Not Out of the Woods Yet: On the Trail of the Commodity Frontier in Fuelwood for Iron

ABSTRACT Since the 1930s some economic historians have supposed that there was “timber famine” in early modern England, due to over-use of wood fuel for industry, especially making iron with charcoal, and the narrative is still current, often combined with a claim that England was deforested in that way. For the environmental historian Jason W. Moore in particular, the idea of a commodity frontier in “forest products” is central to an account of the spread of capitalism. After a brief summary of woodland management in Britain, I discuss how calculations have been made, with many estimates and approximations, in relation to deforestation in the Weald, where the manufacture of iron in blast furnaces first came to Britain. Although the case for timber famine and deforestation due to charcoal iron cannot be demonstrated through the calculation approach, the industry certainly had socioeconomic and environmental impacts, and I suggest ways forward researching these within a unified approach to economic and environmental history. The idea of a single commodity frontier in “forest products” cannot be sustained but the commodity frontier concept remains useful in investigating the commodification process.