Foreword
The loss of historical references seems to be a fatal destiny which
chases humanity. Sometimes we look at old ruins covered up by weeds and bushes
and see nothing more than that, weeds and bushes, trying to recover what once
upon a time was theirs.
I.-
Background
II.- The
beginnings:
The calamine mine and its near environment
III. - The
Royal Factories: Chronology
Privileged enterprise:
1773-1774
Madrid , Valladolid ,
Seville , Barcelona ,
Valencia and the arsenals of
Cartagena and Mahon
Limited Company
(1828-1986)
La Compañía Metalúrgica San
Juan London Philadelphia Paris Barcelona Paris
The loss of historical references seems to be a fatal destiny which
chases humanity. Sometimes we look at old ruins covered up by weeds and bushes
and see nothing more than that, weeds and bushes, trying to recover what once
upon a time was theirs.
But sometimes we feel we have to dig and
unearth old documents, trying to explain what we see.
The Royal Factories of San Juan
of Alcaraz, or Riópar, as they are known now, is a little rural
village, where most of its inhabitants and near all the many visitors who come
to visit us have lost the historical references that explain why this village
is here and why it is like that. For many, Riópar is a vague souvenir of
factories that produced brass articles for domestic use and house decoration.
But if we dig deeper we can find many details of the great importance
this industrial settlement had, the technological innovation that was developed
here, the enormous change that this rural society went through and the
European vocation that took place in this village, lost nowhere among mountains.
Our task is to gather as many documents
as we can and we will be very pleased if we can contribute in any way to a
better knowledge of our dear village and its history.
I.-
Background
The existence of the Royal Factories of
San Juan de Alcaraz is due, as other Royal Factories disseminated throughout
the Spanish geography, to a change of ideas and new philosophies which took
place with the arrival of the Bourbons dynasty to the Spanish throne in the
XVIII century: The Illustration.
In the previous century Spain was deeply
sunk in itself and was isolated from intellectual, scientific and technological
advances that were taken place in other parts of Europe: we were not able to
produce porcelain, textiles, glass or cutlery sets, machinery, arms, etc.,
which had to be imported from other countries, with the consequent diminish of
the royal treasury. Thus, it was necessary to send abroad able men to learn
these trades, or to get some masters from abroad to come to Spain
The Illustration came to Spain
Besides of a protectionist philosophy,
the Bourbons were seeking the supply of much needed articles to fill their
palaces, without spending too much money on royalties and taxes on imports.
The Royal Factories of porcelain of El Buen Retiro, of glass
in La
Granja Santa
Barbara la
Cavada Barcelona
Thus, The Royal factories of San Juan Spain
JVienna
to Spain Goslar (Hanover , Germany
II.- The
beginnings:
We have to make a great imaginative
effort to try to make an idea of what Juan Jorge Graubner found the first time
he came to Riópar. There wasn´t any road to go to the court in Madrid Albacete Murcia Cartagena La
Casa
But he also faced huge inconvenient:
- A rather low population, very illiterate
and ignorant of any craftsmanship, dedicated to traditional trades such as
farming and cattle.
- The suspicion from Alcaraz authorities,
where Riopar administratively depended from, who watched Graubner as
a foreigner privileged by the King and his court, and finally,
- The enormous cost of his own dream and
utopia: the building up of a factory able to produce brass in this
forlorn place among mountains, the first to be founded in
The calamine mine and its near environment
According to the Royal Priviledge,
Graubner could set up his factories any where he wanted and he could use all
natural resources and waters. So he started the building of the first offices
in San Jorge, on the right side of the river Mundo, just down the mine of
calamine and began using all the raw materials he needed. There is not
much information from that time, since Graubner was the only owner and it
seems, didn’t have much time to book keeping or diaries, but this time
must have been extraordinarily exciting: They had to cut down trees and select
the different types of wood for their posterior use. They had to extract rocks
and stones for producing lime, which once missed with river sand in 1/1
proportion would yield a kind of cement to bound the stone together up into a
strong building. They also had to make coal from timber, to keep the forge and
iron works going on and producing tools for the mine and the workshops.
Graubner had to build new roads to communicate with Alcaraz and Murcia
If we add adverse weather conditions and
non qualified man power to all these problems we can easily understand
Grubner´s pharaonic enterprise, comparable only to the great adventures
of the first explorers.
We know how much job he had done by 1774
for a document written to testimony the sale of all the buildings Graubner had
done in San Jorge: from 1773 to 1774 he had already opened cart roads to
Alcaraz and La
Mancha Murcia San
Juan
We have more information after
Graubner´s dream of entrepreneur ended when he sold his properties to Alcaraz.
Burdened by the huge expensive of his plans for a bigger factory, he asked for
a 15.000 pesos of gold help to the Castilian Supreme Counsel, but this thought
the task was too big for just one man and sent orders to Alcaraz to buy, in
representation of the King and through His Supreme Counsel, Graubner´s
properties . From that moment on and until his death in 1801, Juan Jorge
Graubner became General Manager of the Royal Factories of San Juan de Alcaraz
and the man in charge with ample powers to take decisions and carry out
policies. He also took responsibilities for teaching to native apprentices all
his knowledge and techniques involved in the process to fabricate brass and all
the derivates from this metal, which is, possibly, the first quotation for
today’s vocational courses teaching.
As for the mine of calamine, thanks to
the Royal Privilege of 1773, Graubner could develop at his will all the mining
resources found inside the “coto”, or even farther, as we know from the Royal
Privilege given to him to work a mine inMarbella
According to Eugenio Larruga:
“ To a distance of half a league from
the village Riopar Goslar Germany Europe
Mining must have had an irregular
rhythm, depending on the seasons and the hands available. But one thing is
clear: the mine was never exploited in an expertise way. The miners would start
digging in a new place as soon as they lost the lode, as it proves the many
mine holes we can find in the mountain. This is also the opinion of a study carried out in December1920
in the area by the Mining District of Murcia
engineer:
“..Tanto en la mina de San Jorge como en la de San Agustin, la
explotación ha sido muy irregular y desbarajustada, llamando la atención de
cuanto ingenieros las han visitado, que, al lado de un establecimiento en que
todo estaba bien dispuesto, se llevaran las minas con tanto descuido y ausencia de método de laboreo, siendo como necesariamente habían de
ser, la base del negocio”[1]
III. - The
Royal Factories: Chronology
Privileged enterprise:
1773-1774
We have already commented how the first
buildings were set up in San Jorge, on the right margin of the river, just at
the foot of the mine. Several establishments were built to house the foundries,
the smith and iron workshops and carpentry and joiners, stores and barns for
the cattle. The workers slept above the workshops. By 1774 these buildings were
functioning, when Jorge Graubner sold his entire emporium to Alcaraz Council.
Later it was built, on the left margin, a new building to house a
calamine mill and a cooper “martinet”. Graubner had also worried about getting
masters and experienced workers. In 1774 the staff of the Royal Factories was
counting with 14 full time workers, distributed as follows:
Workshop
native workers foreign masters
Total
Foundries
1
4 Germans
5
Smith
1
12 Germans 13
Carpenters
3
1 German
4
Houselhold
1
1 French
2
The foreign workers, mostly Germans,
were masters and expert on their trades; the Spanish workers were apprentices.
As it is said, burdened by the huge
costs of this enterprise and the great factory to be built, this privileged
company went through a financial crisis towards the middle of 1774, and
Graubner had to ask for a 15.000 pesos help to the Castilian Counsel. But
instead of giving him any money and being aware of the magnitude of this
business, on 22nd August, the Castilian Counsel sent a letter-order
to the Corregidor of Alcaraz, prompting him to constitute a Junta, whose
mission would be to suggest measures and ideas to go on with Graubner´s brass
factory. On 13th October 1774 an agreement of 44 items was
signed between Alcaraz authorities and Graubner, by which Graubner sold out to
Alcaraz the ownership of the factory. After many negotiations with the Supreme
Council of Madrid, on 13th March 1775
a Royal Provision was expedited saying yes to most
of the 44 agreements between Alcaraz and Graubner.
These are some of the conditions written
down on the agreement:
* Jorge Graubner would receive 163.000 reals for his
company
* He would be given an extra 20.000 for the great
expensive he had had.
* For repairing and opening the roads to Andalucía, La
Mancha Murcia
* He took under his responsibility the general
management and direction of the company, the teaching of his secrets and
experiences to the apprentices and workers, with a yearly salary of 15.000
reales.
* He would also be granted 50% of the benefits, once the
cost was deducted. He would have to employ one or two auditors to check the
accounts.
* To his wife or other descendants it would be granted a
pension after Graubner´s death.
There are other important items on this
document:
* The need to place one martinet with three hammers in
San Jorge
* A mill to grind calamine, in the same place.
* A damp on the Mundo River
* The setting of boundaries to build the great factory
of San
Juan
* The building of houses for the workers and their
families and for the Manager.
* The building of a church and the assignation of a
priest to attend the spiritual needs of the employees.
* The need of recruiting 40 German masters to put
everything into work, being the expensive 50.000 reales.
* The need of a surgeon.
* To pay for the huge costs, the Supreme Counsel
authorizes Alcaraz to give “censos” to other villages and towns of la
Mancha Province
* It was decided the setting up of an accounting body to
follow and inspect every economic operation and expenditure.
This document is of great
importance because it sets down the basis for a new stage of the Royal Factory
of San Juan, that, as we shall see, was not quite positive.
Jorge Graubner was now the General
Manager, with ample powers to decide upon every aspect of the functioning of
the Royal Factory of San Juan, but now he had to ask for money to Alcaraz every
time he needed new tools or a new building or even the workers´ salaries.
Joint Company
(1775-1785)
Between 1775 and 1785 the Royal Factory
underwent an unsecured path as a joint company. On the one hand there were the
Supreme Counsel from Madrid
According to the agreement settled on
the sale contact, several representants from Alcaraz Council, Riopar Council
and Jorge Graubner, met on 13th May 1775 to proceed to settle
the boundaries of the ground where the great factory was going to be built,
about 19 “fanegas” (about 35
acres ). They came into an agreement on the
boundaries right enough, but they also wrote down other important conditions,
such as sharing the water from the Gollizo stream, so that the countrymen could
water their plots whenever needed. This item would prove to be a source of
conflicts and problems, as we shall see later.
We can say up to 1777 there was a good
relationship and harmony between Alcaraz and Graubner, but in this same year
there begun a series of conflicts and misunderstandings between the two
parts, putting in danger the general goal of the factory and even the future of
the workers, who did not get their salaries on due time. The situation was so
unbearable that the Supreme Council had to intervene in a couple of occasions
On December 1777 Graubner sent a long
letter to Alcaraz Council, complaining for being criticized and questioned about
his integrity and honesty, and on 9th March the following year,
Juan Jorge Graubner sent a letter to the Supreme Counsel , suggesting an
11 points proposal to solve the problems. Of course, the Memorial was
rejected for both Alcaraz and Supreme Counsel.
From the beginning of 1779 to middle of
1785 the Royal Factories are going to see a time of great activity, the
greatest of the decade they were under the Supreme Council supervision; for the
first time the Royal Factories disposed of a sufficient income source and a
more rational financial administration, all under the supervision of the
Supreme Counsel. During these years all the main infrastructure was concluded.
But from 1782 onwards up to 1785 the crisis became unbearable due mainly to an
epidemic of “tercianas” ( a sort of malaria) which took a high toll among the
inhabitants of Riopar and the factory workers. Other reason was the shortness
of money due to the suspension of the 1 % from “propios” subsidy granted since
1779.
The Marquis of Campomanes structured a
plan to save the Royal Factory from the disaster it was heading, mainly based
on a practical administration and the state intervention. He drafted an 11
items document where he tried to convince the bourgeoisie and the investors in
general that with this “Provisional Regulations” The Royal Factory could reach
high standards of productivity in a very short time. So, the Royal Law of 14th August
1785 placed the Royal Factory of San Juan under the jurisdiction of the
Chancellor of Exchequer, explicitly forbidden the intervention of the Castilian
Counsel or any other higher organism. We can state that from that Royal Law The
Royal Factory ended as a Joint Company to become a true state company.
State Company (
1785-1800)
The new financial and administrative
policies gave the Royal Factory a much needed stability, and this fact speeded
the productivity mainly focused on the production of brass ingots, and from
1789, brass sheets to protect the ships´ keels of the Marine Ministry.
To organize the selling and trading of
the factory production, Juan Jorge Graubner started a long trip to
Valencia, Barcelona, San Sebastian and Zaragoza, establishing commercial
relationships and setting up stores to sell and distribute the products, as
well as to visit other metallurgical establishments to share production
techniques and new advances. And he could see firsthand how the Royal Factories
of San Juan de Alcaraz, regarding modernity of installations and production
value, were at the top of all of them. The Royal Factories were, truly,
pioneers of the metallurgical industry inSpain
By 1791 The Royal factories of San Juan
de Alcaraz were supplying brass in different formats to stores in Madrid Valencia Seville Barcelona Cartagena
Product Amount
Worth in reales de vellón
Brass ingots
3.332
arrobas
Brass plates
327 arrobas
70.360.-
Brass threads
230 arrobas
50.455.-
Cupper plates for ships
950 arrobas
148.575.-
Cupper plates for general
Use in the workshops
316 arrobas
55.940.-
Cupper Rosetta
509 arrobas
58.090.-
Cupper threads
18 arrobas
4.270.-
Zinc
The commercial strategies of the Royal
Factories during the state company stage were based on the existing monopoly.
The fact of being the only one existing brass factory in Spain
But again, the Independence War of 1808
initiated a new crisis which ended on 31rst December 1828, when the Royal
Factory of San Juan de Alcaraz was passed over to Doña Josefa Fernández de
Folgueira.
Limited Company
(1828-1986)
By the Royal Order of 13 December 1828,
the State gave away The Royal factory of San
Juan Manila Filipinas Islands
This lady and her husband, Don Manuel
Bernaldez Pizarro, associated with Rafael de Rhodas, spending huge amounts of
money, gave a new life to the Factory, which became a metallurgical
establishment of the best of its kind in Europe 4
miles , starting at 1.130
meters and carrying the water down to 1.023,
where it descended quickly to two pools of 12.000 and 14.000
cubic meters , situated at 1.005
meters . From there the water would move all the water
wheels of San
Carlos San
Juan
On 1rst August 1846 the new Compañía
Metalurgica de San Juan de Alcaraz came to life, the very same that
has survived almost up to our recent days, with little variation about the
composition of the share holders, among others : Don Miguel Sofront, Don
Mamerto de Oleaga, Doña Rosa Grandmaison de Saiglan Bagneres, Doña Josefa
Fernández Foljeras, Don Luis Augusto Deseado Dejardin, Don Luis Potestad, Don
Francisco Argüelles, Don Manuel de Seijas Lozano, The Count of Retamosa., and
Don Juan Bravo Murillo, who once became President of the Company.
By 21rst October 1869, the War Ministry
made a call to the national industry to prepare for the fabrication of metallic
shells, offering a supplying contract in exclusive. La
Compañía Metalúrgica San Juan England La
Compañía
After the death of Mr. Pérez de Seoane,
Count of Valle and the biggest share holder of the company, all his shares
passed over to Manrique de Lara, but he badly managed the company and it came
into crisis, being bought, finally, by the Banco Hipotecario in 1913. Later,
Don Silverio Fernández, Marquis of Campoameno bought it in public auction, and
passed it over to Don Pantaleon García Ovies, who inscribed and registered it
with the name of Industrial Metalúrgica de San Juan de Alcaraz,
S.A., in 1933.
He managed the Industrial up to 1936
when the Spanish Civil War broke out and had to hide in Alicante
Juan Jorge Graubner died in 1801 and he
saw his dream partially fulfilled. He knew the beginning of a factory
pioneering new technologies and new machines, producing brass out of calamine
in different formats, as he had promised the King Charles III. He also
fulfilled his compromise to teach his trade to many native folks. The employees
of the Royal Factories first, of the Company later and of la
Industrial Madrid Albacete Valencia
Today the buildings of the Royal
Factories of San Juan are crumbling down, deserted and menacing total ruin.
There is a museum in the lower wing of San Carlos, trying to light a little
spark in the hearts of those who visit it and might ask themselves how such a
cultural and industrial patrimony can be left forlorn and despised, say by the
national, regional or even local cultural authorities, including the
inhabitants of Riopar, who should unite efforts to fight for the beginning and
origins of their pure existence.
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