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History of fireplace stoves

The origin of the modern thermo-stove is intertwined with the history of domestic heating and cooking. From the Iron Age onwards, humans sought to cook and heat their homes with a fire source contained within their dwelling. Over ten thousand years or more, the designs slowly matured to the point where in the 18th century it became apparent that differing requirements for cooking and heating would result in the creation of appliances designed specifically for each function.

A number of factors had led to this desire for ‘independent’ heating devices. The middle class was becoming more affluent and demanded houses that separated the kitchen, living room, and dining room. Their upwardly mobile aspirations found cooking and eating in one room unacceptable. These same ‘consumers’ also began to demand heat sources, which did not waste 80 – 90% of the fuel up the chimney – they did not have the unlimited budgets of landlords. Finally, the Industrial Revolution had generated an ideal material for the construction of heating stoves: cast iron. First perfected by Abraham Darby at Coalbrookdale in the early 1700s, cast iron was Georgia’s great building material with all its attributes of easy fabrication, easy casting, and good thermal qualities.

By the 17th century, country gentlemen had begun experimenting with stove-like designs. In fact, Prince Rupert, particularly Charles I’s nephew, was probably responsible for the first convector fire. Yet another 100 years passed before we were able to see the work of the two true pioneers of today’s stove designs: American patriot Benjamin Franklin and British aristocrat turned “Yankee rebel” Earl Rumford. Franklin, whose scientific experiments included the dangerous habit of flying kites in thunderstorms, realized that fuel burning uncontrollably in a grate imparted little heat to the room. His design employed a convection chamber, much like today’s convection fires, for greater fire efficiency. Air for this chamber was often taken from the basement, adding a degree of fresh air to the room. Rumford’s contribution was less to stoves than to fires in general. He first suggested the chimney throat to control and increase the chimney draft. He also used a variable metal damper in the throat of the fireplace to add more control and stop drafts when the fireplace was not running.

Although James Bodley patented the first stove design in 1802, his design was more of a cooking stove. In fact, for much of the 19th century, the love shown by the British for open fires limited the demand for stoves in the UK, while their demand flourished throughout cooler continental Europe and the US. they also saw the stoves as responsible for the severe air pollution suffered by London for 150 years from the early 19th century onwards. Early stove designs did not burn their coal with any real efficiency. They produced foul-smelling and irritating fumes, which were said to cause “stove malaria” and “iron cough.” Edinburgh’s nickname of ‘Auld Reekie’ dates from this time and refers to the foul smell of smoke from its myriad open and closed coal fires.

Stoves were much more popular in the colder climates of continental Europe and the newly liberated American states. Scotland, with its harsh winters and available supplies of coal and iron, proved an ideal place for stove making. The first third of the 19th century saw a number of innovators introduce stoves to the market. In 1830, Charles Portway designed and hand built his first Tortoise stove in Halstead, Essex. Charles owned a hardware store, and when neighboring stores saw how effective his stove was, they all wanted one. Portway opened a small foundry which, by the turn of the 20th century, had produced over 100,000 stoves. Meanwhile, in Norway, Adelsten Onsum founded the forerunner of today’s Jtul Company, the Kverner Brug, in 1853. An entrepreneur in the truest Victorian style, Onsum founded a number of industrial companies, but it was not until after he had lost control of Kverner Brug in the Norwegian financial crisis. from the 1880s that the name Jtul was adopted. As today, the stoves were made of the new and popular cast iron and offered the previously shivering inhabitants of Norway the opportunity to stay warm during the long winters at a reasonably acceptable cost. American designs tended to be less ornate and many believe the ‘West won’ on the back of the potbellied stove that heated the bar and cowboy ranch alike. Many were portable and moved west as new frontiers opened up or from battle to battle as the Civil War engulfed most of the US land mass.

In the Black Country, The Cannon Hollowware Company, later to become Cannon Industries, produced a series of stoves heated by the now popular town gas. The most popular was probably the Grosvenor introduced in 1895, the Grosvenor was all the rage in part because, as the advertising blurb of the day informed potential buyers, “it comes complete with internal chambers to utilize the residual heat after it (leaves) the fire “. . This popular stove was a big seller in urban areas, came in two sizes, and can be seen as the forerunner of Cannon’s hundred years of involvement in gas stove production.

At the dawn of the 20th century, stoves were not a popular means of heating the living rooms of nations. The ‘working class’ could not afford coal for proper heating, let alone ‘expensive’ stoves to improve the way the fuel burned. The middle class within the cities used gas stoves, while country dwellers disliked the aesthetics of these heavily decorated appliances that looked out of place in their demure homes. Among the landed gentry and the newly enriched, stoves were popular, but not as a source of heating for public rooms. Large kitchens, servants’ rooms or nurseries may boast a stove, but the rooms visitors see include an open fire that is stoked and cleaned by servants who made up 10% of the UK’s population before the First War. World.

Throughout the first sixty years of the 20th century, stoves were sold primarily to the commercial sector, to the growing number of offices, shops, train waiting rooms and public buildings, along with a flourishing export trade to the Empire. Smith & Wellstood’s 1912 catalog featured over 200 designs (Kitcheners’ kitchens and heating stoves) with names like Indess, The Moariess and Sultana. Prices hovered around 10 shillings (50 pence!) and demand kept Smith & Wellstood in business until the 1980s. Possibly the Company’s biggest claim to fame was its cooking stoves. Captain Scott took some on his ill-fated voyage to reach the South Pole. One was found by an American expedition in 1953. They removed the ashes from it, relighted it, and found that it worked perfectly.

An opening for the stoves came with the discovery of large deposits of anthracite in South Wales and Scotland. Immediately after World War I, Smith & Wellstood was approached by mine owners about making a stove that could burn anthracite. The aftermath of the war, with over a million men killed, meant that well-to-do households had a hard time finding servants, and anthracite, with its nocturnal burning and clean combustion products, required far less labor than traditional designs. Smith & Wellstood produced a whole range of designs including the Jeunesse, Artesse and Francesse, which were the forerunners of modern solid fuel space heaters. In recognition, the mine owners named their fuel ‘Stovesse’; the suffix …esse is the origin of the well-known Ouzledale foundry mark.

Clean air legislation in 1955/56 followed the month-long smoke-induced smogs of the early 1950s and restricted any market that might have existed for the solid fuel stove. There was little market for about fifteen years in the UK until oil prices quadrupled after the six-day Arab-Israeli War of 1973. Large house owners had installed oil-fired boilers during the 1960s and now could not afford to heat their properties. Mainly rural dwellers, they desperately searched for another source of heating and realized that many of them had supplies of wood available on their land. Stoves became popular and have remained so to this day.