Industry organisation
The Black Country was the ideal location for the manufacture of chain, with its abundant supplies of iron and coal. Thousands of chainmakers were employed in factories and domestic workshops throughout the area.
Types of Chain and production techniques
Hundreds of different types of chain were manufactured, from the heaviest of factory-made chain, produced by a chainmaker with his team of strikers, where a single link might weigh a hundredweight (50 kilograms), to the small, agricultural chain made by women in back-yard chain-shops, where a hundredweight would take over 30,000 blows of the hammer to produce.