Abraham Darby

In the 1690's young Abraham Darby was apprenticed to another Quaker, Jonathan Freeth, a maker of malt mills in Birmingham. Upon completion of that apprenticeship in 1699 he married a Mary Sargeant and moved to Bristol, where Quakerism had taken root and where most industrialists were followers of the new faith.

After being involved in the setting up of the famous brass works at Baptist Mills, he visited the Netherlands to learn more about the brass-making industry.

By 1706 he had set up an iron-making foundry at Cheese Lane but had little success at casting iron pots. After meeting John Thomas, however, an Quaker ironworker from Montgomeryshire, he succeeded by using fine sand and a mould box.

He took out a patent on the process, and an assurance from Thomas that he would not work for anyone else or teach the secrets of the process for three years.

Darby's interest in iron-making was growing, and in 1708 he leased and repaired Sir Basil Brooke's furnace at Coalbrookdale and relinquished his ties with the brass-making industry. By 1710 his new ironworks were producing kettles, pots and bellied cauldrons for the local community.

When Abraham Darby arrived in the area there were no Quakers living on the south side of the Severn, but by 1716 there were eight Quaker families living in the parish of Madeley, mostly employed at his Coalbrookdale works.

White End, a timber-framed house near his forge, had been his first home (it was demolished in 1939 as part of a road widening scheme), and in 1712 he had rented Madeley Court while his new house was being built - he died there on the 5th May 1717, and was buried in the Quaker graveyard at Broseley.

Fact File

Abraham Darby