Abraham Darby III (24 April 1750 – 1789) was an English

ironmaster An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain. The ironmaster was usually a larg ...

and

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

. He was the third man of that name in several generations of an English Quaker family that played a pivotal role in the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

Life

Abraham Darby was born in

Coalbrookdale Coalbrookdale is a village in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire, England, containing a settlement of great significance in the history of iron ore smelting. It lies within the civil parish called the Gorge. This is where iron ore was first s ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to ...

, in 1750, the eldest son of Abraham Darby the Younger (1711–1763) by his second wife, Abiah Maude, and educated at a school in Worcester kept by a Quaker named James Fell. At age thirteen, Darby inherited his father's shares in the family iron-making businesses in the Severn Valley, and in 1768, aged eighteen, he took over the management of the Coalbrookdale ironworks. He took various measures to improve the conditions of his work force. In times of food shortage he bought up farms to grow food for his workers, he built housing for them, and he offered higher wages than were paid in other local industries, including coal-mining and the potteries. He built the largest

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impu ...

structure of his era: the first cast-iron bridge ever built, as a crossing over the

Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

near Coalbrookdale. The bridge made it possible for the village of Ironbridge to grow up around it, with the area being subsequently named Ironbridge Gorge. In 1776 Darby married Rebecca Smith of

Doncaster Doncaster (, ) is a city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, it is the administrative centre of the larger City of Doncaster. It is the second largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield. Doncaster is situated i ...

, and they had seven children, of whom four survived to adulthood. He died in Madeley aged only 39 and was buried in the Quaker burial ground in Coalbrookdale. His sons Francis (1783–1850) and Richard (1788–1860) both worked in the Coalbrookdale Company.

Tributes

A secondary school in Telford, UK, is named after Abraham Darby III. The school's name is

Abraham Darby Academy Haberdashers' Abraham Darby Academy in Telford, Shropshire, England, is an exceptional coeducational secondary school on Ironbridge Road in Madeley which was founded in 1937. It is named after Abraham Darby III and is situated one mile from t ...

In 1985 a rose cultivar

Rosa 'Abraham Darby' Abraham Darby (synonyms AUScot, Candy Rain, Country Darby tree) is a popular apricot Shrub rose cultivar which was introduced by David Austin in England in 1985. The English rose was bred by crossing the climber 'Aloha' with the floribunda 'Ye ...

bred by David C.H. Austin was named after Abraham Darby.

References

External links

Article in Dictionary of National Biography

Biography of Abiah Darby in DNB (requires subscription)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darby, Abraham III 1750 births 1791 deaths People of the Industrial Revolution People from Coalbrookdale English ironmasters English Quakers

Life

Tributes

See also

References

External links