British timber trade facts for kids

The British timber trade was all about Great Britain buying timber from other countries. At first, they got a lot of wood from the Baltic region, and later, from North America.

Long ago, during the Middle Ages and the Stuart period, Great Britain had plenty of its own timber. Famous British oak trees were especially important. This wood was used for many things, like building ships. However, iron smelting (making iron) used charcoal from wood, not raw timber.

Why Britain Needed Imported Timber

Even before the industrial revolution, wood in England became more and more expensive. It was getting harder to find enough timber at home. Because of this, many industries had to find other materials. As the Industrial Revolution grew, coal replaced wood as a fuel, and brick replaced wood for building houses.

It took a long time, though, before iron could replace wood for building ships. By the 1700s, England still had some good hardwood, but it started importing softer woods, just like the Netherlands. While every country has trees, finding the right kind of wood for ships was much harder. The best woods were oak and Scots pine. It was especially tough to find trees big enough for masts, which are crucial for sailing ships. Masts often needed replacing after storms. Since large trees take many decades to grow, land in crowded countries like England was usually better used for growing food instead of trees.

So, timber became a good business only in places with lots of space and not many people, like Scandinavia, the Baltic Sea area, and North America. The Baltic countries, especially Norway, also had better sawmills and often lower transport costs than moving timber long distances over land. By the late 1600s, British ships were using more and more timber imported from the Baltic.

Worries About the Timber Trade

British leaders had two main concerns about buying timber from the Baltic region.

Money Worries

First, there was an economic problem. Britain bought a lot more from the Baltic countries than it sold to them. This meant Britain had a large trade deficit with the whole Baltic region. Britain needed many important resources from the Baltic, but it didn't have enough goods to sell back to make up the difference. So, Britain had to pay for the extra goods with bullion (gold or silver). This made the economists of the time, who believed in mercantilism (an idea that a country should export more than it imports to get rich), very unhappy.

Unlike trade with places like India, where Britain could re-sell goods to other European countries, Baltic goods were mostly used only in Britain. Most people in the late 1600s saw the Baltic timber trade as a necessary cost for defending the country. However, some economists felt better knowing that the timber was used to build merchant ships, which would later help bring more gold into the country.

Another concern was that foreign ships, not British ones, mostly controlled the Baltic timber trade. The Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660 tried to fix this by stopping the Dutch from trading with Britain in the Baltic. But these acts still allowed Baltic countries to use their own ships to bring timber to Britain. Mostly, Danes, Swedes, and Germans took over this trade because British merchants didn't think it was profitable enough. This was because one ship full of British goods could buy seventy loads of timber. So, most British ships going to the Baltic were empty, which was very inefficient. British merchants could make more money by using their ships for colonial trade or carrying manufactured goods.

Military Worries

These money problems were made worse by a military and strategic issue. British leaders in the late 1600s were very worried about relying on Baltic timber because of the dangers. The Baltic timber trade was extremely important for the military, but it was also very risky.

Besides timber from Norway, most timber ships had to pass through the Sound. This is a narrow strait between Denmark and Sweden. Enemy navies, especially the Dutch (who were well-placed geographically), could easily block this passage. The French could also cause problems. The rise of Sweden in the 1690s also worried Britain. Sweden was becoming a powerful country and had high taxes on British imports. Sweden's empire was also growing, taking over Livonia and Pomerania, which were important sources of timber. Because of these threats, especially during the Anglo-Dutch wars, British leaders and merchants started looking for other places to get timber.

Changes in Trade Rules

Even though merchants wanted rules to control the Baltic timber trade, nothing much happened until 1704, when Britain's safety was truly at risk. This big threat came during the War of the Spanish Succession, which some call the first global war. Only then did the British parliament try to stop Britain from relying so much on Baltic timber.

The only other good place to get timber was North America, especially New England, which had huge amounts of suitable wood. The main problems were that the colonies didn't have good ways to transport the timber, and it cost much more to ship it all the way to Britain. Starting in 1704, Britain tried to encourage the use of colonial timber. They offered money (bounties) to North American producers and made rules that colonial timber could only be sent to England. However, these efforts didn't work very well. Both the navy and merchant ships still depended on Baltic timber. Baltic timber was still about one-third the price of timber from North America. After the War of the Spanish Succession ended, the danger to Britain's timber supplies went away. Even though many people still wanted more protection for British trade, nothing more was done for the next hundred years.

Throughout the 1700s, Britain's navy was the strongest in the North Sea. But Britain's trade position still wasn't good. Most of the time, Britain still bought more than it sold from the Baltic region. Even though economists thought this was bad, no major steps were taken to stop it. The old laws from Queen Anne's time were still in place, but everyone knew they didn't really stop the reliance on Baltic timber.

During this time, more economic problems with the trade appeared. The American colonies still sent very little timber to England. Only huge masts were worth the high cost of the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean. So, instead of sending timber to Britain, New England was building its own ships. These colonial ships were often cheaper and better quality than those made in Britain. This went against the ideas of mercantilism, which said that colonies shouldn't manufacture goods that competed with the home country. However, Parliament didn't listen to shipbuilders, merchants, or colonial timber producers who wanted to end competition from the Baltic. It would take pressure from the navy again to bring in new trade rules.

New Trade Restrictions

The next big attempt to stop Britain's reliance on Baltic timber happened during another major European war with lots of naval battles. The Napoleonic Wars brought back fears that Britain's Baltic timber supply could be cut off. Denmark and the straits, like the rest of Europe, were under Napoleon's control. Many other timber ports in the Baltic were threatened by Napoleon's Continental System (a blockade against British trade).

So, the British government made a stronger effort than ever before to reduce its dependence on Baltic timber. From 1795 onwards, taxes (tariffs) on foreign timber imports steadily increased. Finally, in 1807, a 275% tax was placed on all Baltic timber coming into Britain. This huge tax made timber from Canada cheaper than timber from the Baltic. Canadian timber exports to Britain more than tripled, from 27,000 loads in 1807 to 90,000 loads in 1809. Because timber was so bulky and needed so many ships, the transatlantic timber trade soon became Britain's largest, using a quarter of all British merchant ships. The old, large Baltic trade almost disappeared, with European wood only being used for luxury items.

After peace returned to Britain, the timber tariffs didn't last long. At first, they continued and even got stronger. But by 1820, timber became one of the first areas where free trade ideas were put into practice. This happened partly because powerful merchants wanted the old Baltic trade to return. However, the trading businesses with the colonies were even stronger. The much longer journey from British North America to Britain meant that many more ships and sailors were needed. The longer route not only meant more business but also a more profitable route for British merchants, especially since foreigners were still kept out by the Navigation Acts.

However, military experts didn't like Canadian timber. The long voyage lowered its quality, and it was much more likely to get dry rot, which was a big problem for the navy. A warship made of colonial wood often lasted only half as long as one made of Baltic wood.

Because timber was so important, a committee was formed in the House of Lords in 1820 to look at the timber trade. Led by Lord Lansdowne, the committee strongly supported lowering the taxes. This was seen as one of the first successes of free trade ideas in Britain. The taxes weren't completely removed, but they were lowered enough so that Baltic wood could compete with Canadian wood. These reductions were a rare example of laissez-faire (a policy of not interfering with the economy) in a time when most people still believed in mercantilism.

After the war, there was also a strong unwillingness to enforce the taxes that were in place. A lot of timber was smuggled into and out of Norway, and this was mostly ignored. Illegal exports of gold to pay for the trade were also overlooked. In 1824, the taxes were lowered even more when Britain started signing trade agreements with other countries. Out of the first ten such agreements, seven were with Baltic nations, covering all the main timber exporters except for Russia. These quick changes in Baltic trade policy, before free trade was common, were almost certainly because the navy didn't want to rely on Canadian timber now that trade with the Baltic was safe again.

Other Timber Sources

Looking for more timber was one reason for the First and Second Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826 and 1852). As a result, Burma had to give up some of its land. During the years that followed, timber was harvested using new methods. The British would cut the bark off trees and let them dry for about four years before cutting them down with the help of elephants. Dry wood was easier to cut and floated in water. So, the Irrawaddy River was used to transport the wood to sawmills near Rangoon.

Other sources of wood included Australia, which provided Jarrah and Karri wood. Some streets in London are still paved with Karri wood from Western Australia. But Jarrah wood is better at resisting water, making it more valuable than Karri for building ships.