Abraham Darby & The Dynasty of Iron Founders

Today Ironbridge is a World Heritage site and it is only right that the Academy that proudly bears the name of Abraham Darby stands at the entrance to that site.

Ironbridge is known throughout the world as a symbol of the Industrial Revolution. Within its boundaries are all the elements which contributed to the rapid development of the region in the 18th century. The remains of the mines that provided the power source for development are still visible. In nearby Coalbrookdale are the beams and bricks of the first blast furnace, used by Abraham Darby to experiment with his techniques for improving the production of iron. But by far the most powerful image is the Ironbridge itself, spanning the river Severn and bridging the gap between the old and the new eras. Although made of the new material, it was built with woodworking joints carefully replicated in cast iron.

So it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the contribution made by Britain's iron-masters, in particular the three generations of the Darby family who took the science of iron manufacture to new levels in the 18th century. These men had the vision, determination, intelligence and business acumen to develop a global trademark, which still has its echoes in today's world.

Iron had been made in Britain since Roman times, but in small quantities and using charcoal to smelt the ore. So most early foundries were small, woodland-based enterprises close to sources of wood and ore, such as in the Forest of Dean and the Weald. The first recorded improvement in this technique came in 1496 in the Weald, with the introduction of the blast furnace, where air was forced into the fire by bellows to increase the temperature.

By the beginning of the 18th century, iron manufacture and the blast-furnace technique had spread to several parts of the country but the industry had not grown significantly over the past half century. The stage was now set for an entrepreneur or innovator to take the next step forward and Abraham Darby I was to come to the fore.

He was born near Dudley in Worcestershire in about 1678, the son of a Quaker farmer. As a youngster he was apprenticed to a malt-mill maker in Birmingham but in 1704 he visited Holland. During his travels he toured the brass foundries in the area and was impressed by the skills of the craftsmen. When he returned he brought with him several Dutch brass founders, who helped him establish the Baptist Mills brass foundry in Bristol. In 1708, however Darby recognised that the demand for brass pots was limited. These were rather expensive for the average labourer to buy and the market for his product was small. Darby had patented the use of sand casting and realised that he could rapidly produce cheaper iron pots, provided that he could guarantee his works a regular supply of good quality iron. However, at that time the iron industry had problems. There was not enough charcoal for the furnaces. Coal had been tried instead, but the sulphur content made the iron brittle. Darby thought he had the answer. He knew a lot about the malt industry and how it had replaced coal with coke. Maybe coke could be used for iron production.

He decided to purchase a derelict ironworks in Coalbrookdale in order to put his theories to the test. The cast iron he made was not of high quality, but it could be hammered easily into different shapes in order to produce tools and cooking pots. The demand for manufactured goods was in the process of rising dramatically as the population of Britain was in a period of rapid expansion and the market in the American colonies was expanding. Darby was able to develop his business at exactly the right moment. The switch from charcoal to coal and coke meant production moved from the forests to the coalfields, with South Wales, Scotland, Staffordshire and Shropshire - the Darbies' base - becoming the key centres. Darby's works at Coalbrookdale on the River Severn began producing iron of the highest quality, by 1709.

The Darby's were a short-lived family. Abraham Darby I died in 1717, aged about 39, and his son Abraham II, who was born in 1711, only lived to the age of 52. The main feature of Abraham Darby II's tenure of the Coalbrookdale Company was the injection of large sums of money to expand the production capacity. If his father was an innovator, the son was a businessman. He ordered the building of six new furnaces. He also bought control of iron ore and coal mines within Shropshire. A horse-powered tramway running from the mines to the furnaces and thence to the dock facilities on the River Severn allowed a twenty fold increase in transport capacity. He made use of new technology by installing steam pumps to provide a regular water supply to the water wheels, which fired his furnaces.

Abraham Darby III gradually took over the business in the 1770's. Due to the fact that the business had grown rapidly in his father's time, there was a need to attract more workers and Abraham Darby III responded to the challenge. His vision was to develop an industrial community at Coalbrookdale which catered for all the needs of its workers. At a time of food shortages, he bought up local farms to grow food for his workers. He paid higher wages than workers could earn in nearby potteries, farms or mines. He built good quality houses for his workforce, many of which still stand in the landscape today. However his real success was in making Coalbrookdale itself famous.

His most outstanding achievement was the construction of the world's first cast-iron bridge, a 100-foot structure that was prefabricated in the foundry in 1779 and spanned the Severn at a nearby spot which became known as Ironbridge. The bridge is still in use today. The building of the bridge was partly a public relations exercise, advertising the versatility of cast-iron and his Coalbrookdale Company. The bridge was promoted by the eighteenth-century equivalent of a media campaign and paintings were commissioned to advertise it. Darby paid a bill ‘for advertising the views' six months before the Bridge officially opened. An engraving of the bridge went through several editions, each purchaser being given an engineering drawing free of charge. Thomas Jefferson, later third President of the United States, bought Iron Bridge engravings through a friend in London, whilst Minister to France in 1786.

When Abraham Darby III died in 1789, the company passed into the hands of a series of ironmasters, who continued to expand and develop its industrial capacity. In 1802 the Coalbrookdale Works built the first railway locomotive with a high-pressure boiler, for Richard Trevithick, the English engineer and inventor. It was no surprise that Trevithick used Coalbrookdale's expertise when he needed a company to fabricate the boilers for his high-pressure steam engines. The diversity of goods made in the course of the years is almost fantastic and the motto of the Company could well have been "if it can be made in iron, we can make it". From cooking pots destined for Africa, to a sugar mill plant for the West Indies or a steam engine for the Far East the Coalbrookdale Company established by the Darby family and its products, have had a major impact world wide.

But as with so much British industry, home companies were slow to adapt towards the turn of the century and tended to rest on their laurels. While they hesitated, American and German firms in particular surged ahead. Thus the advantages gained at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution were lost and Britain's industrial decline began.

But this takes nothing away from Abraham Darby I and his dynasty of iron-founders and their part in Britain's Industrial Revolution, or Ironbridge's position as the "Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution."