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This page is part of a website based on
the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort.
Please email site controller Eric
Alexander with any comments or queries. |
Shropshire and Staffordshire ironmasters
The concentration of eighteenth-century
iron industry in two areas of the West Midlands is attributable partly to
favourable local conditions: a good supply of ingredients and fast-running
streams driving hammers, rollers and bellows.
Another feature is a navigable river
providing transport, in days when long-distance roads are rare and
primitive. Downstream is the commercial
centre of Bristol, so it is no surprise to find Bristol merchants much involved
in the iron trade.
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This place has the remarkable advantage of finding in the
mountains on the banks of the river Iron Ore, Coal and (in the neighbourhood)
Lime Stone so that Nature has here supplied every requisite material for
Smelting the ores of Iron. Entry for Coalbrookdale in diary of
Charles Hatchett, May 1796. |
One area is around the Severn Gorge, where
the famous iron bridge will be built.
The other is on a tributary, the Stour, which drains an area west of
Birmingham.
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At Portsmouth above the Gentlemen who supply the Yards there viz
Willm Attwick Esq of Portmansquare London & Mr Thos Morgan of Gosport acknowledge that they
use bars £8000 value yearly - they buy principally from Manufacturers in
Staffordshire & Worcestershire. From records of Cramond ironworks in National Library of Scotland archives. |
John Becher’s role
It may be no coincidence that John Becher takes up residence at Shut End, just north of Stourbridge, not long after
the birth of his third son, Henry Hopson Becher. Researches into the Becher family suggest that Henry Hopson’s
birthplace is Park Hall, Kidderminster, which at the time is owned by the Foley
family, whose fortune was made earlier in the iron trade.
Another pointer is an enty in a ledger book
of the Gibbons family in 1782, recording payment by Becher of over £500, a vast
sum in those days. One Gibbons brother
is a merchant in Bristol, where Becher was born and raised: two are ironmasters
with works on both the Stour and the Severn.
Other names mentioned in the ledger are also identified with the trade. The record probably indicates a purchase of
ironmongery by Becher, presumably on behalf of Cort's business in Gosport.
Severn Gorge area
Is the Ironbridge area more important than
that round the Stour in the eighteenth century? It certainly achieves more prominence, thanks to the iron bridge.
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The whole of the bridge was cast in Coalbrookdale at Abraham
Darby’s Foundry and proved to be the wonder of the age, and still its
graceful and ageless beauty attracts thousands of tourists every year. From monograph on John Wilkinson by Ron
Davies. |
It is also the place where smelting with
coke is pioneered.
Though
recent research suggests that an early breakthrough was achieved by Shadrach
Fox, the name usually associated with this process is Abraham Darby.
A name shared by three generations of
ironmasters at Coalbrookdale, just north of the Severn.
The first Abraham Darby experiments with
the coke-smelting process. The second
makes it commercially viable. The third
uses the product for casting a great variety of items, most notably the
components of the iron bridge.
The first two both die while their sons are
minors, so there are two interregnums when others run the company.
Boss during the second interregnum is
Richard Reynolds, who has married a daughter of Abraham Darby II. During this period the Cranage brothers,
furnacemen at Coalbrookdale, introduce a new fining
process.
By the
time Reynolds hands over control of Coalbrookdale to his brother-in-law Abraham
Darby III, he has started up other works in the area, at Horsehay and Ketley.
He continues to run these, independently of
the Darbys. Later his son William will
take them over.
Another name associated with the Ironbridge
area is John Wilkinson. But he has extensive iron interests elsewhere.
Other ironmasters’ families
Many other names occur in the litany of
ironmasters from the Ironbridge and Stourbridge areas. Gibbons, Homfray,
Wright and Jesson are names of particular interest in
the Henry Cort story.
Sir Ambrose Crowley is also a name from
these parts.
You can spend countless hours on the Web
browsing through details of all these families.
henrycort.net
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