ‘The Chilean Copper Smelting Industry’, p.524. 8 Ibid., p.523. 9 Ibid., pp.542-543. 10 Ibid., p.523. 5 6
3