West Cumberland News November 21st 1931 Four Great Pig-Iron Gambles

Four Great Pig-Iron Gambles

In the past there have been four great pi-iron gambles in Cumberland. The first occurred in 1880 when the price of pig-iron soared from 46s to 105s, and the second in 1890 when the price rose from 49s 4d to 82s.     The second gamble was computed to cost Whitehaven investors - the town was then relatively rich - a quarter of a million pounds, a loss which ruined many families and which for years afterwards impoverished local industries.     Acting on the advice of  Whitehaven brokers the public plunged heavily on the Glasgow Stock Exchange, and, as the price rose, fortunes were made - only to be lost just as dramatically. Few sold out before the sensational collapse, and it is related of the late Mr. Tom BROWN, the then Whitehaven  Town Clerk and a solicitor with a private practice, that on the morning of the collapse there were clients in every room of his house, even the bedrooms, waiting to obtain his counsel.     Since that time there have been two other famous gambles in pig-iron in West Cumberland, in 1900 when the price jumped from 63s 9d to 86s 10d, and in 1906 when the price, however, only rose from 80s 9d to 81s 4d.

 

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