History of Madeley / including Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, and Coalport

by John Randall

The First Ironworks.—The Reynoldses.

The first ironworks were of course of a very humble description; the outcrop of the mines did not then determine the situation so much as the presence of a powerful stream which supplied a force to work the leathern bellows which blew the fires. The first Abraham Darby came to the Dale in 1709, and in 1713 the make was but from five to ten tons per week. In 1712 he used coal in smelting iron. He died at the Court House, Madeley, in 1717, and was succeeded by his son, the second Abraham Darby, who in 1760 is said to have laid the first rails of iron for carriages with axles having fixed wheels. The third Abraham Darby effected another great achievement, the casting and erecting the first iron bridge, for which he obtained the medal of the Society of Arts. The credit of having laid the first iron rails is claimed for Richard Reynolds, who succeeded the second Abraham Darby in the management of these works in 1763, and who, according to Sir Robert Stephenson, who examined the books of the works, cast six tons of iron rails for the use of the works in 1767. It was at these works, too, that the brothers Cranege anticipated Henry Cort by seventeen years by the discovery of the process of puddling in a reverberatory furnace, by the use of pit-coal, in 1766, under the management of Mr. Reynolds.

Mr. Reynolds also took a warm interest in the success and introduction of the steam engine, which he adopted in 1778. “For no one,” observes his daughter, “did he entertain sentiments of more affectionate esteem than for James Watt,” with whom, as well as with Wedgwood and Wilkinson, he was associated in several public movements of the time. Being a Friend he was opposed to war and refused Government orders for cannon; and he was stung to the quick when Pitt’s ministry proposed to lay a war tax upon coal. The country had been carrying on wars—wars everywhere, and with everybody, and to meet the lavish expenditure, the popular minister of the day, on whom Walpole tells us, “it rained gold boxes” for weeks running, “the pilot that weathered the storm,” sought to replenish the exchequer by a tax of 2s. per ton, to be paid on all coal without exception raised to the pit’s mouth. The iron-masters of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire, as well as those of other English and Scottish counties were alarmed; it was felt to be an important crisis in the history of the trade. Deputations and petitions were sent up, but the wily premier had so carefully yet quietly surrounded himself with facts, that he knew of every pound of iron made and of every ton of coal that was raised. Pitt received the gentlemen connected with the trade with the greatest freedom and affability; bowed them in and out; appointed hours and places to meet their convenience, and left them dumbfounded at his knowledge of details of their own business. Mr. Reynolds entered the field in opposition to the tax, gave evidence before the Privy Council, and by petitions to the House and letters to members of the Cabinet, materially aided in defeating the attempt. The gravity of the occasion is, perhaps, even more evident to us, on whom the advantages of a cheap and plentiful supply of iron have fallen. We can better measure the consequences that must have followed. A tax upon coal at that period would have paralysed the trade, checked its development in this country, and thrown into the lap of others benefits we ourselves have derived; would have disendowed the island of advantages in which it is peculiarly rich,—upon which it is mainly dependent for its wealth, its progress, and its civilization. A tax upon coal would have been a tax upon iron, upon the manufacture of iron, upon its consumption, and its use in the arts and manufactures of the kingdom,—a tax upon spinning, weaving, and printing,—a tax upon the genius of Watt and Arkwright, whose improvements it would have thrown back and thwarted,—upon the extension of commerce at home and abroad. The immense advantages possessed by the manufacturers of the New World would then have given them the lead in a race in which, even now, it is as much as we can do to keep up. Our energies, just at a time when the iron nerves of England were put to their greatest strain, would have been paralysed, and we should have been deprived of our railways, our locomotives, our steam-fleets, and much of our commerce, and prosperity. Mr. Reynolds saw the evil in prospective, and in a letter to Earl Gower, President of the Council, dated the 7th month, 1784, takes a very just review of the past history of the trade and the improvements then about to be adopted. He says:—

“The advancement of the iron trade within these few years have been prodigious; it was thought, and justly, that the making of pig iron with pit coal was a great acquisition to the nation by saving the woods and supplying a material to manufactories, the make of which, by the consumption of all the wood the country produced, was unequal to the demand; and the nail trade, perhaps the most considerable of any one article of manufactured iron, would have been lost to this country, had it not been found practicable to make nails of iron made with pit coal; and it is for that purpose we have made, or rather are making, the alterations at Donnington-Wood, Ketley, &c., which we expect to complete in the present year, but not at a less expense than twenty thousand pounds, which will be lost to us and gained by nobody if this tax is laid on our coals. The only chance we have of making iron as cheap as it can be imported from Russia, is the low price of our fuel, and unless we can do that there will not be consumption equal to half the quantity that can be made, and when we consider how many people are employed on a ton of iron, and the several trades dependent thereupon, we shall be convinced the Revenue is much more benefited even by the consumption of excisable articles, &c., than by the duty on a ton of foreign iron; nor will it, I believe, escape observation that the iron trade, so fatally affected by this absurd tax, is only of the second, if indeed, on some account, it is not of the first importance to the nation. The preference I know is given, and I believe justly, as to the number of hands employed, to the woollen manufactory; but when it is remembered that all that is produced by making of iron with pit coal is absolutely so much gained to the nation, and which, without its being so applied, would be perfectly useless, it will evince its superior importance, for the land grazed by sheep might be converted with whatever loss to other purposes of agriculture or pasturage; but coal and iron stone have no value in their natural state, produce nothing till they are consumed or manufactured, and a tax upon coal, which, as I said, is the only article that in any degree compensates for our high price of labour, &c., or can be substituted in the stead of water for our wheels, and bellows, would entirely ruin this very populous country, and throw its labouring poor upon the parishes, till the emigration of those of them who are able to work shall strengthen our opponents, and leave the desolated wastes, at present occupied by their cottages, to the lords of the soil.”

In the year following (1785) the interests of the iron trade were again considered to be endangered from commercial arrangements proposed by the Irish House of Commons for the consideration of Parliament. Mr. Reynolds, Messrs. Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood, Wilkinson, and others, united in forming an association for the protection of the trade, under the title of “The United Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain.” The Shropshire iron and coal masters petitioned the House, and Mr. Reynolds again wielded the pen in defence of the trade. We extract sufficient to show the extent of the works. He says, addressing Earl Gower, under date 28th of the third month, 1785,—

“We solicit thy effectual interposition against a measure so injurious to us and to the many hundreds of poor people employed by us in working and carrying on mines, &c., for the supply of a large sale of coals by land and water, and of coals and mine for sixteen fire-engines, eight blast furnaces, and nine forges, besides the air furnaces, mills, &c., at the foundry at Coalbrookdale, and which, with the levels, roads, and more than twenty miles of railways, &c., still employs a capital of upwards of £100,000, though the declension of our trade has, as stated in a former letter, obliged us to stop two blast furnaces, which are not included in the number before mentioned. Nor have we ever considered ourselves as the first of many others employed in iron or coal works in this kingdom.”

We have considered the subject of our present sketch chiefly under one aspect only—as a man of action—and that mainly in connection with the iron trade, and in providing against those reverses to which not only that but other branches of industry were peculiarly liable, more particularly during the latter end of the last and the commencement of the present centuries. Mr. Reynolds, however, has claims no less distinguished under a classification beneath which is frequently found another division of human benefactors. He was not only a man of action—great in dealing with things tangible,—but he was a man of thought and of genius—as quick to devise and to plan as to execute. What is still more rare, he possessed those qualities in proportions so finely balanced, that their happy combination, during a long and active life, gave birth to schemes of noble enterprise, valuable to the district, and important to the nation. That which merited, from vulgar shortsightedness, the epithet of eccentricity, a state of deep and penetrating thought, was oftentimes the conceiving energy of a vigorous mind mastering in the mental laboratory of the brain, plans and schemes of which the noblest movements of the day are the just and legitimate offspring. The schemes he inaugurated were victories won, the improvements he effected were triumphs gained to the nation or for humanity.

That quality of mind which too often runs waste or evaporates in wild impracticable ideality, with him found an object of utility on which to alight, and under the magic of a more than ordinary genius difficulties disappeared, formidable obstacles melted into air, and the useful and the true were fused into one. He never felt the fluttering of a noble thought but he held it by the skirts, and made it do duty in this work-day world of ours, if it had relation to the tangible realities of time. “Though I do not adopt,” he writes to a friend, “all the notions of Swedenbourg, I have believed that the spiritual world is nearer to us than many suppose, and that our communication with it would be more frequent than many of us experience, did we attain to that degree of purity of heart and abstraction from worldly thoughts and tempers which qualify for such communion or intercourse.” He was not a man whose soul ran dry in solitude, or that grew melancholy the moment the click of money-making machinery no longer sounded in his ears. He was one of the old iron-kings, ’tis true, but with a soul in harmony with the silvery music of the universe. Often with no companion but his pipe, he retired to some retreat, consecrated perhaps by many a happy thought, and watched the declining sun, bathing in liquid glory the Ercall woods, the majestic Wrekin, the Briedden hills, and the still more distant Cader Idris. A deep vein of genuine religious feeling often appeared upon the surface, and seemed to penetrate reflections of the kind. Speaking of a new arbour he had made, be says—

“From thence I have seen three or four as fine sunsets as I at any time have seen, and if the gradual going down, and last, last twinkle of the once radiant orb, the instant when it was, and was not, to be seen—made me think of that awful moment when the last sigh consigns the departing soul to different if not distant scenes, the glorious effulgence gilding the western horizon with inimitable magnificence, naturally suggested the idea of celestial splendour, and inspired the wish that (through the assistance of His grace) a faithful obedience to the requirings of our great Maker and Master, may in that solemn season justify the hope of my being admitted into that city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”

The Wrekin was a favourite object; to its summit he made his annual pilgrimage, together with his family, his Dale relations, his clerks, and most of the members of the little Society of Friends. The following bit of landscape painting betrays a master hand, and is so faithful in itself, depicting no less the features of the country than the genius of his mind, that we incorporate it with our present sketch:—

“We went upon the Wrekin,” he writes, “sooner than usual this year, that my children might partake of the pleasure. The weather was pleasant, though rather windy. From the top of that hill the prospect is so rich, so extensive, so various, that, considered as a landscape only, it beggars all description; and yet I cannot forbear, as thou desirest it, mentioning the tufted trees in the adjoining woods, upon which, occasioned perhaps by the uncommonness of the scene, I always look down with a particular pleasure, as well as survey those more distant, which are interspersed among the corn and meadows, contrasted with the new-ploughed fallow-grounds and pastures with cattle; the towns and villages, gentlemen’s seats, farm-houses, enrich and diversify the prospect, whilst the various companies of harvest men in the different farms within view enliven the scene. Nor are the rivers that glitter among the laughing meadows, or the stupendous mountains which, though distant, appear awfully dreary without their effect considered part of the landscape only. But not to confine the entertainment to visual enjoyment, what an intellectual feast does the prospect from that hill afford when beheld, ‘or with the curious or pious eye.’ Is not infinite power exerted, and infinite goodness displayed, in the various as well as plentiful provision for our several wants. Should not the consideration expand over hearts with desires to contribute to the relief of those whose indigence, excluding them from an equal participation of the general feast, is for a trial of their faith and patience and of our gratitude and obedience! Whilst with an appropriation of sentiment which receives propriety from the consciousness of our unworthiness, we substitute a particular for the general exclamation of humble admiration, in the word of the psalmist—‘Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou (thus) visitest him?’ The romantic scenes of Benthall Edge,—its rocks and precipices, its sides and top covered with wood; the navigable Severn, in which its feet are immersed; the populousness of the opposite shore; the motion, noise, and life on the river; the adjoining wharves and manufactories, are capable of affording a high entertainment, and I should willingly devote one day in the year to a repetition of the enjoyments of the pleasures I have heretofore received from them: though equally near, and equally desirable, a jaunt to Benthall Edge is not equally facile with one to the Wrekin. It seems more out of my province.”

Our readers, ere this, must have discovered a power of description, a grace and polish, blended with a masculine force of thought, in the correspondence of Mr. Reynolds, of a more than common order; and would still more, could we feel at liberty to quote more copiously from numerous letters to his friends. If we follow him more closely into private life, and lift the veil that too often hides a dualism of character from the unsuspicious public eye, we find the sterling elements of the gentleman and the Christian.

Take the experience of the past as recorded, or the traditions of the present, as found among a generation second in remove from Richard Reynolds’s time, and they bring out into relief still more striking traits of character, that do honour to our common nature. The guiding principle of his life, in all cases of bargain and of sale, Mrs. Rathbone tells us, were in accordance with the old adage—“Live and let live;” and as an instance of the consistency with which he acted up to his motto she adds that, at the breaking out of the American war, when bar-iron rose to an extravagant price, and the makers of pig-iron could obtain their own terms, instead of taking an unreasonable advantage of the opportunity, he proposed to his customers that it should be left to one of themselves to name a fair price for pig-iron in the then state of the trade, and to determine the scale of proportionate reduction which should take place when the price of bar-iron should fall, as he foresaw that it would follow the then great and unsatisfied demand. The proposal was accepted, and by the scale which was then fixed his conduct was governed.

Order and punctuality were exemplified in his dealings. “A place for everything and everything in its place”—a maxim for which he confessed his obligation to De Witt—was not only his rule, but was painted in large characters in the kitchen, over the fireplace, for the benefit of the servants. The appellation “honest,” given to his father, was a term equally applicable to the son, who at the outset and in after life made it a rule to regulate his affairs by that principle of prudence and of equity.

He yielded to every man his own, not only as concerned demands upon his purse, but in what are usually deemed small matters, such as those of respect which one man owes to another. He would follow a poor person to his or her home to apologise if he had spoken warmly or unbecomingly in the heat of temper. It was painful, his granddaughter tells us, for him to see waste. “I cannot bear to see sweeping on the ground that which would clothe a poor shivering child” was his remark made respecting the long dresses of the time.

Mrs. Rathbone, in her memoir, says:—

“My grandfather had great respect and regard for a very amiable and excellent minister of the Gospel, who lived in his neighbourhood, the Rev. Joshua Gilpin; and it was mainly through his exertions and personal interest that Mr. Gilpin was presented to the living of Wrockwardine. He also enjoyed the acquaintance of many scientific and well-informed men. His manners, as a host, were courteous and dignified, and his conversation, when he was perfectly at ease, animated, and often diversified with a quaint wit and humorous satire. His fine countenance beamed with intelligence and kindness; his eyes were piercing, and were remarkable for the brightness which seemed literally to flash from them under strong emotion. It was something almost fearful to meet their glance in anger or indignation, whilst equally striking was their beautiful expression under the excitement of admiration or affection.”

In the short sketch we gave of Mr. Reynolds in the “Severn Valley,” we said, “the stamp of heaven’s nobility was visible in his face, and the free and open features with which nature had endowed his person were not dwarfed by the uniform look and expression sometimes demanded by sects. Eyes of liquid blue, full-orbed, gave back the azure tint of heaven, and lighted up a manly face, fair and ruddy. To these indications of a Saxon type were added others, such as light brown hair, that in flowing curls fell upon the shoulders of a tall and full-developed figure.”

The portrait we have hereafter described was obtained with some difficulty, as Mr. Reynolds refused for a long time to concede to the wishes of his friends on the subject; and the first attempt made was by a miniature-painter, who made a sketch from the garden as he sat reading by candle-light. This was not successful, and a second attempt, made as he sat at meeting, being no better, he was induced to sit to Mr. Hobday. The books shown in the background were favourites of his, and they are arranged in the order in which he regarded them.

In a letter to his son, dated 8th of 12th month, 1808, he says:—

“John Birtell has paid £48 4s. 7d. for the pictures, frames and cases, which should be repaid to him. I understood from S. A. it was thy wish to make thy sister a present of one of them, and in that case please to remit the amount to John Birtell; if she (S. A.) is mistaken, remit the money to J. B. nevertheless, and I will repay thee the half of it; but I insist upon one condition both from thee and thy sister: that as long as I live, the pictures be nowhere but in your bed-chambers. The first was begun without my knowledge, and indirect means used to accomplish it; at length I was candidly told it was determined to have it, and when I saw what was done, I thought it better to sit for the finishing than to have it a mere caricature; but I think it a very moderate performance at last. I was willing too, to avail myself of the opportunity, if such a one must be presented, of exhibiting my belief of Christianity as exhibited in the 5th chapter of the Romans; and my estimation of certain authors, by affixing their names to the books delineated in the back ground.”

In reference to this subject (his portrait), some twelve months after, in a letter to his son, he says:—

“This reminds me to mention what I intended to have mentioned before; that is, an alteration I propose to be made in the one here, and if this could be done in the others, I should like it; and which, I suppose, would be best effected by obliterating the books, and arranging them differently, according to the estimation in which their writings or character may be supposed to be held; with the addition of Kempis and Fenelon, not only for their intrinsic merits, but to show that our good opinion was not confined to our own countrymen. They would then stand thus:—

“Fox and Penn.
Woolman and Clarkson.
Hanway and Howard.
Milton and Cowper.
Addison and Watts.
Barclay and Locke.
Sir W. Jones and Sir W. Blackstone.
Kempis and Fenelon.

“I do not know whether I gave thee my reasons, as I did to thy sister, for the original selection. She may shew thee my letter to her, and thou may communicate the above to her, with my dear love to all, repeated from

“Thy affectionate father,
“Richard Reynolds.”

It was the custom when Mr. Reynolds had charge of the Coalbrookdale works to perform long journeys on horseback, and we have heard it said that on one occasion, being mounted on the back of an old trooper, near Windsor, where George III. was reviewing some troops, the horse, on hearing martial music, pricked up his ears, and carried Mr. Reynolds into the midst of them before he could be reined up. He was a good horseman, and a grandson of Mr. Reynolds writes:—

“We also enjoyed very much our grandfather’s account of a visit paid to the Ketley Iron Works by Lord Thurlow, the then Lord Chancellor. My grandfather, having gone through the works with his lordship, and given him all requisite information and needful refreshment, proposed to accompany him part of the way on his return, which offer his lordship gratefully accepted, and the horses were ordered to the door accordingly. They were, both of them, good riders, and were, both of them, well mounted. The Lord Chancellor’s horse, no doubt a little instigated thereto by his owner, took the lead, and my grandfather’s horse, nothing loth to follow the example, kept as nearly neck and neck with his rival as his owner considered respectful. The speed was alternately increased, until they found themselves getting on at a very dashing pace indeed! and they became aware that the steeds were as nearly matched as possible. At last, the Chancellor pulled up, and complimenting my grandfather upon his ‘very fine horse’ confessed that he had never expected to meet with one who could trot so fast as his own. My grandfather acknowledged to a similar impression on his part; and his lordship, heartily shaking hands with him, and thanking him for his great attention, laughed, and said, ‘I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is probably the first time that ever a Lord Chancellor and a Quaker rode a race together.’”

The years 1774, 1782, and 1796 were periods of great distress. Haggard hunger, despairing wretchedness, and ignorant force were banded to trample down the safeguards of civil right, and armed ruffians took the initiative in scrambles for food. The gravity of the occasion, in the latter case, may be estimated by the subscriptions for the purchase of food for the starving population. We give those of the iron companies of this district only: Messrs. Bishton and Co. gave £1,500; Mr. Botfield, for the Old Park Company, £1,500; Mr. Joseph Reynolds, for the Ketley Company, £2,000; Mr. R. Dearman, for the Coalbrookdale Company, £1,500; Mr. William Reynolds, for the Madeley-Wood Company, £1000. Mr. Richard Reynolds gave £500 as his individual subscription. Applications, in times of distress, from far and near were made to Mr. Reynolds for assistance. Taking a general view of the distress existing in the beginning of the year 1811, he says, in reply to a letter from a clergyman, “I am thankful I am not altogether without sympathy with my fellow-men, or compassion for the sufferings to which the want of employment subjects the poor, or the sufferings still more severe of some of their former employers. Thou mentions Rochdale, Bolton, Leeds, and Halifax. Wilt thou apply the enclosed towards the relief of some of them, at thy discretion? Those who want it most and deserve it best should have the preference,—the aged, honest, sober, and industrious. I am sensible how limited the benefits from such a sum in so populous a district must be, and of the difficulty of personal investigation before distribution. If it could be made subservient to the procuring an extensive contribution it would be of more important service. If it cannot I think it would be best to commit it to some judicious person or persons in each place, to distribute with the utmost privacy, and (that) for their own sakes, were it only to avoid applications from more than they could supply, and yet the refusal would subject them to abuse. But in whatever manner thou shalt dispose of it, I send it upon the express condition that nobody living knows thou ever had it from me; this is matter of conscience with me. In places where we are known, and on public occasions, when one’s example would have an influence, it may be as much a duty to give up one’s name as one’s money; but otherwise I think we cannot too strictly follow the injunction:—‘Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.’”

If some poor tradesman in London or elsewhere was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, and a friend was found to write to Richard Reynolds, he was put upon his legs again. Poor debtors found themselves relieved from the King’s Bench by an unknown hand. Unwilling to be known as the giver of large sums, he would sometimes forward his subscriptions with his name, and send a larger contribution anonymously afterwards. In this way he gave a sum in his own name on behalf of the distress in Germany, and then forwarded a further sum of £500 privately. For years he had almoners in London and elsewhere, dispensing sums to meet distress, and on behalf of public and private charities, scrupulously enacting that his name should not appear in the transactions. To one party he sent £20,000 during the distress of 1795. He had four distributors of his bounty constantly employed in Bristol alone. They brought in their accounts weekly, giving the names of persons or families, the sums given, and the circumstances under which they were relieved. Not the least to be appreciated was the consideration and delicacy with which he assisted persons not ostensibly objects of charity (to use the word in its common sense) and many who, through relationship, personal interest, or estimable conduct were felt to have claims on his kindness and generosity.

He solicited in Bristol subscriptions on a large scale for augmenting the fund for the payment of a weekly sum to the inhabitants of the almshouses, going from house to house,—his own zeal kindling that of others. One gentleman to whom he applied, of acknowledged wealth and importance in the city, having given him a cheque for £500, he said he would give him back the cheque, as such a sum from him would do more harm than good. The gentleman immediately wrote another for £1000. He himself gave £2000 (one of his friends says £4000), and £4000 to the Trinity almshouses. In 1808 he placed in the hands of the trustees the sum of £10,500 to be invested in land, the rent of which was to be devoted to seven charitable institutions in Bristol, named in the deed and trust, in such manner and proportion, either to one alone, or between any, as should at the time appear expedient to the trustees. An addition to the infirmary being needed, he devoted much of his time to that object, subscribing £2,600. The committee also received an anonymous donation of £1000, entertaining no doubt who was the giver; and on the following day one of their number happening to meet Richard Reynolds, thanked him in the name of the committee for his acceptable donation. He said—“Thou hast no authority for saying I sent the money,” and the gentleman repeating the acknowledgment of the committee, Mr. Reynolds quietly said—“Well, I see thou art determined that I should give thee a thousand pounds,” and the next day they received a donation of that sum with his name attached, thus doubling his first contribution. To these gifts may be added (besides his annual subscription) donations:—£1,260 to the Stranger’s Friend; £900 to the Misericordia; £500 to the Refuge, and the same to the Orphan Asylum; and to the Bible Society, £900. Of several other small amounts one need only be mentioned, from his purse,—that of £300 to the Temple parish, towards providing a better supply of water to the poor.

Mr. Reynolds’s last visit to Ketley, the scene of his labours, and the source of his vast income, was in June, 1816. His funeral took place on the 18th of September, amidst a manifestation of respect, as marked and profound as ever was paid to the remains of mortal man. The city of Bristol offered spontaneously to his memory that signal tribute of general regard that a name embalmed by good deeds alone can win. Columns of schoolboys, with mournful recollections of the good man’s smile, formed a melancholy passage to the dwelling of their benefactor. These were flanked by vast crowds of sympathising poor, who felt they had lost a friend. The clergy of the Church of England, ministers of dissenting congregations, gentlemen forming the committees of various societies, and other leading men, besides a large body of the Society of Friends, followed the several members and relatives of the family in procession. So great was public curiosity excited on this occasion, and such the eagerness manifested by the poor, who had lost their best friend, to pay their last respect to his remains, that not only was the spacious burial-ground filled with spectators and mourners, but the very tops of walls and houses surrounding the area were covered. The behaviour of the vast concourse of people was in the highest degree decent, orderly and respectful, the poor, considering it a favour to be permitted in their turn to approach the grave of their departed friend, and to drop the silent tear as a mark of their regard for the man whose life had been spent in doing good.

Montgomery, in verses from which we extract the following, paid a just tribute to his memory:

Strike a louder, loftier lyre;
Bolder, sweeter strains employ;
Wake remembrance! and inspire
Sorrow with the song of joy.

Who was he for whom our tears
Flowed, and will not cease to flow?
Full of honours and of years,
In the dust his head lies low.

. . . . . . .

He was one whose open face
Did his inmost heart reveal;
One who wore with meekest grace
On his forehead heaven’s broad seal.

Kindness all his looks express’d,
Charity was every word;
Him the eye beheld and bless’d,
And the ear rejoiced and heard.

Like a patriarchal sage,
Holy, humble, courteous, mild,
He could blend the awe of age
With the sweetness of a child.

. . . . . . .

Oft his silent spirit went,
Like an angel from the throne,
On benign commission bent,
In the fear of God alone.

Then the widow’s heart would sing,
As she turned her wheel, for joy;
Then the bliss of hope would spring
On the outcast orphan boy.

To the blind, the deaf, the lame,
To the ignorant and vile,
Stranger, captive, slave, he came,
With a welcome and a smile.

Help to all he did dispense.
Gold, instruction, raiment, food,
Like the gifts of Providence,
To the evil and the good.

Deeds of mercy, deeds unknown,
Shall eternity record,
Which he durst not call his own,
For he did them for the Lord.

As the earth puts forth her flowers,
Heaven-ward breathing from below;
As the clouds descend in showers,
When the southern breezes glow.

. . . . . . .

Full of faith, at length he died,
And victorious in the race,
Wore the crown for which he died,
Not of merit but of grace.

William Reynolds.

The father, Richard Reynolds, as will be seen from our sketch, managed to realize immense wealth at Ketley, and, what is more, to remain superior to the influence wealth too often has upon its possessor. The finer feelings of the man never succumbed to the vulgar circumstances of his position, but maintained their freshness, and graduated to maturity by the mastering force of a resolute will and a well-disciplined and highly enlightened mind. Never so completely absorbed in the arts and intricacies of money-making as to lose sight of higher and worthier aims, he sought an opportunity earlier than men in his circumstances usually do of enjoying the well-earned fruits of an active life; of indulging in that repose and retirement congenial to minds similarly constituted to his own. Accordingly, his shares in the works were turned over to his two sons, William and Joseph. William was the more distinguished of the two in carrying out improvements connected with the works. Like his father, he possessed an active mind, an elevated taste, and a desire for knowledge; to which were added a mechanical genius, and an aptitude for turning to account resources within his reach. He saw the necessity of uniting science with practice in developing the rich resources of the district; and that knowledge and discovery must keep pace with aptitude in their use.

“An equal appreciation of all parts of knowledge,” it was remarked by Humboldt, “is an especial requirement of an epoch in which the material wealth and the increasing prosperity of nations are in a great measure based on a more enlightened employment of natural products and forces. The most superficial glance at the present condition of European states shows that those which linger in the race cannot hope to escape the partial diminution, and perhaps the final annihilation, of their resources. It is with nations as with nature, which, according to a happy expression of Goethe, knows no pause in ever-increasing movement, development, and production—a curse, still cleaving to a standstill. Nothing but serious occupation with chemistry and physical and natural science can defend a state from the consequences of competition. Man can produce no effect upon nature, or appropriate her powers, unless he is conversant with her laws, and with their relations to material objects according to measures and numbers. And in this lies the power of popular intelligence, which rises or falls as it encourages or neglects this study. Science and information are the joy and justification of mankind. They form the spring of a nation’s wealth, being often indeed substitutes for those material riches which nature has in many cases distributed with so partial a hand. Those nations which remain behind in manufacturing activity, by neglecting the practical application of the mechanical arts, and of industrial chemistry, to the transmission, growth, or manufacture of raw materials—those nations amongst whom respect for such activity does not pervade all classes—must inevitably fall from prosperity they have attained; and this so much the more certainly and speedily as neighbouring states, instinct with the power of renovation, in which science and the arts of industry operate or lend each other mutual assistance, are seen pressing forward in the race.”

Upon this principle Mr. Reynolds placed himself under the teaching of Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, a gentleman who by his eminent ability and teaching did so much to inspire a love for the science in England during the latter part of the last century. He was thus enabled to bring the knowledge he possessed of elementary substances and of their peculiar qualities, gained in the laboratory, to bear upon the manufacture of iron in the furnace and the forge, and to anticipate some of the discoveries of later times.

Steel and iron have long been manufactured at Ulverstone, and the quality or fitness of the ore for the purpose is attributed to the presence of manganese in the ore, which since the establishment of railways has come into general use. In Mr. Reynolds’s time we imported large quantities of iron and steel; and ignorant of what constituted the difference between our own and that of foreign markets, had with some humiliation to confess our dependence. In no case had a uniform quality of bar-iron with the superior marks of Sweden and Russia been produced. A great variety of processes had been tried, and makers were not wanting who made laudable efforts for the accomplishment of the object, feeling that in so doing they devoted their time to the service of their country, and that in a national as well as a commercial point of view no experiments were fraught with more important consequences.

Mr. Reynolds thought he saw the solution of the problem how to produce metal equal to that made from the magnetic and richer ores of the Swedish and Siberian mines, when Bergman published his analysis of Swedish iron, showing the large percentage of manganese it contained. The analysis showed the following results:

Cast Iron.
	Parts.
Plumbago	2.20
Manganese	15.25
Silicious Earth	2.25
Iron	80.30
	100
Steel.
Plumbago	.50
Manganese	15.25
Silicious Earth	.60
Iron	83.65
	100
Bar-Iron.
Plumbago	.50
Manganese	15.25
Silicious Earth	1.75
Iron	84.78
	100

In order to effect a combination corresponding with this analysis of the French chemist he introduced manganese into the refinery during the re-smelting process, and succeeded in producing bar-iron capable of conversion into steel of better quality than had previously been made from coke-iron. From subsequent experiments the per-centage introduced of metallic manganese could be traced into bar-iron, the inference being that the purpose served was the additional supply of oxygen it gave to burn out the impurities—a result the Bessemer process has since attained in another way. When it is remembered that the end to be attained in these processes is to consume the impurities of the metal, and that those impurities are of such a nature as to unite with oxygen at a high temperature and form separate compounds, also that this boiling and bubbling up of the liquid metal was carefully watched and tended formerly, one can understand how near the iron-kings of a past age were to the Bessemer discovery of the present.

“The old men,” as they are frequently called in the works, appear to have had an inkling of the real nature of the process: The rising impurities and combination of opposite gases indicated by bubbles were called the “Soldier’s coming.” At any rate the Bessemer invention is an adaptation of a principle acted upon during the past century in the Shropshire ironworks. Mr. Reynolds’s patent was obtained December 6, 1799, and was stated to be for “preparing iron for the conversion thereof into steel.” In his specification he described his invention to consist in the employment of oxide of manganese in the conversion of pig-iron into malleable iron or steel, but did not enter into details as to the method he employed for carrying his invention into effect.

John Wilkinson obtained a patent January 23, 1801, for making “Pig or cast metal from ore, which when manufactured into bar-iron will be found equal in quality to any that is imported from Russia or Sweden.” The patentee states his invention to consist “in making use of manganese, or ores containing manganese, in addition to ironstone and other materials used in making iron, and in certain proportions, to be varied by the nature of such ironstone and other materials.”

Mr. Reynolds was not only a chemist, but a geologist. He succeeded in forming a collection of carboniferous fossils to which modern professors acknowledge their obligations, and which, with the additions made by Mr. William Anstice, Dean Buckland pronounced one of the finest in Europe. Other manufacturers, every day dealing with subterranean treasures that give iron in abundance, were as dwellers amid the ruins of some ancient city, taking down structures of the builders of which and of the history of which they were ignorant. With him minerals had an interest beyond their market value. Coal and ore from the dusky mine, raised at so much per ton, were not minerals merely, but materials prepared to his hand by Nature. He detected traces of that venerable dame’s cast-off garments in one; the others were fabrics, the result of processes as varied as his own, the produce of machinery more wonderful and powerful than that he was about to employ in converting them to the general uses and purposes of mankind. His pit-shafts to him were mere inlets to the deep storehouse of the globe where Providence had treasured means whereby to enrich future inhabitants of the surface. Geology as a science, ’tis true, was but beginning to shed its light on the cosmogony of the world; endeavours to make out a connected history of the earth from examinations of the structure itself were deemed strange; and the more intelligent of his contemporaries, who without hesitation adopted speculations daring and beyond the province of human intellect, looked coldly upon his labours. The old workmen to whom he offered premiums for the best specimens could not for the life of them make out the meaning of his morning visits to the mines, his constant inquiries respecting fossils, his frequent hammering at ironstone nodules, his looking inside them and loading his pockets with them—seeing that he did not confine attention to those that seemed likely to make good iron. Some considered it to be one of the good old Quaker’s eccentricities, and did not forget when he turned his back to point to their heads, intimating that “all was not right in his upper garrets.” Others, knowing that he sometimes used the blow-pipe and tried experiments in his laboratory, believed his aim to be to extract “goold,” as they said, from the stone—a supposition to which the presence of iron pyrites gave some degree of colouring. One fine morning, in particular, as flitting gleams of sunshine came down to brighten young green patches of copse and meadow, telling of returning spring, a group of his men were seated with bottle and tot, drinking the cuckoo’s foot-ale, when, “Here comes Measter William, here comes Old Broadbrim,” it was said, “with his pecker in his pocket, fatch the curiosities from the crit.” Mr. Reynolds was not very well pleased, for large orders were in the books unexecuted, and coal and ore could not be got fast enough. Every engine had its steam up; but not a beam-head or pulley creaked or stirred. One or two bands of workmen had gone down, but had come up again. The cuckoo’s voice that morning for the first time had been heard, and it was more potent than the master’s; for it was the custom, and had been from time immemorial, to drink his foot-ale, and to drink it out of doors; and the man was fined, who proposed to deviate from custom by drinking it in-doors. On May Day too it was the custom, as it now is, to gather boughs or sprigs of the birch, with its young and graceful fronds, and mount them on the engines, the pit heads, and cabins, and on the heads of horses, to proclaim the fact that we had entered upon the merry, merry month of May.

Mr. Reynolds was generally pleased with meeting his men, and would readily enter into their whims, and turn such interviews to account. By such means he often obtained from them a knowledge of their wants, and received hints and suggestions that aided him in carrying out improvements in the works. The same disruption of social ties did not then exist as now; that mutual relation that beautified the olden time, and gave men and master an interest in each others welfare existed. A master, then, was more like the chief of a tribe, the father of a family; he had generally sprung from the ranks, he felt himself to be of the same flesh and blood, removed only a little by circumstances, and bound by a community of interest. Money-making had not then been reduced to a science, nor men to machines. With some degree of pride the men laid their stony treasures at the master’s feet. There were amongst them what the colliers call millers’ thumbs, horses’ hoofs, snails’ houses, “shining scales,” “crucked screws,” “things-like-leaves, and rotten wood.” “You should have heard,” said an old sage, “Mr. Reynolds give a description of them, and have seen the effect upon his audience. If I remember rightly, millers’ thumbs were orthoceratites, shells—as the name implies—like horns, but not pointed, and having several air-chambers. Horses’ hoofs, were portions of others, coiled, and spiral—that could float on the water, sink to the bottom, or rise to the surface, by a peculiar mechanical apparatus—like the forcing pump of a steam engine. The shining scales, were scales of fish coated with armour, hard as flint, and furnished with carvers to cut up the smaller fry on which they fed.” He showed that the nodules of ironstone contained exact impressions of leaves and fruits that grew beneath the golden beams of a tropical sun; that the bits called rotten wood were really wood, showing the beautiful anatomy of the tree, that it had been water-worn by being carried down the dancing stream into the soft and yielding mud in which it ultimately sank and was preserved. Coal, he explained, was nothing more than the vegetation of former periods, which accumulated where it grew, or was swept down by rains or streams into beds where it was hermetically sealed, fermented, and converted into mineral fuel for future use. “Lord, sir,” said our informant, “you should have seen how they all stared. Flukey F’lyd, one of the butties of Whimsey pit, said he little thought they were working in the gutters, or grubbing in the mud-banks of slimy lakes of a former world; he had seen stems of trees and trunks in the roof, but he thought they had got there at the Flood, and turned to stone. Gambler Baugh, of the Sulphur pit, said he thought the coal had been put there at the creation, and was intended to be used to burn up the world at the last day; and that he sometimes considered it a wrong thing to get it, believing they ought to use wood, and concluded by inviting the Governor to ‘wet,’ as he said, ‘the other eye, by taking another tot.’ The company drank his health, his long life and happiness, and exclaimed—’who’d have thought it.’” “Aye, who would have thought it,” continued Mr. Reynolds, warming with his subject, “when the first iron mine was tapped that in the slime and mud of those early times, now hardened into stone lay coiled up a thousand conveniences of mankind; that in that ore lay concealed the steam-engines, the tramways, the popular and universal metal that in peace and war should keep pace with and contribute to the highest triumphs of the world.” Upon such occasions questions of improvement, invention, adaptation, &c., &c., would often be freely discussed, and we have it upon the authority of some of the old workmen that many of the achievements in engineering we applaud in the present day, were the result of such suggestions in part.

Nothing, in fact, was known about iron ore, iron making and machinery, but what he knew or else took steps to acquaint himself with, if he had the opportunity. We have a number of large foolscap MS. volumes of experiments and extracts neatly copied, with pen and ink drawings of machines, parts of machines, &c.; shewing that whilst Smeaton and Watt were engaged in perfecting the construction of the steam engine, Mr. Reynolds was endeavouring to apply it to purposes similar to those to which it is now applied as a locomotive. Thus he constructed a locomotive with a waggon attached, the cylinder and boiler of which are still preserved. An accident, we believe a fatal one, which happened to one of the men upon starting the engine led Mr. Reynolds to abandon the machine; but he by no means lost faith in the invention. On the contrary, he was wont to say to his nephew, the late William Anstice, father of the present Mr. Reynolds Anstice, “I may never live to see the time, but thee may, William, when towns will be lighted by gas instead of oil and candles, when vessels will be driven without sails, and when carriages will travel without horses.”

This was before Trevithic invented a machine which travelled at a slow rate with heavy loads on a railway at Merthyr. It was prior to 1787, when Symington exhibited his model steam carriage in Edinburgh, and to the time when Darwin, (1793), with equal poetry and prophecy, wrote—

“Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car.”

Mr. Reynolds indeed contemplated, it is believed, a subterranean tram road from the banks of the Severn right up into the heart of the iron districts of Ketley and Donnington Wood, upon which his engine was to travel, but the prejudice against the scheme was so great, and the jury empanelled to inquire into the nature of the accident inflicted such an enormous fine to be enforced every time the engine was used, that it was abandoned. There are also a pair of partially rotatory brass cylinders in existence which Mr. Reynolds intended as models for a boat on the Severn. This was before Shropshire generally, and the iron districts more particularly, had begun to participate in the advantages of still-water communication. With the superior advantages of railways, it is difficult to appreciate the full benefit of such communication for manufacturing and agricultural purposes at that time in inland counties like our own. Mr. Reynolds however, with full faith in the future development of the powers of steam by means of improved machinery, took great pains to extend and perfect canal navigation, and his name is associated with every important work of improvement in the district during the latter end of the last and the beginning of the present centuries, and especially with a very ingenious contrivance by means of which the inequalities of surface were overcome, and the old-fashioned locks were dispensed with.

Mr. Reynolds commenced his canal for the conveyance of minerals from Oakengates and Ketley in 1788; and shortly after its completion an Act of Parliament was obtained for one from Donnington Wood which, forming a junction therewith, was to proceed along the high ground above Coalbrookdale, on one hand, and Madeley and Coalport on the other. The difference of level was 73 feet in one case and 207 feet in the other. Telford, speaking of the difficulties to be encountered from the nature of the country, says:

“The inequality of the ground and the want of sufficient water seemed insuperable, and might probably have been so for ages to come had not Mr. William Reynolds, of Ketley, whose character is too well known to need any eulogium, discovered the means of overcoming them. Having occasion to improve the method of conveying ironstone and coals from the neighbourhood of Oakengates to the ironworks at Ketley, these materials lying generally about the distance of a mile and a half from the ironworks, and 73 feet above their level, he made a navigable canal, and instead of descending in the usual way by locks, contrived to bring the canal forward to an abrupt part of the bank, the skirts of which terminated on a level with the ironworks. At the top of this bank he built a small lock, and from the bottom of the lock, and down the face of the bank, he constructed an inclined plane, with a double iron railway. He then erected an upright frame of timber, in which was fixed a large wooden barrel. Round the latter a rope was passed that led to a moveable frame, the frame being of a sufficient size to receive a canal boat, resting and preserved in nearly a horizontal position, by having two large wheels before and two small ones behind—varying as much in the diameters as the inclined plane varied from a horizontal plane. This frame being placed in the lock, the loaded boat was brought to rest upon it. The lock gates were shut, the water was drawn from the lock into a side-pond, the boat settled upon a horizontal wooden frame, and—as the bottom of the lock was formed with nearly the same declivity as the inclined plane—upon the lower gates being opened, the frame with the boat passed down the iron railway into the lower canal, which had been formed on a level with the Ketley ironworks, being a fall of 73 feet. A double railway having been laid upon the inclined plane, the loaded boat in passing down brought up another boat containing a load nearly equal to one-third part of that which passed down. The velocity of the boats was regulated by a break acting upon a large wheel, placed upon the axis on which the ropes connected with the carriages were coiled.”

This contrivance has been in use up to the present time. During Mr. Reynolds’s life a representation of it figured upon copper tokens, one of the first iron bridge being upon the opposite or obverse side.

Another of these contrivances is still in use near the Hay, in the parish of Madeley, called the Coalport Incline. This is 207 feet in length, and the gradient is much greater, being about one in three. So great indeed that on the chain snapping we have known a canal boat with five tons of iron pigs on board gain such velocity that on coming in contact with the water in the lower canal it has broken away from the iron chains which held it to the carriage, bounded into the air, clearing two other boats moored on the side, together with the embankment, and alighted in the Severn, close to the ferry-boat, into which it pitched some of the iron-pigs it contained. At the foot of this incline Mr. Reynolds drove a level to the shaft of the Blissers Hill pits, to bring down the coals to the lower canal for loading into barges on the Severn. This was the famous Tar Tunnel from which petroleum was formerly exported in large quantities to all parts of Europe.

William Reynolds removed from Ketley to a large house formerly occupied by Lord Dundonald, at the Tuckies, where he continued to superintend the ironworks he had leased at Madeley Wood, familiarly known as Bedlam Furnaces, and was succeeded by his brother, Mr. Joseph Reynolds, who continued to carry on the Ketley Works till the recurrence of one of those fearful revulsions that have marked the history of the trade. For a quarter of a century we had been carrying on wars, levying troops, and interfering with everybody’s business but that which properly belonged to ourselves. We had obtained our object of ambition by bribery, strategy, and force of arms combined. We had restored the ancient families of France, reduced that country to its ancient limits, and annihilated its commerce. With glorious victory came fearful collapse, and the country awoke to find that a fallacy which it had been taught to regard as truth—that war brings commercial advantages that compensate for fearful waste and lavish expenditure. To add to the calamity, a succession of bad harvests was experienced, and the reduction of the army served to swell the poor’s-rates upon which working men and their families had been thrown for a bare support. Iron from £18 had gone down to £7 per ton, carriage paid from Ketley to Stourport. Mr. Reynolds believed the trade would never again rally, and resolved to blow out the furnaces at Ketley. This was in 1817. In 1818, at an immense sacrifice of property, consisting of the usual apparatus for making and manufacturing iron, he sold off at an immense loss, and removed to Bristol. Language cannot paint the deep distress which accompanied and followed this step. Men, with wives and families dependent upon them, saw their only ground of hope taken from them. Starving by thousands, and yoked like horses, they might be seen drawing materials for the repair of the roads, or conveying coal into Staffordshire. One third of the Shropshire banks failed. Disturbances were frequent; mobs of men collected in bodies and went about taking food where they could find it, and the militia had often to be called out to quell disturbances. Not only ironmasters, but manufacturers generally were reduced to despair. The parish authorities of Wellington advertised in the public journals for persons to come forward and take the Ketley works; and a company, consisting of the Messrs. Montford, Shakeshaft, Ogle, Williams, Hombersley, and others, was formed.

From what we have written, it will be seen that Mr. William Reynolds was on familiar terms with his men. In severe weather and distressed times, he made soup to give away three times a week, and he generally kept “open-house” for his workmen and friends; of the latter he had a large circle. He did not like idleness or indiscriminate almsgiving. A number of men thrown out of employ came to him in a body for relief during a deep snow. He set them to clear an entire field, and to make him a snow-stack; which they did of large proportions, receiving daily wages for the same. He allowed a house and garden rent-free to “Sniggy Oakes,” as he was called—heaven knows what his right name was, for in that day it was seldom known in the mining districts—on condition that the said Sniggy ferry’d him and his family across the river when they required it. One evening Sniggy, knowing he was out on the other side, went to bed instead of sitting up, which he found a deal more comfortable on a cold wet night, and Mr. Reynolds, after calling him first one name and then another, ringing the changes upon every alias, and changing it for “boat! boat!” “ferry! ferry!” had to go round by the bridge. Coming opposite the cottage where Sniggy was snug in bed, he smashed every window, shouting “boat” at every blow of his huge stick. Sniggy roared with fright, and promised better things another time. “On another occasion,” says our informant, “while having a balcony put up in front of the Tuckies, he gave strict injunctions that the martins’ nests should not by any means be disturbed, threatening to shoot the man who violated his instruction. They all obeyed him but one man, and he—.” “What, you don’t mean to say he was going to carry out his threat?” said we. “But he was,” it was replied, “and did.” “What shoot him?” “Yes; shot him, sir—shot him with a pop-gun!” Being a Quaker, many anecdotes are told of him not paying church-rates, and what are called Easter offerings, showing a rich vein of genuine humour running through a warm and generous nature. Old people too tell with much glee of a grand illumination they remember to celebrate one of those interludes of war, termed “a peace rejoicing,” when the bridge across the river, and a large revolving wheel, were lighted up with lamps, and the manufactory, in which—together with Messrs. Horton and Rose—he was a shareholder, was illuminated.

“He is a wise son who knows his own father,” it is said, but it is sometimes more difficult to trace the paternity of an anecdote, and we tell the following as it was told to us.

“Mr. Reynolds was kind and generous to a fault, but he did not like to be tricked. Returning late from a party on horseback, he was requested to pay again at a turnpike gate. Old Roberts, who having been in the army, looked with contempt upon all but a red uniform, and hated Quakers’ plain suits in particular, the more so as the wearers were known to be averse to war, now found himself, as he imagined, in a position to ‘take the small change,’ out of the Quaker. Mr. Reynolds disputed the charge, knowing from the time he left his friend’s house that he must be in the right; but, as the other insisted upon being paid, he paid him. When the latter had opened the gate, Mr. Reynolds remarked, ‘Well, friend, having paid, I suppose I am at liberty to pass through as often as I like?’ ‘Certainly, sir,’ said the old robber—as the juveniles would persist in calling the old man, adding an additional ‘b’ to his name, and clipping it of the two terminating letters. Mr. Reynolds had not travelled far on the home-side of the gate—sufficiently far however to allow the other to get into bed, before he returned, and called up the gatekeeper; having occasion, as he said, to go back. By the time he had again got into bed back came his tormentor at an easy jog-trot pace; and as he again passed through the gate he begged to be accommodated with a light. ‘Thou art sure it is past twelve o’clock, friend?’ said Mr. Reynolds. ‘Quite sure,’ said the other, adding ‘I thought I had done with you for to-night.’ ‘Thou art mistaken,’ said Mr. Reynolds, ‘it is a fine night, and I intend to make the most of it.’ In about ten minutes time the hated sound of ‘Gate, gate,’ brought old Roberts to his post, muttering curses between his teeth. ‘Thou art quite sure it is past twelve, art thou?’ was the question asked, and asked again, till at last the gatekeeper begged of his tormentor to take back the toll. ‘It cured him, though,’ said our informant, ‘and made him civil; but they called him ‘Past Twelve’ for the rest of his days.’”

When Mr. Reynolds removed from Ketley to Madeley Wood, he also removed from the former to the latter place some very primitive steam engines, from the fact that they were constructed by a man named Adam Hyslop, and differed from the ordinary condensing engines of Boulton and Watt in having a cylinder at each end of the beam: one a steam cylinder and condensing box; the other a condensing cylinder only, into which the steam, having done duty in the steam cylinder is conveyed. They were invented prior to Boulton and Watt’s final improvements. Three of these singular looking engines are still used in the field, and work most economically, with five pounds of steam to the square inch.

Of the early history of the Madeley Wood Works, we have been able to glean little satisfactory, beyond the fact that Richard Reynolds, who bought the manor in 1781 or 1782, granted a lease in June 1794 of the Bedlam or Madeley Wood furnaces to his son William, and Richard Rathbone, who very shortly after gave up his interest to William Reynolds, who afterwards carried them on himself. The site was a good one at that time, being at the base of the outcrop of the lowest seams of coal and ironstone, which could thus be obtained by levels driven into the hills, or by shallow shafts, from either of which they were let down inclined planes to the furnaces, close by which flowed the Severn, to take away either coal or iron.

It was on the side of this hill on which the Madeley Wood works were situated, at a place called the Brockholes (broc, or badger-holes), that in 1332 Walter de Caldbrook obtained a license from the prior of Wenlock to dig for coal. Speaking of coal found in this or similar situations in Shropshire, we find, too, that quaint old writer, Thomas Fuller, two centuries ago, as quoted by W. O. Foster Esq., at the meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute at Coalbrookdale, in 1871, giving his opinion thus:—

“One may see a three-fold difference in our English coal—(1) the sea coal brought from Newcastle; (2) the land coal at Mendip, Bedworth, &c., and carried into other counties; (3) what one may call river and fresh water coal, digged out in this county at such a distance from Severn that they are easily ported by boat into other shires. Oh, if this coal could be so charmed as to make iron melt out of the stone, as it maketh it in smiths’ forges to be wrought in the bars. But Rome was not built all in one day; and a new world of experiments is left to the discovery of posterity.”

It seems probable, therefore, that for five hundred years coal has been gotten out of the sides of these hills at Madeley Wood, either for use in local forges or for export by the river Severn, or both; and the more so that old levels are numerous along their side where coal crops out, and that wooden shovels, wooden rails, and other primitive implements have been found in them.

Some of the shafts sunk by Mr. Reynolds came down upon old workings for smiths, or furnace coal, as at the Lodge Pit, as shown by the section.

This shaft, after passing through five yards of sand, six of brick and tile clays, thirteen of rough rock, and thirteen of other measures, came upon the Penneystone, the Sulphur coal, the Vigor coal, the Two-foot coal, the Ganey coal, the Best coal, and the Middle coal, which, like the Penney measure, were all entire; but instead of the Clod coal they found Clod-coal gob (the refuse thrown into the space from which the coal had been removed).

William Reynolds, the proprietor of these works, died at the Tuckies House, in 1803, and was followed to his grave in the burial-ground adjoining the Quaker’s chapel, in the Dale, by a very large concourse of friends and old neighbours. His son, Joseph Reynolds, and Mr. William Anstice succeeded to the works, the latter being the managing partner; and in consequence of the mines being exhausted on the Madeley Wood side of the field, new shafts were sunk to the east, the first of importance being the Hill’s Lane pits. The Halesfield, and then the Kemberton, followed; and the mines having been thus proved on that side, the idea first suggested by William Reynolds, of removing the works to that side, was acted upon by Mr. William Anstice, who built his first furnace at Blisser’s Hill in 1832. A second was built in 1840, and a third in 1844. Of these and other works we propose to speak in connection with events of a later period.