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The loss of historical
references seems to be a fatal destiny which chases humanity.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.
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to visit us have lost the historical references that explain why this village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 and teach
the trades to other native craftsmen.
The Illustration came to
Spain
by the hand of the Bourbons and among other things, they took care to modernise
the national industry. They favoured the coming of new techniques and crafts,
and changed the old, obsolete factories for new models: The Royal Factories,
following the French model.
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
de San Idelfonso and of tapestry in Santa
Barbara are a good example. But they also created
other factories to satisfy the need for strategic products, as the Royal
Factories of Liérganes and la
Cavada (iron foundry) or the Royal Maestranzas de Sevilla, Barcelona or Ripoll,
which supplied arms and gun powder. The Royal Factories of San Juan de Alcaraz
obey to this philosophy, for here it was to be produced brass sheets, much used
by the artisans and craftsmen in Spain and that it had to be imported from the
foundries of Gösler (Germany), England, Netherlands or even Sweden.
Thus, The Royal
factories of San Juan would become the first
foundry in Spain
able to produced brass in different formats, out of a calamine mine discovered
on the right margin of The Mundo River. Cinz could be obtained out of calamine,
which melted in the right proportions with cupper, a mineral also found nearby,
would yield brass, a metal very much used at the time for making many household
items, which were in great demand, as well as other items used in industries
and even the army...
© José Manuel Moreno Sánchez
