Selection of 50 from the 94 laws created by Sir Ambrose Crowley and his son John in the early eighteenth century for the governing of their ironworks, probably the largest in Europe in their day. They 'anticipated by many generations the patriachal industrialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'. Presented in the following sections: the laws and their enforcement, the organization of the factory (administration, finance and accounting, duties of officers and clerks, the handling and processing of iron, the workmen) and welfare (welfare services and the finance of poor relief). Unique in providing a detailed contemporary description of the industrial and social organization of an unusual community. Includes glossary. Economic and social history, 17c.