Another of Yarranton's far-sighted schemes of a similar kind was one to
connect the Thames with the Severn by means of an artificial cut, at
the very place where, more than a century after his death, it was
actually carried out by modern engineers.  This canal, it appears, was
twice surveyed under his direction by his son.  He did, however,
succeed in his own time in opening up the navigation of the Avon, and
was the first to carry barges upon its waters from Tewkesbury to
Stratford.

The improvement of agriculture, too, had a share of Yarranton's
attention.  He saw the soil exhausted by long tillage and constantly
repeated crops of rye, and he urged that the land should have rest or
at least rotation of crop.  With this object he introduced clover-seed,
and supplied it largely to the farmers of the western counties, who
found their land doubled in value by the new method of husbandry, and
it shortly became adopted throughout the country.  Seeing how commerce
was retarded by the small accommodation provided for shipping at the
then principal ports, Yarranton next made surveys and planned docks for
the city of London; but though he zealously advocated the subject, he
found few supporters, and his plans proved fruitless.  In this respect
he was nearly a hundred and fifty years before his age, and the London
importers continued to conduct their shipping business in the crowded
tideway of the Thames down even to the beginning of the present century.

While carrying on his iron works, it occurred to Yarranton that it
would be of great national advantage if the manufacture of tin-plate
could be introduced into England.  Although the richest tin mines then
known existed in this country, the mechanical arts were at so low an
ebb that we were almost entirely dependent upon foreigners for the
supply of the articles manufactured from the metal.  The Saxons were
the principal consumers of English tin, and we obtained from them in
return nearly the whole of our tin-plates.  All attempts made to
manufacture them in England had hitherto failed; the beating out of the
iron by hammers into laminae sufficiently thin and smooth, and the
subsequent distribution and fixing of the film of tin over the surface
of the iron, proving difficulties which the English manufacturers were
unable to overcome.  To master these difficulties the indefatigable
Yarranton set himself to work.  "Knowing," says he, "the usefulness of
tin-plates and the goodness of our metals for that purpose, I did,
about sixteen years since (i.e.  about 1665), endeavour to find out the
way for making thereof; whereupon I acquainted a person of much riches,
and one that was very understanding in the iron manufacture, who was
pleased to say that he had often designed to get the trade into
England, but never could find out the way.  Upon which it was agreed
that a sum of monies should be advanced by several persons,[13] for the
defraying of my charges of travelling to the place where these plates
are made, and from thence to bring away the art of making them.  Upon
which, an able fire-man, that well understood the nature of iron, was
made choice of to accompany me; and being fitted with an ingenious
interpreter that well understood the language, and that had dealt much
in that commodity, we marched first for Hamburgh, then to Leipsic, and
from thence to Dresden, the Duke of Saxony's court, where we had notice
of the place where the plates were made; which was in a large tract of
mountainous land, running from a place called Seger-Hutton unto a town
called Awe [Au], being in length about twenty miles." [14]

It is curious to find how much the national industry of England has
been influenced by the existence from time to time of religious
persecutions abroad, which had the effect of driving skilled Protestant
artisans, more particularly from Flanders and France, into England,
where they enjoyed the special protection of successive English
Governments, and founded various important branches of manufacture.
But it appears from the history of the tin manufactures of Saxony, that
that country also had profited in like manner by the religious
persecutions of Germany, and even of England itself.  Thus we are told
by Yarranton that it was a Cornish miner, a Protestant, banished out of
England for his religion in Queen Mary's time, who discovered the tin
mines at Awe, and that a Romish priest of Bohemia, who had been
converted to Lutheranism and fled into Saxony for refuge, "was the
chief instrument in the manufacture until it was perfected."  These two
men were held in great regard by the Duke of Saxony as well as by the
people of the country; for their ingenuity and industry proved the
source of great prosperity and wealth, "several fine cities," says
Yarranton, "having been raised by the riches proceeding from the
tin-works"--not less than 80,000 men depending upon the trade for their
subsistence; and when Yarranton visited Awe, he found that a statue had
been erected to the memory of the Cornish miner who first discovered
the tin.

Yarranton was very civilly received by the miners, and, contrary to his
expectation, he was allowed freely to inspect the tin-works and examine
the methods by which the iron-plates were rolled out, as well as the
process of tinning them.  He was even permitted to engage a number of
skilled workmen, whom he brought over with him to England for the
purpose of starting the manufacture in this country.  A beginning was
made, and the tin-plates manufactured by Yarranton's men were
pronounced of better quality even than those made in Saxony.  "Many
thousand plates," Yarranton says, "were made from iron raised in the
Forest of Dean, and were tinned over with Cornish tin; and the plates
proved far better than the German ones, by reason of the toughness and
flexibleness of our forest iron.  One Mr. Bison, a tinman in Worcester,
Mr. Lydiate near Fleet Bridge, and Mr. Harrison near the King's Bench,
have wrought many, and know their goodness." As Yarranton's account was
written and published during the lifetime of the parties, there is no
reason to doubt the accuracy of his statement.

Arrangements were made to carry on the manufacture upon a large scale;
but the secret having got wind, a patent was taken out, or "trumpt up"
as Yarranton calls it, for the manufacture, "the patentee being
countenanced by some persons of quality," and Yarranton was precluded
from carrying his operations further.  It is not improbable that the
patentee in question was William Chamberlaine, Dud Dudley's quondam
partner in the iron manufacture.[15]  "What with the patent being in
our way," says Yarranton, "and the richest of our partners being afraid
to offend great men in power, who had their eye upon us, it caused the
thing to cool, and the making of the tin-plates was neither proceeded
in by us, nor possibly could be by him that had the patent; because
neither he that hath the patent, nor those that have countenanced him,
can make one plate fit for use." Yarranton's labours were thus lost to
the English public for a time; and we continued to import all our
tin-plates from Germany until about sixty years later, when a tin-plate
manufactory was established by Capel Hanbury at Pontypool in
Monmouthshire, where it has since continued to be successfully carried
on.

We can only briefly refer to the subsequent history of Andrew
Yarranton.  Shortly after his journey into Saxony, he proceeded to
Holland to examine the inland navigations of the Dutch, to inspect
their linen and other manufactures, and to inquire into the causes of
the then extraordinary prosperity of that country compared with
England.  Industry was in a very languishing state at home.  "People
confess they are sick," said Yarranton, "that trade is in a
consumption, and the whole nation languishes."  He therefore determined
to ascertain whether something useful might not be learnt from the
example of Holland.  The Dutch were then the hardest working and the
most thriving people in Europe.  They were manufacturers and carriers
for the world.  Their fleets floated on every known sea; and their
herring-busses swarmed along our coasts as far north as the Hebrides.
The Dutch supplied our markets with fish caught within sight of our own
shores, while our coasting population stood idly looking on.  Yarranton
regarded this state of things as most discreditable, and he urged the
establishment of various branches of home industry as the best way of
out-doing the Dutch without fighting them.

Wherever he travelled abroad, in Germany or in Holland, he saw industry
attended by wealth and comfort, and idleness by poverty and misery.
The same pursuits, he held, would prove as beneficial to England as
they were abundantly proved to have been to Holland.  The healthy life
of work was good for all--for individuals as for the whole nation; and
if we would out-do the Dutch, he held that we must out-do them in
industry.  But all must be done honestly and by fair means.  "Common
Honesty," said Yarranton, "is as necessary and needful in kingdoms and
commonwealths that depend upon Trade, as discipline is in an army; and
where there is want of common Honesty in a kingdom or commonwealth,
from thence Trade shall depart.  For as the Honesty of all governments
is, so shall be their Riches; and as their Honour, Honesty, and Riches
are, so will be their Strength; and as their Honour, Honesty, Riches,
and Strength are, so will be their Trade.  These are five sisters that
go hand in hand, and must not be parted." Admirable sentiments, which
are as true now as they were two hundred years ago, when Yarranton
urged them upon the attention of the English public.

On his return from Holland, he accordingly set on foot various schemes
of public utility.  He stirred up a movement for the encouragement of
the British fisheries.  He made several journeys into Ireland for the
purpose of planting new manufactures there.  He surveyed the River
Slade with the object of rendering it navigable, and proposed a plan
for improving the harbour of Dublin.  He also surveyed the Dee in
England with a view to its being connected with the Severn.  Chambers
says that on the decline of his popularity in 1677, he was taken by
Lord Clarendon to Salisbury to survey the River Avon, and find out how
that river might be made navigable, and also whether a safe harbour for
ships could be made at Christchurch; and that having found where he
thought safe anchorage might be obtained, his Lordship proceeded to act
upon Yarranton's recommendations.[16]

Another of his grand schemes was the establishment of the linen
manufacture in the central counties of England, which, he showed, were
well adapted for the growth of flax; and he calculated that if success
attended his efforts, at least two millions of money then sent out of
the country for the purchase of foreign linen would be retained at
home, besides increasing the value of the land on which the flax was
grown, and giving remunerative employment to our own people, then
emigrating for want of work.  "Nothing but Sloth or Envy," he said,
"can possibly hinder my labours from being crowned with the wished for
success; our habitual fondness for the one hath already brought us to
the brink of ruin, and our proneness to the other hath almost
discouraged all pious endeavours to promote our future happiness."

In 1677 he published the first part of his England's Improvement by Sea
and Land--a very remarkable book, full of sagacious insight as
respected the future commercial and manufacturing greatness of England.
Mr. Dove says of this book that "Yarranton chalks out in it the future
course of Britain with as free a hand as if second-sight had revealed
to him those expansions of her industrial career which never fail to
surprise us, even when we behold them realized." Besides his extensive
plans for making harbours and improving internal navigation with the
object of creating new channels for domestic industry, his schemes for
extending the iron and the woollen trades, establishing the linen
manufacture, and cultivating the home fisheries, we find him throwing
out various valuable suggestions with reference to the means of
facilitating commercial transactions, some of winch have only been
carried out in our own day.  One of his grandest ideas was the
establishment of a public bank, the credit of which, based upon the
security of freehold land,[17] should enable its paper "to go in trade
equal with ready money."  A bank of this sort formed one of the
principal means by which the Dutch had been enabled to extend their
commercial transactions, and Yarranton accordingly urged its
introduction into England.  Part of his scheme consisted of a voluntary
register of real property, for the purpose of effecting simplicity of
title, and obtaining relief from the excessive charges for law,[18] as
well as enabling money to be readily raised for commercial purposes on
security of the land registered.

He pointed out very graphically the straits to which a man is put who
is possessed of real property enough, but in a time of pressure is
unable to turn himself round for want of ready cash.  "Then," says he,
"all his creditors crowd to him as pigs do through a hole to a bean and
pease rick."  "Is it not a sad thing," he asks, "that a goldsmith's boy
in Lombard Street, who gives notes for the monies handed him by the
merchants, should take up more monies upon his notes in one day than
two lords, four knights, and eight esquires in twelve months upon all
their personal securities? We are, as it were, cutting off our legs and
arms to see who will feed the trunk.  But we cannot expect this from
any of our neighbours abroad, whose interest depends upon our loss."

He therefore proposed his registry of property as a ready means of
raising a credit for purposes of trade.  Thus, he says, "I can both in
England and Wales register my wedding, my burial, and my christening,
and a poor parish clerk is entrusted with the keeping of the book; and
that which is registered there is held good by our law.  But I cannot
register my lands, to be honest, to pay every man his own, to prevent
those sad things that attend families for want thereof, and to have the
great benefit and advantage that would come thereby.  A register will
quicken trade, and the land registered will be equal as cash in a man's
hands, and the credit thereof will go and do in trade what ready money
now doth."  His idea was to raise money, when necessary, on the land
registered, by giving security thereon after a form which he suggested.
He would, in fact, have made land, as gold now is, the basis of an
extended currency; and he rightly held that the value of land as a
security must always be unexceptionable, and superior to any metallic
basis that could possibly be devised.

This indefatigable man continued to urge his various designs upon the
attention of the public until he was far advanced in years.  He
professed that he was moved to do so (and we believe him) solely by an
ardent love for his country, "whose future flourishing," said he, "is
the only reward I ever hope to see of all my labours."  Yarranton,
however, received but little thanks for his persistency, while he
encountered many rebuffs.  The public for the most part turned a deaf
ear to his entreaties; and his writings proved of comparatively small
avail, at least during his own lifetime.  He experienced the lot of
many patriots, even the purest--the suspicion and detraction of his
contemporaries.  His old political enemies do not seem to have
forgotten him, of which we have the evidence in certain rare
"broadsides" still extant, twitting him with the failure of his
schemes, and even trumping up false charges of disloyalty against
him.[19]

In 1681 he published the second part of 'England's Improvement,'[20] in
which he gave a summary account of its then limited growths and
manufactures, pointing out that England and Ireland were the only
northern kingdoms remaining unimproved; he re-urged the benefits and
necessity of a voluntary register of real property; pointed out a
method of improving the Royal Navy, lessening the growing power of
France, and establishing home fisheries; proposed the securing and
fortifying of Tangier; described a plan for preventing fires in London,
and reducing the charge for maintaining the Trained Bands; urged the
formation of a harbour at Newhaven in Sussex; and, finally, discoursed
at considerable length upon the tin, iron, linen, and woollen trades,
setting forth various methods for their improvement.  In this last
section, after referring to the depression in the domestic tin trade
(Cornish tin selling so low as 70s. the cwt.), he suggested a way of
reviving it.  With the Cornish tin he would combine "the Roman cinders
and iron-stone in the Forest of Dean, which makes the best iron for
most uses in the world, and works up to the best advantage, with
delight and pleasure to the workmen."  He then described the history of
his own efforts to import the manufacture of tin-plates into England
some sixteen years before, in which he had been thwarted by
Chamberlaine's patent, as above described,--and offered sundry queries
as to the utility of patents generally, which, says he, "have the
tendency to drive trade out of the kingdom." Appended to the chapter on
Tin is an exceedingly amusing dialogue between a tin-miner of Cornwall,
an iron-miner of Dean Forest, and a traveller (himself).  From this we
gather that Yarranton's business continued to be that of an
iron-manufacturer at his works at Ashley near Bewdley.  Thus the
iron-miner says, "About 28 years since Mr. Yarranton found out a vast
quantity of Roman cinders, near the walls of the city of Worcester,
from whence he and others carried away many thousand tons or loads up
the river Severn, unto their iron-furnaces, to be melted down into
iron, with a mixture of the Forest of Dean iron-stone; and within 100
yards of the walls of the city of Worcester there was dug up one of the
hearths of the Roman foot-blasts, it being then firm and in order, and
was 7 foot deep in the earth; and by the side of the work there was
found a pot of Roman coin to the quantity of a peck, some of which was
presented to Sir [Wm.] Dugdale, and part thereof is now in the King's
Closet." [21]

In the same year (1681) in which the second part of 'England's
Improvement' appeared, Yarranton proceeded to Dunkirk for the purpose
of making a personal survey of that port, then belonging to England;
and on his return he published a map of the town, harbour, and castle
on the sea, with accompanying letterpress, in which he recommended, for
the safety of British trade, the demolition of the fortifications of
Dunkirk before they were completed, which he held would only be for the
purpose of their being garrisoned by the French king.  His 'Full
Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot' was published in the
same year; and from that time nothing further is known of Andrew
Yarranton.  His name and his writings have been alike nearly forgotten;
and, though Bishop Watson declared of him that he deserved to have a
statue erected to his memory as a great public benefactor, we do not
know that he was so much as honoured with a tombstone; for we have been
unable, after careful inquiry, to discover when and where he died.

Yarranton was a man whose views were far in advance of his age.  The
generation for whom he laboured and wrote were not ripe for their
reception and realization; and his voice sounded among the people like
that of one crying in the wilderness.  But though his exhortations to
industry and his large plans of national improvement failed to work
themselves into realities in his own time, he broke the ground, he
sowed the seed, and it may be that even at this day we are in some
degree reaping the results of his labours.  At all events, his books
still live to show how wise and sagacious Andrew Yarranton was beyond
his contemporaries as to the true methods of establishing upon solid
foundations the industrial prosperity of England.



[1] PATRICK EDWARD DOVE, Elements of Political Science.  Edinburgh,
1854.

[2] A copy of the entries in the parish register relating to the
various members of the Yarranton family, kindly forwarded to us by the
Rev. H. W. Cookes, rector of Astley, shows them to have resided in that
parish for many generations.  There were the Yarrantons of Yarranton,
of Redstone, of Larford, of Brockenton, and of Longmore.  With that
disregard for orthography in proper names which prevailed some three
hundred years since, they are indifferently designated as Yarran,
Yarranton, and Yarrington.  The name was most probably derived from two
farms named Great and Little Yarranton, or Yarran (originally
Yarhampton), situated in the parish of Astley.  The Yarrantons
frequently filled local offices in that parish, and we find several of
them officiating at different periods as bailiffs of Bewdley.

[3] Journals of the House of Commons, 1st July, 1648.

[4] YARRANTON'S England's Improvement by Sea and Land.  Part I.
London, 1677.

[5] There seems a foundation of truth in the old English distich--

 The North for Greatness, the East for Health,
 The South for Neatness, the West for Wealth.

[6] State Paper Office.  Dom. Charles II. 1660-1.  Yarranton afterwards
succeeded in making a friend of Lord Windsor, as would appear from his
dedication of England's Improvement to his Lordship, whom he thanks for
the encouragement he had given to him in his survey of several rivers
with a view to their being rendered navigable.

[7] The following is a copy of the document from the State
Papers:--"John Bramfield, Geo. Moore, and Thos. Lee, Esqrs. and
Justices of Surrey, to Sir Edw. Nicholas.--There being this day brought
before us one Andrew Yarranton, and he accused to have broken prison,
or at least made his escape out of the Marshalsea at Worcester, being
there committed by the Deputy-Lieuts. upon suspicion of a plot in
November last; we having thereupon examined him, he allegeth that his
Majesty hath been sought unto on his behalf, and hath given order to
yourself for his discharge, and a supersedeas against all persons and
warrants, and thereupon hath desired to appeal unto you.  The which we
conceiving to be convenient and reasonable (there being no positive
charge against  him before us), have accordingly herewith conveyed him
unto you by a safe hand, to be further examined or disposed of as you
shall find meet."--S. P. O. Dom. Chas. II. 23rd June, 1662.

[8] We have been unable to refer to this tract, there being no copy of
it in the British Museum.

[9] NASH'S Worcestershire, i. 306.

[10] JOHN CHAMBERS, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire.
London, 1820.

[11] The Act for making the Stour and Salwarp navigable originated in
the Lords and was passed in the year 1661.

[12] Nash, in his Hist. of Worc., intimates that Lord Windsor
subsequently renewed the attempt to make the Salwarp navigable.  He
constructed five out of the six locks, and then abandoned the scheme.
Gough, in his edition of Camden's Brit. ii. 357, Lond. 1789, says, "It
is not long since some of the boats made use of in Yarranton's
navigation were found.  Neither tradition nor our projector's account
of the matter perfectly satisfy us why this navigation was
neglected.....  We must therefore conclude that the numerous works and
glass-houses upon the Stour, and in the neighbourhood of Stourbridge,
did not then exist, A.D. 1666.  ....The navigable communication which
now connects Trent and Severn, and which runs in the course of
Yarranton's project, is already of general use....  The canal since
executed under the inspection of Mr. Brindley, running parallel with
the river....  cost the proprietors 105,000L."

[13] In the dedication of his book, entitled Englands Improvement by
Sea and Land, Part I., Yarranton gives the names of the "noble
patriots" who sent him on his journey of inquiry.  They were Sir Waiter
Kirtham Blount, Bart., Sir Samuel Baldwin and Sir Timothy Baldwin,
Knights, Thomas Foley and Philip Foley, Esquires, and six other
gentlemen.  The father of the Foleys was himself supposed to have
introduced the art of iron-splitting into England by an expedient
similar to that adopted by Yarranton in obtaining a knowledge of the
tin-plate manufacture (Self-Help, p.145).  The secret of the
silk-throwing machinery of Piedmont was in like manner introduced into
England by Mr. Lombe of Derby, who shortly succeeded in founding a
flourishing branch of manufacture.  These were indeed the days of
romance and adventure in manufactures.

[14] The district is known as the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains, and the
Riesengebirge or Giant Mountains, MacCulloch says that upwards of 500
mines are wrought in the former district, and that one-thirtieth of the
entire population of Saxony to this day derive their subsistence from
mining industry and the manufacture of metallic products.--
Geographical Dict. ii. 643, edit. 1854.

[15] Chamberlaine and Dudley's first licence was granted in 1661 for
plating steel and tinning the said plates; and Chamberlaine's sole
patent for "plating and tinning iron, copper, &c.," was granted in
1673, probably the patent in question.

[16] JOHN CHAMBERS, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire.
London, 1820.

[17] Yarranton's Land Bank was actually projected in 1695, and received
the sanction of Parliament; though the Bank of England (founded in the
preceding year) petitioned against it, and the scheme was dropped.

[18] It is interesting to note in passing, that part of Yarranton's
scheme has recently been carried into effect by the Act (25 and 26
Vict. c. 53) passed in 1862 for the Registration of Real Estate.

[19] One of these is entitled 'A Coffee-house Dialogue, or a Discourse
between Captain Y---- and a Young Barrister of the Middle Temple; with
some Reflections upon the Bill against the D. of Y.' In this broadside,
of 3 1/2 pages folio, published about 1679, Yarranton is made to favour
the Duke of York's exclusion from the throne, not only because he was a
papist, but for graver reasons than he dare express.  Another
scurrilous pamphlet, entitled 'A Word Without Doors,' was also aimed at
him.  Yarranton, or his friends, replied to the first attack in a folio
of two pages, entitled 'The Coffee-house Dialogue Examined and Refuted,
by some Neighbours in the Country, well-wishers to the Kingdom's
interest.' The controversy was followed up by 'A Continuation of the
Coffee-house Dialogue,' in which the chief interlocutor hits Yarranton
rather hard for the miscarriage of his "improvements."  "I know," says
he, "when and where you undertook for a small charge to make a river
navigable, and it has cost the proprietors about six times as much, and
is not yet effective; nor can any man rationally predict when it will
be.  I know since you left it your son undertook it, and this winter
shamefully left his undertaking."  Yarranton's friends immediately
replied in a four-page folio, entitled 'England's Improvements
Justified; and the Author thereof, Captain Y., vindicated from the
Scandals in a paper called a Coffee-house Dialogue; with some
Animadversions upon the Popish Designs therein contained.' The writer
says he writes without the privity or sanction of Yarranton, but
declares the dialogue to be a forgery, and that the alleged conference
never took place.  "His innocence, when he heard of it, only provoked a
smile, with this answer, Spreta vilescunt, falsehoods mu st perish, and
are soonest destroyed by contempt; so that he needs no further
vindication.  The writer then proceeds at some length to vindicate the
Captain's famous work and the propositions contained in it.

[20] This work (especially with the plates) is excessively rare.  There
is a copy of it in perfect condition in the Grenville Library, British
Museum.

[21] Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire, has thrown some doubts
upon this story; but Mr. Green, in his Historical Antiquities of the
city, has made a most able defence of Yarranton's statement (vol.i.  9,
in foot-note).




CHAPTER V.

COALBROOKDALE IRON WORKS--THE DARBYS AND REYNOLDSES.

"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.

It appears from the 'Blast Furnace Memorandum Book' of Abraham Darby,
which we have examined, that the make of iron at the Coalbrookdale
foundry, in 1713, varied from five to ten tons a week.  The principal
articles cast were pots, kettles, and other "hollow ware," direct from
the smelting-furnace; the rest of the metal was run into pigs.  In
course of time we find that other castings were turned out:  a few
grates, smoothing-irons, door-frames, weights, baking-plates,
cart-bushes, iron pestles and mortars, and occasionally a tailor's
goose.  The trade gradually increased, until we find as many as 150
pots and kettles cast in a week.

The fuel used in the furnaces appears, from the Darby Memorandum-Book,
to have been at first entirely charcoal; but the growing scarcity of
wood seems to have gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small
coke, and peat.  An abundance of coals existed in the neighbourhood: by
rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking the others with great
care, a combustible was obtained better fitted even than charcoal
itself for the fusion of that particular kind of ore which is found in
the coal-measures.  Thus we find Darby's most favourite charge for his
furnaces to have been five baskets of coke, two of brays, and one of
peat; next followed the ore, and then the limestone.  The use of
charcoal was gradually given up as the art of smelting with coke and
brays improved, most probably aided by the increased power of the
furnace-blast, until at length we find it entirely discontinued.

The castings of Coalbrookdale gradually acquired a reputation, and the
trade of Abraham Darby continued to increase until the date of his
death, which occurred at Madeley Court in 1717.  His sons were too
young at the time to carry on the business which he had so successfully
started, and several portions of the works were sold at a serious
sacrifice.  But when the sons had grown up to manhood, they too entered
upon the business of iron-founding; and Abraham Darby's son and
grandson, both of the same name, largely extended the operations of the
firm, until Coalbrookdale, or, as it was popularly called, "Bedlam,"
became the principal seat of one of the most important branches of the
iron trade.

There seems to be some doubt as to the precise time when pit-coal was
first regularly employed at Coalbrookdale in smelting the ore.  Mr.
Scrivenor says, "pit-coal was first used by Mr. Abraham Darby, in his
furnace at Coalbrookdale, in 1713;" [4] but we can find no confirmation
of this statement in the records of the Company.  It is probable that
Mr. Darby used raw coal, as was done in the Forest of Dean at the same
time,[5] in the process of calcining the ore; but it would appear from
his own Memoranda that coke only was used in the process of smelting.
We infer from other circumstances that pit-coal was not employed for
the latter purpose until a considerably later period.  The merit of its
introduction, and its successful use in iron-smelting, is due to Mr.
Richard Ford, who had married a daughter of Abraham Darby, and managed
the Coalbrookdale works in 1747.  In a paper by the Rev. Mr. Mason,
Woodwardian Professor at Cambridge, given in the 'Philosophical
Transactions' for that year,[6] the first account of its successful
employment is stated as follows:--"Several attempts have been made to
run iron-ore with pit-coal:  he (Mr. Mason) thinks it has not succeeded
anywhere, as we have had no account of its being practised; but Mr.
Ford, of Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, from iron-ore and coal, both got
in the same dale, makes iron brittle or tough as he pleases, there
being cannon thus cast so soft as to bear turning like wrought-iron."
Most probably, however, it was not until the time of Richard Reynolds,
who succeeded Abraham Darby the second in the management of the works
in 1757, that pit-coal came into large and regular use in the
blasting-furnaces as well as the fineries of Coalbrookdale.

Richard Reynolds was born at Bristol in 1735.  His parents, like the
Darbys, belonged to the Society of Friends, and he was educated in that
persuasion.  Being a spirited, lively youth, the "old Adam"
occasionally cropped out in him; and he is even said, when a young man,
to have been so much fired by the heroism of the soldier's character
that he felt a strong desire to embrace a military career; but this
feeling soon died out, and he dropped into the sober and steady rut of
the Society.  After serving an apprenticeship in his native town, he
was sent to Coalbrookdale on a mission of business, where he became
acquainted with the Darby family, and shortly after married Hannah, the
daughter of Abraham the second.  He then entered upon the conduct of
the iron and coal works at Ketley and Horsehay, where he resided for
six years, removing to Coalbrookdale in 1763, to take charge of the
works there, on the death of his father-in-law.

By the exertions and enterprise of the Darbys, the Coalbrookdale Works
had become greatly enlarged, giving remunerative employment to a large
and increasing population.  The firm had extended their operations far
beyond the boundaries of the Dale:  they had established foundries at
London, Bristol, and Liverpool, and agencies at Newcastle and Truro for
the disposal of steam-engines and other iron machinery used in the deep
mines of those districts.  Watt had not yet perfected his steam-engine;
but there was a considerable demand for pumping-engines of Newcomen's
construction, many of which were made at the Coalbrookdale Works.  The
increasing demand for iron gave an impetus to coal-mining, which in its
turn stimulated inventors in their improvement of the power of the
steam-engine; for the coal could not be worked quickly and
advantageously unless the pits could be kept clear of water.  Thus one
invention stimulates another; and when the steam-engine had been
perfected by Watt, and enabled powerful-blowing apparatus to be worked
by its agency, we shall find that the production of iron by means of
pit-coal being rendered cheap and expeditious, soon became enormously
increased.

We are informed that it was while Richard Reynolds had charge of the
Coalbrookdale works that a further important improvement was effected
in the manufacture of iron by pit-coal.  Up to this time the conversion
of crude or cast iron into malleable or bar iron had been effected
entirely by means of charcoal.  The process was carried on in a fire
called a finery, somewhat like that of a smith's forge; the iron being
exposed to the blast of powerful bellows, and in constant contact with
the fuel.  In the first process of fusing the ironstone, coal had been
used for some time with increasing success; but the question arose,
whether coal might not also be used with effect in the second or
refining stage.  Two of the foremen, named Cranege, suggested to Mr.
Reynolds that this might be performed in what is called a reverberatory
furnace,[7] in which the iron should not mix with the coal, but be
heated solely by the flame.  Mr. Reynolds greatly doubted the
feasibility of the operation, but he authorized the Cranege, to make an
experiment of their process, the result of which will be found
described in the following extract of a letter from Mr. Reynolds to Mr.
Thomas Goldney of Bristol, dated "Coalbrookdale, 25th April, 1766":--

.... "I come now to what I think a matter of very great consequence.
It is some time since Thos. Cranege, who works at Bridgenorth Forge,
and his brother George, of the Dale, spoke to me about a notion they
had conceived of making bar iron without wood charcoal.  I told them,
consistent with the notion I had adopted in common with all others I
had conversed with, that I thought it impossible, because the vegetable
salts in the charcoal being an alkali acted as an absorbent to the
sulphur of the iron, which occasions the red-short quality of the iron,
and pit coal abounding with sulphur would increase it.  This specious
answer, which would probably have appeared conclusive to most, and
which indeed was what I really thought, was not so to them.  They
replied that from the observations they had made, and repeated
conversations together, they were both firmly of opinion that the
alteration from the quality of pig iron into that of bar iron was
effected merely by heat, and if I would give them leave, they would
make a trial some day.  I consented, but, I confess, without any great
expectation of their success; and so the matter rested some weeks, when
it happening that some repairs had to be done at Bridgenorth, Thomas
came up to the Dale, and, with his brother, made a trial in Thos.
Tilly's air-furnace with such success as I thought would justify the
erection of a small air-furnace at the Forge for the more perfectly
ascertaining the merit of the invention.  This was accordingly done,
and a trial of it has been made this week, and the success has
surpassed the most sanguine expectations.  The iron put into the
furnace was old Bushes, which thou knowest are always made of hard
iron, and the iron drawn out is the toughest I ever saw.  A bar 1 1/4
inch square, when broke, appears to have very little cold short in it.
I look upon it as one of the most important discoveries ever made, and
take the liberty of recommending thee and earnestly requesting thou
wouldst take out a patent for it immediately....  The specification of
the invention will be comprised in a few words, as it will only set
forth that a reverberatory furnace being built of a proper
construction, the pig or cast iron is put into it, and without the
addition of anything else than common raw pit coal, is converted into
good malleable iron, and, being taken red-hot from the reverberatory
furnace to the forge hammer, is drawn out into bars of various shapes
and sizes, according to the will of the workmen."

Mr. Reynolds's advice was implicitly followed.  A patent was secured in
the name of the brothers Cranege, dated the 17th June, 1766; and the
identical words in the above letter were adopted in the specification
as descriptive of the process.  By this method of puddling, as it is
termed, the manufacturer was thenceforward enabled to produce iron in
increased quantity at a large reduction in price; and though the
invention of the Craneges was greatly improved upon by Onions, and
subsequently by Cort, there can be no doubt as to the originality and
the importance of their invention.  Mr. Tylor states that he was
informed by the son of Richard Reynolds that the wrought iron made at
Coalbrookdale by the Cranege process "was very good, quite tough, and
broke with a long, bright, fibrous fracture:  that made by Cort
afterwards was quite different." [8]  Though Mr. Reynolds's generosity
to the Craneges is apparent; in the course which he adopted in securing
for them a patent for the invention in their own names, it does not
appear to have proved of much advantage to them; and they failed to
rise above the rank which they occupied when their valuable discovery
was patented.  This, however, was no fault of Richard Reynolds, but was
mainly attributable to the circumstance of other inventions in a great
measure superseding their process, and depriving them of the benefits
of their ingenuity.