"God of his Infinite goodness (if we will but take notice
of his goodness unto this Nation) hath made this Country a very Granary
for the supplying of Smiths with Iron, Cole, and Lime made with cole,
which hath much supplied these men with Corn also of late; and from
these men a great part, not only of this Island, but also of his Majestie’s
other Kingdoms and Territories, with Iron wares have their supply,
and Wood in these parts almost exhausted, although it were of late
a mighty woodland country." - DUDLEY’s Metallum Martis, 1665.
The severe restrictions enforced by the legislature
against the use of wood in iron-smelting had the effect of almost
extinguishing the manufacture. New furnaces ceased to be erected,
and many of the old ones were allowed to fall into decay, until it
began to be feared that this important branch of industry would become
completely lost. The same restrictions alike affected the operations
of the glass manufacture, which, with the aid of foreign artisans,
had been gradually established in England, and was becoming a thriving
branch of trade. It was even proposed that the smelting of iron should
be absolutely prohibited: "many think," said a contemporary writer,
"that there should be NO WORKS ANYWHERE - they do so devour the woods."
The use of iron, however, could not be dispensed with.
The very foundations of society rested upon an abundant supply of
it, for tools and implements of peace, as well as for weapons of war.
In the dearth of the article at home, a supply of it was therefore
sought for abroad; and both iron and steel came to be imported in
largely-increased quantities. This branch of trade was principally
in the hands of the Steelyard Company of Foreign Merchants, established
in Upper Thames Street, a little above London Bridge; and they imported
large quantities of iron and steel from foreign countries, principally
from Sweden, Germany, and Spain. The best iron came from Spain, though
the Spaniards on their part coveted our English made cannons, which
were better manufactured than theirs; while the best steel came from
Germany and Sweden.
Under these circumstances, it was natural that persons
interested in the English iron manufacture should turn their attention
to some other description of fuel which should serve as a substitute
for the prohibited article. There was known to be an abundance of
coal in the northern and midland counties, and it occurred to some
speculators more than usually daring, to propose it as a substitute
for the charcoal fuel made from wood. But the same popular prejudice
which existed against the use of coal for domestic purposes, prevented
its being employed for purposes of manufacture; and they were thought
very foolish persons indeed who first promulgated the idea of smelting
iron by means of pit-coal. The old manufacturers held it to be impossible
to reduce the ore in any other way than by means of charcoal of wood.
It was only when the wood in the neighbourhood of the ironworks had
been almost entirely burnt up, that the manufacturers were driven
to entertain the idea of using coal as a substitute; but more than
a hundred years passed before the practice of smelting iron by its
means became general.
The first who took out a patent for the purpose was
one Simon Sturtevant, a German skilled in mining operations; the professed
object of his invention being "to neale, melt, and worke all kind
of metal oares, irons, and steeles with sea-coale, pit-coale, earth-coale,
and brush fewell." The principal end of his invention, he states in
his Treatise of Metallica, is to save the consumption and waste of
the woods and timber of the country; and, should his design succeed,
he holds that it "will prove to be the best and most profitable business
and invention that ever was known or invented in England these many
yeares." He says he has already made trial of the process on a small
scale, and is confident that it will prove equally successful on a
large one. Sturtevant was not very specific as to his process; but
it incidentally appears to have been his purpose to reduce the coal
by an imperfect combustion to the condition of coke, thereby ridding
it of "those malignant proprieties which are averse to the nature
of metallique substances." The subject was treated by him, as was
customary in those days, as a great mystery, made still more mysterious
by the multitude of learned words under which he undertook to describe
his "Ignick Invention" All the operations of industry were then treated
as secrets. Each trade was a craft, and those who followed it were
called craftsmen. Even the common carpenter was a handicraftsman;
and skilled artisans were "cunning men." But the higher branches of
work were mysteries, the communication of which to others was carefully
guarded by the regulations of the trades guilds. Although the early
patents are called specifications, they in reality specify nothing.
They are for the most part but a mere haze of words, from which very
little definite information can be gleaned as to the processes patented.
It may be that Sturtevant had not yet reduced his idea to any practicable
method, and therefore could not definitely explain it. However that
may be, it is certain that his process failed when tried on a large
scale, and Sturtevant’s patent was accordingly cancelled at the end
of a year.
The idea, however, had been fairly born, and repeated
patents were taken out with the same object from time to time. Thus,
immediately on Sturtevant’s failure becoming known, one John Rovenzon,
who had been mixed up with the other’s adventure, applied for a patent
for making iron by the same process, which was granted him in 1613.
His ‘Treatise of Metallica’ shows that Rovenzon had a true conception
of the method of manufacture. Nevertheless he, too, failed in carrying
out the invention in practice, and his patent was also cancelled.
Though these failures were very discouraging, like experiments continued
to be made and patents taken out,--principally by Dutchmen and Germans,
but no decided success seems to have attended their efforts until
the year 1620, when Lord Dudley took out his patent "for melting iron
ore, making bar-iron, &c., with coal, in furnaces, with bellows."
This patent was taken out at the instance of his son Dud Dudley, whose
story we gather partly from his treatise entitled ‘Metallum Martis,’
and partly from various petitions presented by him to the king, which
are preserved in the State Paper Office, and it runs as follows: --
Dud Dudley was born in 1599, the natural son of Edward
Lord Dudley of Dudley Castle in the county of Worcester. He was the
fourth of eleven children by the same mother, who is described in
the pedigree of the family given in the Herald’s visitation of the
county of Stafford in the year 1663, signed by Dud Dudley himself,
as "Elizabeth, daughter of William Tomlinson of Dudley, concubine
of Edward Lord Dudley." Dud’s eldest brother is described in the same
pedigree as Robert Dudley, Squire, of Netherton Hall; and as his sisters
mostly married well, several of them county gentlemen, it is obvious
that the family, notwithstanding that the children were born out of
wedlock, held a good position in their neighbourhood, and were regarded
with respect. Lord Dudley, though married and having legitimate heirs
at the time, seems to have attended to the up-bringing of his natural
children; educating them carefully, and afterwards employing them
in confidential offices connected with the management of his extensive
property. Dud describes himself as taking great delight, when a youth,
in his father’s iron-works near Dudley, where he obtained considerable
knowledge of the various processes of the manufacture.
The town of Dudley was already a centre of the iron
manufacture, though chiefly of small wares, such as nails, horse-shoes,
keys, locks, and common agricultural tools; and it was estimated that
there were about 20,000 smiths and workers in iron of various kinds
living within a circuit of ten miles of Dudley Castle. But, as in
the southern counties, the production of iron had suffered great diminution
from the want of fuel in the district, "though formerly a mighty woodland
country; and many important branches of the local trade were brought
almost to a stand-still. Yet there was an extraordinary abundance
of coal to be met with in the neighbourhood - coal in some places
lying in seams ten feet thick - ironstone four feet thick immediately
under the coal, with limestone conveniently adjacent to both. The
conjunction seemed almost providential - "as if." observes Dud, "God
had decreed the time when and how these smiths should be supplied,
and this island also, with iron, and most especially that this cole
and ironstone should give the first and just occasion for the invention
of smelting iron with pit-cole;" though, as we have already seen,
all attempts heretofore made with that object had practically failed.
Dud was a special favourite of the Earl his father,
who encouraged his speculations with reference to the improvement
of the iron manufacture, and gave him an education calculated to enable
him to turn his excellent practical abilities to account. He was studying
at Baliol College, Oxford, in the year 1619, when the Earl sent for
him to take charge of an iron furnace and two forges in the chase
of Pensnet in Worcestershire. He was no sooner installed manager of
the works, than, feeling hampered by the want of wood for fuel, his
attention was directed to the employment of pit-coal as a substitute.
He altered his furnace accordingly, so as to adapt it to the new process,
and the result of the first trial was such as to induce him to persevere.
It is nowhere stated in Dud Dudley’s Treatise what was the precise
nature of the method adopted by him; but it is most probable that,
in endeavouring to substitute coal for wood as fuel, he would subject
the coal to a process similar to that of charcoal-burning. The result
would be what is called Coke; and as Dudley informs us that he followed
up his first experiment with a second blast, by means of which he
was enabled to produce good marketable iron, the presumption is that
his success was also due to an improvement of the blast which he contrived
for the purpose of keeping up the active combustion of the fuel. Though
the quantity produced by the new process was comparatively small -
not more than three tons a week from each furnace - Dudley anticipated
that greater experience would enable him to increase the quantity;
and at all events he had succeeded in proving the practicability of
smelting iron with fuel made from pit-coal, which so many before him
had tried in vain.
Immediately after the second trial had been made with
such good issue, Dud wrote to his father the Earl, then in London,
informing him what he had done, and desiring him at once to obtain
a patent for the invention from King James. This was readily granted,
and the patent (No. 18), dated the 22nd February, 1620,
was taken out in the name of Lord Dudley himself.
Dud proceeded with the manufacture of iron at Pensnet,
and also at Cradley in Staffordshire, where he erected another furnace;
and a year after the patent was granted he was enabled to send up
to the Tower, by the King’s command, a considerable quantity of the
new iron for trial. Many experiments were made with it: its qualities
were fairly tested, and it was pronounced "good merchantable iron."
Dud adds, in his Treatise, that his brother-in-law, Richard Parkshouse,
of Sedgeley, "had a fowling-gun there made of the Pit-cole iron,"
which was "well approved." There was therefore every prospect of the
new method of manufacture becoming fairly established, and with greater
experience further improvements might with confidence be anticipated,
when a succession of calamities occurred to the inventor which involved
him in difficulties and put an effectual stop to the progress of his
enterprise.
The new works had been in successful operation little
more than a year, when a flood, long after known as the "Great May-day
Flood," swept away Dudley’s principal works at Cradley, and otherwise
inflicted much damage throughout the district. "At the market town
called Stourbridge," says Dud, in the course of his curious narrative,
"although the author sent with speed to preserve the people from drowning,
and one resolute man was carried from the bridge there in the day-time,
the nether part of the town was so deep in water that the people had
much ado to preserve their lives in the uppermost rooms of their houses."
Dudley himself received very little sympathy for his losses. On the
contrary, the iron-smelters of the district rejoiced exceedingly at
the destruction of his works by the flood. They had seen him making
good iron by his new patent process, and selling it cheaper than they
could afford to do. They accordingly put in circulation all manner
of disparaging reports about his iron. It was bad iron, not fit to
be used; indeed no iron, except what was smelted with charcoal of
wood, could be good. To smelt it with coal was a dangerous innovation,
and could only result in some great public calamity. The ironmasters
even appealed to King James to put a stop to Dud’s manufacture, alleging
that his iron was not merchantable. And then came the great flood,
which swept away his works; the hostile ironmasters now hoping that
there was an end for ever of Dudley’s pit-coal iron.
But Dud, with his wonted energy, forthwith set to work
and repaired his furnaces and forges, though at great cost; and in
the course of a short time the new manufacture was again in full progress.
The ironmasters raised a fresh outcry against him, and addressed another
strong memorial against Dud and his iron to King James. This seems
to have taken effect; and in order to ascertain the quality of the
article by testing it upon a large scale, the King commanded Dudley
to send up to the Tower of London, with every possible speed, quantities
of all the sorts of bar-iron made by him, fit for the "making of muskets,
carbines, and iron for great bolts for shipping; which iron," continues
Dud, "being so tried by artists and smiths, the ironmasters and iron-mongers
were all silenced until the 21st year of King James’s reign."
The ironmasters then endeavoured to get the Dudley patent included
in the monopolies to be abolished by the statute of that year; but
all they could accomplish was the limitation of the patent to fourteen
years instead of thirty-one; the special exemption of the patent from
the operation of the statute affording a sufficient indication of
the importance already attached to the invention. After that time
Dudley "went on with his invention cheerfully, and made annually great
store of iron, good and merchantable, and sold it unto diverse men
at twelve pounds per ton." "I also," said he, "made all sorts of cast-iron
wares, as brewing cisterns, pots, mortars, &c., better and cheaper
than any yet made in these nations with charcoal, some of which are
yet to be seen by any man (at the author’s house in the city of Worcester)
that desires to be satisfied of the truth of the invention."
Notwithstanding this decided success, Dudley encountered
nothing but trouble and misfortune. The ironmasters combined to resist
his invention; they fastened lawsuit’s upon him, and succeeded in
getting him ousted from his works at Cradley. From thence he removed
to Himley in the county of Stafford, where he set up a pit-coal furnace;
but being without the means of forging the iron into bars, he was
constrained to sell the pig-iron to the charcoal-ironmasters, "who
did him much prejudice, not only by detaining his stock, but also
by disparaging his iron." He next proceeded to erect a large new furnace
at Hasco Bridge, near Sedgeley, in the same county, for the purpose
of carrying out the manufacture on the most improved principles. This
furnace was of stone, twenty-seven feet square, provided with unusually
large bellows; and when in full work he says he was enabled to turn
out seven tons of iron per week, "the greatest quantity of pit-coal
iron ever yet made in Great Britain." At the same place he discovered
and opened out new workings of coal ten feet thick, lying immediately
over the ironstone, and he prepared to carry on his operations on
a large scale; but the new works were scarcely finished when a mob
of rioters, instigated by the charcoal-ironmasters, broke in upon
them, cut in pieces the new bellows, destroyed the machinery, and
laid the results of all his deep-laid ingenuity and persevering industry
in ruins. From that time forward Dudley was allowed no rest nor peace:
he was attacked by mobs, worried by lawsuits, and eventually overwhelmed
by debts. He was then seized by his creditors and sent up to London,
where he was held a prisoner in the Comptoir for several thousand
pounds. The charcoal-iron men thus for a time remained masters of
the field.
Charles I. seems to have taken pity on the suffering
inventor; and on his earnest petition, setting forth the great advantages
to the nation of his invention, from which he had as yet derived no
advantage, but only losses, sufferings, and persecution, the King
granted him a renewal of his patent in the year 1638; three other
gentlemen joining him as partners, and doubtless providing the requisite
capital for carrying on the manufacture after the plans of the inventor.
But Dud’s evil fortune continued to pursue him. The patent had scarcely
been securedere the Civil War broke out, and the arts of peace must
at once perforce give place to the arts of war. Dud’s nature would
not suffer him to be neutral at such a time; and when the nation divided
itself into two hostile camps, his predilections being strongly loyalist,
he took the side of the King with his father. It would appear from
a petition presented by him to Charles II. in 1660, setting forth
his sufferings in the royal cause, and praying for restoral to certain
offices which he had enjoyed under Charles I., that as early as the
year 1637 he had been employed by the King on a mission into Scotland,
in the train of the Marquis of Hamilton, the King’s Commissioner.
Again in 1639, leaving his ironworks and partners, he accompanied
Charles on his expedition across the Scotch border, and was present
with the army until its discomfiture at Newburn near Newcastle in
the following year.
The sword was now fairly drawn, and Dud seems for a
time to have abandoned his iron-works and followed entirely the fortunes
of the king. He was sworn surveyor of the Mews or Armoury in 1640,
but being unable to pay for the patent, another was sworn in in his
place. Yet his loyalty did not falter, for in the beginning of 1642,
when Charles set out from London, shortly after the fall of Strafford
and Laud, Dud went with him.
He was present before Hull when Sir John Hotham shut
its gates in the king’s face; at York when the royal commissions of
array were sent out enjoining all loyal subjects to send men, arms,
money, and horses, for defence of the king and maintenance of the
law; at Nottingham, where the royal standard was raised; at Coventry,
where the townspeople refused the king entrance and fired upon his
troops from the walls; at Edgehill, where the first great but indecisive
battle was fought between the contending parties; in short, as Dud
Dudley states in his petition, he was "in most of the battailes that
year, and also supplyed his late sacred Majestie’s magazines of Stafford,
Worcester, Dudley Castle, and Oxford, with arms, shot, drakes, and
cannon; and also, became major unto Sir Frauncis Worsley’s regiment,
which was much decaied."
In 1643, according to the statement contained in his
petition above referred to, Dud Dudley acted as military engineer
in setting out the fortifications of Worcester and Stafford, and furnishing
them with ordnance. After the taking of Lichfield, in which he had
a share, he was made Colonel of Dragoons, and accompanied the Queen
with his regiment to the royal head-quarters at Oxford. The year after
we find him at the siege of Gloucester, then at the first battle of
Newbury leading the forlorn hope with Sir George Lisle, afterwards
marching with Sir Charles Lucas into the associate counties, and present
at the royalist rout at Newport. That he was esteemed a valiant and
skilful officer is apparent from the circumstance, that in 1645 he
was appointed general of Prince Maurice’s train of artillery, and
afterwards held the same rank under Lord Ashley. The iron districts
being still for the most part occupied by the royal armies, our military
engineer turned his practical experience to account by directing the
forging of drakes of bar-iron, which were found of great use, giving
up his own dwelling-house in the city of Worcester for the purpose
of carrying on the manufacture of these and other arms. But Worcester
and the western towns fell before the Parliamentarian armies in 1646,
and all the iron-works belonging to royalists, from which the principal
supplies of arms had been drawn by the King’s army, were forthwith
destroyed.
Dudley fully shared in the dangers and vicissitudes
of that trying period, and bore his part throughout like a valiant
soldier. For two years nothing was heard of him, until in 1648, when
the king’s party drew together again, and made head in different parts
of the country, north and south. Goring raised his standard in Essex,
but was driven by Fairfax into Colchester, where he defended himself
for two months. While the siege was in progress, the royalists determined
to make an attempt to raise it. On this Dud Dudley again made his
appearance in the field, and, joining sundry other counties, he proceeded
to raise 200 men, mostly at his own charge. They were, however, no
sooner mustered in Bosco Bello woods near Madeley, than they were
attacked by the Parliamentarians, and dispersed or taken prisoners.
Dud was among those so taken, and he was first carried to Hartlebury
Castle and thence to Worcester, where he was imprisoned. Recounting
the sufferings of himself and his followers on this occasion, in the
petition presented to Charles II. in 1660, he says, "200 men were
dispersed, killed, and some taken, namely, Major Harcourt, Major Elliotts,
Capt. Long, and Cornet Hodgetts, of whom Major Harcourt was miserably
burned with matches. The petitioner and the rest were stripped almost
naked, and in triumph and scorn carried up to the city of Worcester
(which place Dud had fortified for the king), and kept close prisoners,
with double guards set upon the prison and the city."
Notwithstanding this close watch and durance, Dudley
and Major Elliotts contrived to break out of gaol, making their way
over the tops of the houses, afterwards passing the guards at the
city gates, and escaping into the open country. Being hotly pursued
, they travelled during the night, and took to the trees during the
daytime. They succeeded in reaching London, but only to drop again
into the lion’s mouth; for first Major Elliotts was captured, then
Dudley, and both were taken before Sir John Warner, the Lord Mayor,
who forthwith sent them before the "cursed committee of insurrection,"
as Dudley calls them. The prisoners were summarily sentenced to be
shot to death, and were meanwhile closely imprisoned in the Gatehouse
at Westminster, with other Royalists.
The day before their intended execution, the prisoners
formed a plan of escape. It was Sunday morning, the 20th
August, 1648, when they seized their opportunity, "at ten of the cloeke
in sermon time;" and, overpowering the gaolers, Dudley, with Sir Henry
Bates, Major Elliotts, Captain South, Captain Paris, and six others,
succeeded in getting away, and making again for the open country.
Dudley had received a wound in the leg, and could only get along with
great difficulty. He records that he proceeded on crutches, through
Worcester, Tewkesbury, and Gloucester, to Bristol, having been "fed
three weeks in private in an enemy’s hay mow." Even the most lynx-eyed
Parliamentarian must have failed to recognise the quondam royalist
general of artillery in the helpless creature dragging himself along
upon crutches; and he reached Bristol in safety.
His military career now over, he found himself absolutely
penniless. His estate of about £200. per annum had been sequestrated
and sold by the government; his house in Worcester had been seized
and his sickly wife turned out of doors; and his goods, stock, great
shop, and ironworks, which he himself valued at £2000, were
destroyed. He had also lost the offices of Serjeant-at-arms, Lieutenant
of Ordnance, and Surveyor of the Mews, which he had held under the
king; in a word, he found himself reduced to a state of utter destitution.
Dudley was for some time under the necessity of living
in great privacy at Bristol; but when the king had been executed,
and the royalists were finally crushed at Worcester, Dud gradually
emerged from his concealment. He was still the sole possessor of the
grand secret of smelting iron with pit-coal, and he resolved upon
one more commercial adventure, in the hope of yet turning it to good
account. He succeeded in inducing Walter Stevens, linendraper, and
John Stone, merchant, both of Bristol, to join him as partners in
an ironwork, which they proceeded to erect near that city. The buildings
were well advanced, and nearly £700 had been expended, when
a quarrel occurred between Dudley and his partners, which ended in
the stoppage of the works, and the concern being thrown into Chancery.
Dudley alleges that the other partners "cunningly drew him into a
bond," and "did unjustly enter staple actions in Bristol of great
value against him, because he was of the king’s party;" but it would
appear as if there had been some twist or infirmity of temper in Dudley
himself, which prevented him from working harmoniously with such persons
as he became associated with in affairs of business.
In the mean time other attempts were made to smelt iron
with pit-coal. Dudley says that Cromwell and the then Parliament granted
a patent to Captain Buck for the purpose; and that Cromwell himself,
Major Wildman, and various others were partners in the patent. They
erected furnaces and works in the Forest of Dean; but, though Cromwell
and his officers could fight and win battles, they could not smelt
and forge iron with pit-coal. They brought one Dagney, an Italian
glass-maker, from Bristol, to erect a new furnace for them, provided
with sundry pots of glass-house clay; but no success attended their
efforts. The partners knowing of Dudley’s possession of the grand
secret, invited him to visit their works; but all they could draw
from him was that they would never succeed in making iron to profit
by the methods they were pursuing. They next proceeded to erect other
works at Bristol, but still they failed.
Major Wildman bought Dudley’s sequestrated estate, in
the hope of being able to extort his secret of making iron with pit-coal;
but all their attempts proving abortive, they at length abandoned
the enterprise in despair. In 1656, one Captain Copley obtained from
Cromwell a further patent with a similar object; and erected works
near Bristol, and also in the Forest of Kingswood. The mechanical
engineers employed by Copley failed in making his bellows blow; on
which he sent for Dudley, who forthwith "made his bellows to be blown
feisibly;" but Copley failed, like his predecessors, in making iron,
and at length he too desisted from further experiments.
Such continued to be the state of things until the Restoration,
when we find Dud Dudley a petitioner to the king for the renewal of
his patent. He was also a petitioner for compensation in respect of
the heavy losses he had sustained during the civil wars. The king
was besieged by crowds of applicants of a similar sort, but Dudley
was no more successful than the others. He failed in obtaining the
renewal of his patent. Another applicant for the like privilege, probably
having greater interest at court, proved more successful. Colonel
Proger and three others were granted a patent to make iron with coal;
but Dudley knew the secret, which the new patentees did not; and their
patent came to nothing.
Dudley continued to address the king in importunate
petitions, asking to be restored to his former offices of Serjeant-at-arms,
Lieutenant of Ordnance, and Surveyor of the Mews or Armoury. He also
petitioned to be appointed Master of the Charter House in Smithfield,
professing himself willing to take anything, or hold any living.
We find him sending in two petitions to a similar effect
in June, 1660; and a third shortly after. The result was, that he
was reappointed to the office of Serjeant-at-Arms; but the Mastership
of the Charter-House was not disposed of until 1662, when it fell
to the lot of one Thomas Watson.
In 1661, we find a patent granted to Wm. Chamberlaine
and - Dudley, Esq., for the sole use of their new invention of plating
steel, &c., and tinning the said plates; but whether Dud Dudley
was the person referred to, we are unable precisely to determine.
A few years later, he seems to have succeeded in obtaining the means
of prosecuting his original invention; for in his Metallum Martis,
published in 1665, he describes himself as living at Green’s Lodge,
in Staffordshire; and he says that near it are four forges, Green’s
Forge, Swin Forge, Heath Forge, and Cradley Forge, where he practises
his "perfect invention." These forges, he adds, "have barred all or
most part of their iron with pit-coal since the authors first invention
In 1618, which hath preserved much wood. In these four, besides many
other forges, do the like [sic ]; yet the author hath had no benefit
thereby to this present." From that time forward, Dud becomes lost
to sight. He seems eventually to have retired to St. Helen’s in Worcestershire,
where he died in 1684, in the 85th year of his age. He
was buried in the parish church there, and a monument, now destroyed,
was erected to his memory, bearing the inscription partly set forth
underneath.