Who was Abraham Darby?
It always costs more than you think Abraham III lived in Dale House between 1776 and 1780, the same time when he was planning and directing the building of the Iron Bridge. He estimated it would cost 3,150 to build the Iron Bridge. In fact it cost just over 6,000, almost double the original estimate, but as it was the first Iron Bridge in the World who can blame him for getting his sums wrong!
First Successful Smelter of Iron with Coke. Date and Place of Birth: 1678, Wren’s Nest, Sedgley, Dudley, West Midlands, England. Family Background: Son of a Farmer. Education: Within the family by Quakers and self-taught. Apprenticed as a metal worker. Chronology/Biography of Abraham Darby: 1700: Founded the Baptist Mills Brass works near Temple Meads in Bristol and over the next few years turned Britain into a major producer and exporter of brass. Using sand moulds made the process continuous. 1708: Founded the Bristol Iron Company. 1709: First successful manufacture of good quality iron in furnaces fired with Coke at his new premises in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, on the banks of the River Severn. Charcoal was becoming too scarce and could not achieve fires for furnaces of the right temperature and coal contained many impurities including Sulphur which made inferior quality iron. 1712: 250 tons of coal were being used per week at the Baptist Mills Brass Works.The advent of the new New
