Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

by Samuel Smiles

"The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the country far move than the most splendid victories of successful war."—C. BABBAGE, The Exposition of 1851.

Dud Dudley's invention of smelting iron with coke made of pit-coal was, like many others, born before its time. It was neither appreciated by the iron-masters nor by the workmen. All schemes for smelting ore with any other fuel than charcoal made from wood were regarded with incredulity. As for Dudley's Metallum Martis, as it contained no specification, it revealed no secret; and when its author died, his secret, whatever it might be, died with him. Other improvements were doubtless necessary before the invention could be turned to useful account. Thus, until a more powerful blowing-furnace had been contrived, the production of pit-coal iron must necessarily have been limited. Dudley himself does not seem to have been able to make more on an average than five tons a-week, and seven tons at the outside. Nor was the iron so good as that made by charcoal; for it is admitted to have been especially liable to deterioration by the sulphureous fumes of the coal in the process of manufacture.

Dr. Plot, in his 'History of Staffordshire,' speaks of an experiment made by one Dr. Blewstone, a High German, as "the last effort" made in that county to smelt iron-ore with pit-coal. He is said to have "built his furnace at Wednesbury, so ingeniously contrived (that only the flame of the coal should come to the ore, with several other conveniences), that many were of opinion he would succeed in it. But experience, that great baffler of speculation, showed it would not be; the sulphureous vitriolic steams that issue from the pyrites, which frequently, if not always, accompanies pit-coal, ascending with the flame, and poisoning the ore sufficiently to make it render much worse iron than that made with charcoal, though not perhaps so much worse as the body of the coal itself would possibly do." [1] Dr. Plot does not give the year in which this "last effort" was made; but as we find that one Dr. Frederic de Blewston obtained a patent from Charles II. on the 25th October, 1677, for "a new and effectual way of melting down, forging, extracting, and reducing of iron and all metals and minerals with pit-coal and sea-coal, as well and effectually as ever hath yet been done by charcoal, and with much less charge;" and as Dr. Plot's History, in which he makes mention of the experiment and its failure, was published in 1686, it is obvious that the trial must have been made between those years.

As the demand for iron steadily increased with the increasing population of the country, and as the supply of timber for smelting purposes was diminishing from year to year, England was compelled to rely more and more upon foreign countries for its supply of manufactured iron. The number of English forges rapidly dwindled, and the amount of the home production became insignificant in comparison with what was imported from abroad. Yarranton, writing in 1676, speaks of "the many iron-works laid down in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and in the north of England, because the iron of Sweadland, Flanders, and Spain, coming in so cheap, it cannot be made to profit here." There were many persons, indeed, who held that it was better we should be supplied with iron from Spain than make it at home, in consequence of the great waste of wood involved by the manufacture; but against this view Yarranton strongly contended, and held, what is as true now as it was then, that the manufacture of iron was the keystone of England's industrial prosperity. He also apprehended great danger to the country from want of iron in event of the contingency of a foreign war. "When the greatest part of the iron-works are asleep," said he, "if there should be occasion for great quantities of guns and bullets, and other sorts of iron commodities, for a present unexpected war, and the Sound happen to be locked up, and so prevent iron coming to us, truly we should then be in a fine case!"

Notwithstanding these apprehended national perils arising from the want of iron, no steps seem to have been taken to supply the deficiency, either by planting woods on a large scale, as recommended by Yarranton, or by other methods; and the produce of English iron continued steadily to decline. In 1720-30 there were found only ten furnaces remaining in blast in the whole Forest of Dean, where the iron-smelters were satisfied with working up merely the cinders left by the Romans. A writer of the time states that we then bought between two and three hundred thousand pounds' worth of foreign iron yearly, and that England was the best customer in Europe for Swedish and Russian iron.[2] By the middle of the eighteenth century the home manufacture had so much fallen off, that the total production of Great Britain is supposed to have amounted to not more than 18,000 tons a year; four-fifths of the iron used in the country being imported from Sweden.[3]

The more that the remaining ironmasters became straitened for want of wood, the more they were compelled to resort to cinders and coke made from coal as a substitute. And it was found that under certain circumstances this fuel answered the purpose almost as well as charcoal of wood. The coke was made by burning the coal in heaps in the open air, and it was usually mixed with coal and peat in the process of smelting the ore. Coal by itself was used by the country smiths for forging whenever they could procure it for their smithy fires; and in the midland counties they had it brought to them, sometimes from great distances, slung in bags across horses' backs,—for the state of the roads was then so execrable as not to admit of its being led for any considerable distance in carts. At length we arrive at a period when coal seems to have come into general use, and when necessity led to its regular employment both in smelting the ore and in manufacturing the metal. And this brings us to the establishment of the Coalbrookdale works, where the smelting of iron by means of coke and coal was first adopted on a large scale as the regular method of manufacture.

Abraham Darby, the first of a succession of iron manufacturers who bore the same name, was the son of a farmer residing at Wrensnest, near Dudley. He served an apprenticeship to a maker of malt-kilns near Birmingham, after which he married and removed to Bristol in 1700, to begin business on his own account. Industry is of all politics and religions: thus Dudley was a Royalist and a Churchman, Yarranton was a Parliamentarian and a Presbyterian, and Abraham Darby was a Quaker. At Bristol he was joined by three partners of the same persuasion, who provided the necessary capital to enable him to set up works at Baptist Mills, near that city, where he carried on the business of malt-mill making, to which he afterwards added brass and iron founding.

At that period cast-iron pots were in very general use, forming the principal cooking utensils of the working class. The art of casting had, however, made such small progress in England that the pots were for the most part imported from abroad. Darby resolved, if possible, to enter upon this lucrative branch of manufacture; and he proceeded to make a number of experiments in pot-making. Like others who had preceded him, he made his first moulds of clay; but they cracked and burst, and one trial failed after another. He then determined to find out the true method of manufacturing the pots, by travelling into the country from whence the best were imported, in order to master the grand secret of the trade. With this object he went over to Holland in the year 1706, and after diligent inquiry he ascertained that the only sure method of casting "Hilton ware," as such castings were then called, was in moulds of fine dry sand. This was the whole secret.

Returning to Bristol, accompanied by some skilled Dutch workmen, Darby began the new manufacture, and succeeded to his satisfaction. The work was at first carried on with great secrecy, lest other makers should copy the art; and the precaution was taken of stopping the keyhole of the workshop-door while the casting was in progress. To secure himself against piracy, he proceeded to take out a patent for the process in the year 1708, and it was granted for the term of fourteen years. The recital of the patent is curious, as showing the backward state of English iron-founding at that time. It sets forth that "whereas our trusty and well-beloved Abraham Darby, of our city of Bristol, smith, hath by his petition humbly represented to us, that by his study, industry, and expense, he hath found out and brought to perfection a new way of casting iron bellied pots and other iron bellied ware in sand only, without loam or clay, by which such iron pots and other ware may be cast fine and with more ease and expedition, and may be afforded cheaper than they can be by the way commonly used; and in regard to their cheapness may be of great advantage to the poor of this our kingdom, who for the most part use such ware, and in all probability will prevent the merchants of England going to foreign markets for such ware, from whence great quantities are imported, and likewise may in time supply other markets with that manufacture of our dominions, &c….. grants the said Abraham Darby the full power and sole privilege to make and sell such pots and ware for and during the term of fourteen years thence ensuing."

Darby proceeded to make arrangements for carrying on the manufacture upon a large scale at the Baptist Mills; but the other partners hesitated to embark more capital in the concern, and at length refused their concurrence. Determined not to be baulked in his enterprise, Darby abandoned the Bristol firm; and in the year 1709 he removed to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, with the intention of prosecuting the enterprise on his own account. He took the lease of a little furnace which had existed at the place for more than a century, as the records exist of a "smethe" or "smeth-house" at Coalbrookdale in the time of the Tudors. The woods of oak and hazel which at that time filled the beautiful dingles of the dale, and spread in almost a continuous forest to the base of the Wrekin, furnished abundant fuel for the smithery. As the trade of the Coalbrookdale firm extended, these woods became cleared, until the same scarcity of fuel began to be experienced that had already desolated the forests of Sussex, and brought the manufacture of iron in that quarter to a stand-still.