FISKARS 1649 – 360 years of Finnish industrial history

Fiskars 1649
Fiskars 1649
Share certificate
number 377, subscribed
for by Albert von Julin.
limited liability company was founded in 1883.
Operations were profitable until the turn of the
century, partly thanks to exports to Russia. When
the Åminnefors works was taken over by Fiskars
the company began to use a Siemens-Martin furnace
built in 1887, the third of its kind in Finland. In
the 1890s, 45% of the total output was exported. In
1890, Fiskars bought the Åminnefors rolling mill in
a bankruptcy sale. In 1891, two of the rolling mill’s
four puddling furnaces were fired by charcoal and
two by coal. There was a vertical steam boiler beside
each furnace working three steam hammers. A 40
hp turbine installed in 1886 powered the coarse and
the fine rollers. The rolling mill comprised two
welding furnaces and a brick-built outdoor kiln
for drying wood.
In 1891, a narrow-gauge railway was built
between Fiskars and the harbour at Pohjankuru
to simplify transportation. In 1894, 250 workers
were employed at the ironworks, and the entire
ironworks community comprised approximately
1,050 people. Between 1900 and 1905 profitability
dropped, but an upsurge in the general economic
situation saved the company. In 1906, Finland
acquired a new unicameral Parliament, elected
by equal, universal suffrage. The old class society
was thus dismantled. In 1914, the First World War
broke out.
The well-appointed Fiskars stand at an industrial exhibition in St Petersburg, 1870. The recently completed
Helsinki-St Petersburg railway line opened up excellent prospects for trade between Finland and Russia.
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