Schneider Square Traditional Cache

This area is known as Schneider Square and is home to the statue of Henry William Schneider. Henry Schneider is a descendant of a Swiss family that settled in England in 1750. Henry Schneider died in 1887 and the statue was later erected in 1891.

While on holiday in the Lake District in 1838 Henry Schneider met a minerals agent who introduced him to some ancient mine workings at Kirby. After seeing the mine workings Schneider decided that he would search for iron ore in the Furness area. In 1840 Schneider invested money in local land and properties with limited success.

Investment in iron smelting led to Schneider joining forces with James Ramsden to develop the local railways which led to the founding of the Furness Railway where the first section opened in 1846. He decided to enter a partnership with John Hannay to build furnaces in the town. In 1847 when the new furnaces at Barrow started smelting, the quantity of ore exported from Barrow was around 500,000 tons a year.

He was on the point of bankruptcy when he discovered the massive deposit at Burlington near Askam in 1851 which made Barrow a boom town. The Burlington mine was producing 250,000 tons of ore a year for a 40 year period which provided a huge investment in industry for Barrow.



Schneider and Ramsden later merged their iron ore businesses to form the Barrow Haematite Iron and Steel Company. In 1859 they invested in building furnaces which became the largest Bessemer process steelworks in the world, employing more than 5000 workers.

This is a magnetic Nano so don't forget to bring a whiting implement.