Tatas are often referred to have initiated the iron and steel industry in India. Their role in the industrialisation of India began with Jamshedpur in Jharkhand in 1907.
However, 70 years before Tata’s venture, a British civil servant based in Madras, Josiah Marshall Heath, started an extensive iron-steel company in Parangipettai (Port Novo).
Heath arrived in Madras to work for the Government of Fort St Georg. When he was posted as the temporary Commercial Resident of the Coimbatore-Nilgiris District, then Governor of Madras, Thomas Munro, sent him to test the cultivation of Bourbon cotton, imported from the Americas, in Salem and Coimbatore.
Heath travelled much of South India as a part of his work. He was also interested in exploring nature, particularly the birds of India. Heath was, among other things, a skilful ornithologist, metallurgist, and businessman.
It was no secret that the Madras Presidency held an abundance of iron ore. Many independent ironsmiths produced wrought iron in the Madras Presidency, some of whom used cone-shaped kilns.
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