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 large ...

and Quaker. 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,

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 impur ...

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 Ironbridge is a large village in the borough of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. Located on the bank of the River Severn, at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge, it lies in the civil parish of The Gorge. Ironbridge developed beside, a ...

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 in ...

, 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 Telford () is a town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, about east of Shrewsbury, south west of Stafford, north west of Wolverhampton and from Birmingham in t ...

, UK, is named after Abraham Darby III. The school's name is Abraham Darby Academy. Rosa Abraham Darby

In 1985 a rose cultivar Rosa 'Abraham Darby' 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