Manuel Agustín Heredia Martínez (1786–1846)

Heredia was among the pioneers of the industrial revolution in southern Spain. He was an industrialist and entrepreneur who played a central role in the early industrial development of the region of Málaga.

Born in 1786 at Rabanera de Camaros in the Rioja region, at the age of 15 he went to Vélez-Málaga to work as a commercial clerk. He began his own business at the age of 22, trading in commodities such as wine and dried fruit from Málaga and Gibraltar and made great profits by exporting graphite. In 1813 he married Isabel Livermore Sallas, the daughter of a British merchant in Málaga. In 1826, Heredia founded a company with partners to establish La Concepción blast furnaces for smelting iron on the Rio Verde near Marbella – only the second to be built in Spain. Initial difficulties caused some partners to drop out but Heredia invested further and sought help from the military engineer Francisco Antonio Elorza. The ironworks became a success and soon employed 1,000 people. The furnaces smelted magnetite iron ore from Ojén with charcoal from the nearby forests, powered by two waterwheels. By 1828 Heredia was the main owner and began ironworks at La Constancia in Málaga to diversify in the iron trade. He was assisted by Elorza and the architect Tomás Cortés and brought skilled workers and equipment from Britain. Puddling furnaces used coal imported by sea from Britain and Asturias and the works produced rails, tools, machinery, and other products needed to develop Spanish infrastructure. By 1840 Heredia’s two connected ironworks employed around 2,500 people and he was among the wealthiest businessmen in Spain.

In the last years before his death in 1846, his other industrial interests included the San Andrés lead smelter at Adra, Almería, which he developed into a successful operation, two soap factories, a fleet of transatlantic merchant ships and a steamship service between Cádiz and Marseilles. His commercial interests included banking and insurance. He was also appointed senator for the province of Málaga. He was constructing a chemical works at La Constancia and investing in a modern textile factory, the Industria Malagueña, which opened the year after he died. An obituary called him ‘the first Spanish capitalist’.

The ironworks failed in the 1860s due to competition from the coke-fired iron and steelworks of the Basque region. Nevertheless, his initiatives laid the foundation for Málaga’s transformation into an industrial region.