It is a pity that the memorials of a family so ancient and distinguished, and so connected with the early history of Madeley, have not been better preserved. There must, one would think, have been mural monuments of a costly kind in the old church, seeing that the family lived at the Court for two centuries and a half at the least.
The stone of which the house was built was quarried near the spot, but the shelly limestone covering for the roof must have been brought from Acton Burnell, or somewhere near. It is from the pentamerous beds of the Caradoc sandstone. The house is supplied with spring-water by pipes from an ancient reservoir on the high ground near where the stone used was probably quarried.
The first indication we find at Madeley of the troubled times which ushered in the most remarkable episode in the history of the 17th century is an entry in the church register, under date of April 14, 1645, informing us that on the above date one William Caroloso was buried, the church at the time being garrisoned by a Parliamentary regiment, commanded by Captain Harrington. A page of history was being written which in all future times would be read with interest; agencies, the growth of centuries, had been developed; struggles for political and polemical equality had disturbed the stagnation of ages. The injustice of the courts, the persecutions, pillorings, and beheadings of reformers and standard-bearers of truth, and the weakness and insincerity of monarchs, had culminated in revolution, and six years later the weak vacillating monarch, Charles II., after the battle of Worcester, where 3,000 of his army had been left upon the field, came a fugitive to Madeley. The story of his flight, his disguise, and of his lodging in “Wolfe’s bam,” is an episode in history that illustrates the vicissitudes of life, affords a startling lesson to royalty, and brings into relief the devotion and faithfulness of those in humble spheres to others when in misfortune. Having ridden in hot haste from Worcester, and fallen in with the Earls Buckingham, Derby, Wilmot, and others, “I strove,” he tells us, “as soon as it was dark, to get them to stand by me against the enemy, I could not get rid of them now I had a mind to it, having, afterwards slipt away from them by a by-road when it was dark.”
The story of his retreat through Kidderminster, where Richard Baxter describes the balls flying all night, and the hurried northward flight under the trusty scout, Master Walker; then the second pause of terror on Kinver Heath; the stolen and breathless flight through Stourbridge; the short and poor refreshment at Kingswinford; and the long gallop to the White Ladies;—the whole flight being certainly forty miles—has been so often told as to be familiar to the reader.
These and other incidents of the flight have been worked up in a drama, in five acts, by Mr. George Griffiths, of Bewdley. Scene 2 is laid at the White Ladies (nine miles from Wolverhampton and one from Brewood, now occupied by Mr. Wilson).
“Enter Col. Roscarrock, Richard Penderell, of Hobbal Grange, Edward Martin, a servant, and Bartholemew Martin, a boy in the house.
“Col. Roscarrock (to the boy Martin):
Come hither, boy, canst thou do an errand,
And speak to no one on the road to Boscobel?“Boy.—That I can, Sir, without reward or fee;
Trust me, I will not say one word
To any he or she, so tell me what’s my duty.“Col. Roscarrock.—Go off to Boscobel the nearest road,
And one that fewest folks do travel by.
Tell William Penderell to hasten hither,
Without a minute’s stopping,
And should he ask thee why and wherefore,
Tell him Good Master Giffard wants him here
Without delay, and see thou com’st back with him;
And shouldst thou meet or pass folks on the road,
Say nought unto them as to where thou’rt going
Or what thy errand is. Haste, and some coin
Shall warm thy pocket if thou mind’st my words.“Boy.—Aye, aye, sir, humble boys have sharpish wits.
Because their simple food keeps them in health;
I’se warrant the Squire’s son, though so well fed,
Cannot leap gates like I, or ride a horse
Barebacked across the hedges of our farm.
Aye, aye, sir, I can keep my counsel, too;
I know a hay-fork from a noble’s sword,
And I do feel that with my harvest fork
I could defend a king as stoutly
As those who carry golden-handled swords.
I go, and no man, no, nor woman either,
Shall coax one word from off my faithful tongue.[Exit.
“Col. Roscarrock.—See now, how this young varlet guesses all,
His eye alone told all I thought unknown;
Well, trusty friends dwell oft in rustic hearts
With more sincerity than in the breasts
Of those who fill the highest offices.”
Boscobel was selected upon the suggestion of the Earl of Derby, who, defeated and wounded on the 25th of August, 1651, at the battle of Wigan, by the Parliamentary forces under Colonel Lilburn, found his way hither whilst seeking to join Charles at Worcester, and who, after four or five days rest here, went on, and reached Worcester on the eve of the famous battle.
Boscobel, so named, as we have seen, by Sir Basil Brooke, of the Court House, Madeley, on account of its beautiful and well-wooded situation, and built ostensibly as a hunting-lodge, but in reality as a hiding-place for priests, amid the sombre forest of Brewood, was often used for the purpose for which it was designed, as well as a shelter for distressed Cavaliers.
The story of the disfigurement of Charles, and his crouching wet and weary in the woods, has been often told in prose and verse. We quote Griffiths again:—
“W. Penderell (to the King).—Sire, disguise is your first need, henceforth your title must not pass
Our lips; here in this chimney rub your hands
And then transfer the blackness to your face.
We must in, and clothe you in a rustic suit
Of green, with leathern doublet and a noggain shirt
For we have heard that troops have come to Codsall
But three miles off, under the traitor Ashenhurst.
Haste! Haste! and when your rough disguise is donned
We must take shelter in the thick Spring Coppice,
The darkest covert Boscobel doth claim.“Scene 4. Richard Penderell’s house at Hobbal Grange. Enter the King, old Mrs. Penderell, and her son Richard.
“The King.—We must not stop here long, the air is full of spies,
The night now favours us; no moon nor stars
Shine out to show us to our enemies.
Let’s hence to Wales, fidelity lives there
More than on English soil. Oft have I read
Of their unvarying faith to those they served,
What straits and stratagems they felt and wrought,
To save misfortune’s sons from grievous fates.“R. Penderell.—We must disguise you more;
Rub well your hands in the wet dirt,
Here, take this bill, a woodman you must be,
And for a name let William Jones suffice;
Shew no dread, but speak few words,
For fear they should betray your better teaching.
Come, let’s away, I have a friend at Madeley,
Wolfe by name, faithful and trusty.”
William Penderell acting as barber, the king was eased of his royal locks, his hands and face were toned down to that of a country labourer, and he sallied forth, wood-bill in hand, in the direction of Madeley, with “a country-fellow,” whose borrowed suit he travelled in. To understand his majesty’s toilet the reader must conceive the royal person in a pair of ordinary grey cloth breeches—“more holy than the wearer”—rather roomy in the slack; a leathern doublet, greasy about the collar; hose much darned; shoes that let in dirt and wet to the royal feet—ventilators in their way; and above all a sugar-loaf hat, rain proof by reason of grease, turned up at the sides, the corners acting as water-spouts. Thus disguised, the rain pouring in torrents, on a dark night, along a rough by-road, “guided by the rustling sound of Richard’s calf-skin breeches,” through mud and mire, over ruts, plunging now and then into swollen streams, the king and his guide travelled in the direction of Madeley. Slamming the gate at Evelyth bridge, in the middle of the night, brought out the miller, who ordered them to stand, and raised an outcry of “Rogues, rogues.” Foot-sore and weary, resolving sometimes to go no farther, then plucking up their spirits and trudging on, the house of Mr. Wolfe, who had “hiding holes for priests,” was reached, where the king slept in a barn.
Hearing from Mr. Wolfe’s son, who had escaped from Shrewsbury, that every bridge and boat were in the possession of the Roundheads, so that escape in that direction was hopeless, it was decided to advise his majesty to return. Mr. Wolfe, according to Pepys, persuaded the king to put on “a pair of old green yarn stockings, all worn and darned at the knees, with their feet cut off, to hide his white ones, for fear of being observed;” and Mrs. Wolfe having again had recourse to walnut-juice for the purpose of deepening the tone upon the royal face, he again set out in the direction of Boscobel. The king, in the diary above quoted, is made to say:—
“So we set out as soon as it was dark. But, as we came by the mill again, we had no mind to be questioned a second time there; and therefore asking Richard Penderell whether he could swim or no, and how deep the river was, he told me it was a scurvy river, not easy to be past in all places, and that he could not swim. So I told him, that the river being a little one, I would undertake to help him over. Upon which we went over some closes to the river side, and I, entering the river first, to see whether I could myself go over, who knew how to swim, found it was but a little above my middle; and thereupon taking Richard Penderell by the hand, I helped him over.”
They reached Boscobel at five o’clock on the morning of Saturday, September 6th. Penderell, leaving the king in the wood, went to the house to reconnoitre. All was secure, and he found Colonel Carless, who was also hiding at Boscobel. He had been an active soldier throughout the war. His presence cheered the tired and wandering monarch, who now for the first time was brought into the house, and sitting by the fire was refreshed with bread and cheese and a warm posset of beer, prepared by W. Penderell’s wife, Joan, who also brought him warm water to bathe his feet, and dried his shoes by placing in them hot embers. After a short slumber the king was aroused by his anxious attendants, he not being safe in the house in the daylight. With Colonel Carless he then climbed into an oak tree that stood a few yards from the house, at some distance from the other trees. It had been lopped or pollarded, some years before, and in consequence had grown very bushy, and afforded a good hiding-place. They took provisions for the day with them. Screened from view, the king, resting his head on the knees of Carless, slept soundly for some time. The king, in his narrative, as recorded by Pepys, says:—“While we were in the tree we saw soldiers going up and down in the thickets of the wood, searching for persons escaped, we seeing them now and then peeping out of the wood.”
Saturday evening brought darkness, of which the fugitives availed themselves by going into the house, and Penderell’s wife, Dame Joan, provided a dainty dish of roast chickens for the king’s supper. That being over, the king retired to a hiding-hole at the top of the stairs, where a pallet was laid ready, and there he passed the night. On Sunday morning the king arose refreshed, and passed the day partly at his devotions, partly in watching, and partly reading in the garden. We must not forget to mention that he cooked his meat, frying some collops of mutton. Meanwhile, John Penderell had gone in search of Lord Wilmot, whom he found at Moseley Hall with Mr. Whitgreave, and in the evening he returned, bringing tidings that the king could be received at Moseley. Whereupon Charles, taking leave of Carless, set out on Humphrey Penderell’s (the miller’s) horse, attended by the five Penderells and their brother-in-law, Yates, well armed with bills and pike-staves, as well as pistols. The king complained of the rough motion of the horse. “Can you blame the horse, my liege,” said the honest miller, “to go heavily, when he has the weight of three kingdoms on his back?” At Moseley Hall the king remained from Sunday night till Tuesday evening, when Colonel Lane came from Bentley, bringing a horse for him. Being dressed in a suit of grey hose, and with the name of Jackson, he acted as serving-man to Miss Jane Lane, rode before her, and eventually embarked for France, which country after many narrow escapes, he reached safely on the 16th of October.
To Mr. Wolfe, of Madeley, the king presented a very handsome silver tankard with the inscription, “Given by Charles the Second, at the Restoration, to F. Wolfe, of Madeley, in whose barn he was secreted after the defeat at Worcester, 1651.” The tankard is now in the possession of W. Rathbone, Esq., of Liverpool, but a print of it hangs in the old house. The tankard has upon the cover a coat of arms: the crest is a demi-wolf supporting a crown. In the hall there is an old panel, which was cut out of the wainscoating of the dining-room, with the initials, thus:—
F. W. M.
1621.
In the church register we find the burial of Barbara Wolfe, January 13th, 1660; of Ann Wolfe, September 19th, 1672; of Francis Wolfe, December 7th, 1665; and of Sarah Wolfe, late wife of Francis Wolfe, January 10th, 1698.
The house is a very old one, and Mr. Joseph Yate, of the Hall, close by, says he remembers his father telling him that in former times it was “a house of entertainment.” The barn which is not more than twenty feet from the house, afterwards became the Market House, the butchers’ shambles being still discernible. The upper portion was rebuilt, or cased, a few years ago, but the old timber skeleton remains.
It is pleasant to find that Charles, at the restoration, further remembered his preservers, and settled pensions on their survivors; but not till 1675 was permanent provision made. Certain rents from estates in Stafford, Salop, Hereford, &c., were intrusted to Sir Walter Wollesley, John Giffard, of Black Ladies, and Richard Congreve, of Congreve, to pay the yearly proceeds to the Penderell family, the sum amounting to about £450 per annum, thus:—
£100 a-year to Richard Penderell or his heirs,
£100 a-year to William or his heirs.
100 marks, or £66 13s. 4d. a-year to Humphrey or his heirs.
100 marks to John or his heirs.
100 marks to George or his heirs.
£50 a-year to Elizabeth Yates or her heirs.
The surviving trustee is John Giffard, of Black Ladies, and his lineal descendants, the present squire of Chillington, who is now sole trustee. [54]
Another notable event noticed by an old book in the vestry of Madeley Church already quoted, is the Great Fire of London, September, 1666, sixteen years subsequent to the stirring drama previously recorded. It comes before us in a house-to-house visitation, by the vicar and churchwardens, for the purpose of raising subscriptions “in aid of a fund to relieve the sufferings by the Great Fire.”
In this account nine sugar-refiners are said to have lost £20,000; but, notwithstanding the house-to-house visitation, only £1 2s. 10d. was raised, which speaks little for the sympathy or wealth of the inhabitants at that time.
The Smoke-Penny, Chimney Tax, or Hearth-Money, previously alluded to, so oppressive to the poor, and so obnoxious generally, by exposing every man’s house to be entered and searched at pleasure, had become so unpopular that one of the earliest proceedings of the first Parliament of William and Mary was to substitute a grant in “aid,” of £68,820 per month, for six months, payable in proportions; the entire assessment for Shropshire being £1203, and those for the several parishes in the allotment of Madeley, at 12d. in the £, as under:—
£ |
s. |
d. |
|
Madeley |
17 |
02 |
04 |
Little Wenlock |
10 |
04 |
06 |
Huntington |
03 |
11 |
10 |
Beckbury |
05 |
09 |
02 |
Badger |
03 |
13 |
06½ |
£40 |
01 |
7½ |
The principle ever since continued of specific annual grants to the king by votes of Parliament, partially acted upon by Charles II., but wholly disregarded by the Parliament of the succeeding reign, was now fully established.
From an order given to the constables of the parish of Madeley in 1690, we get an insight of the laws of Settlement which imposed such restrictions upon our ancestors, compelling a labourer to remain in the place where he was born to the end of his days, and preventing him bettering his condition. The order was that whereas Thomas Richardson had endeavoured to make a settlement in Madeley contrary to the law, &c., that they, the constables, bring his body to the serjeant’s house, Much Wenlock, to answer all matters brought against him by the overseers of the poor of the parish of Madeley. The constables were also to bring John York, smith, before some justice of the peace to give sureties for his own and his wife’s good behaviour.
Paupers having been created by restraints preventing them seeking employ where work was to be had, of course became troublesome. Hence the serjeant-at-mace orders the constables at Madeley upon oath to report what felonies have been committed, and what vagrants and sturdy beggars have passed through.
The same constables were to ascertain how many persons of the age of sixteen absented themselves from church, and for how many Sabbaths. Also who destroyed hawks, hares, pheasants, &c.; and who bought by greater and sold by lesser weights.
In the fifth year of William and Mary (1691) constables were to give notice to all above sixteen and under sixty, whom they believed to be disaffected, to appear before the serjeant-at-mace to take the oaths, &c.: but a goodly number of the Madeley and Little Wenlock allotment appear to have been guilty of contempt, and were ordered to pay the sum of 40s. by them forfeited. Having been guilty of further contempt, the constables are ordered to seize and bring the bodies of the delinquents. (See Appendix.)
In the same year, 1692, constables are instructed to look-up all loose seamen and watermen, and bring them before one of the justices of the peace; and to collect 4s. in the £, towards carrying on a vigorous war with France. An order (September, 1693), signed “George Weld, Bart.,” addressed to Mr. Brooke, of Madeley, calls upon the constables to summons the Militia to appear at Shrewsbury &c., &c. Under the act passed for collecting 4s. in the £, for carrying on the war, constables were instructed to charge papists and all who had not taken the oaths of supremacy double.
The assessment for Madeley for three months, on the allotment of Little Wenlock by the commissioners, towards the raising of £1,651,702, as granted by Parliament to the king for carrying on a vigorous war against France, was £8 2s.
In the same year constables were commanded to make diligent search for all straggling seamen and watermen who were of able bodies, fit for service at sea, and, to impress them, giving them one shilling. The assessment in Madeley of 4s. in the £, for 1694, produced, on land, works, &c., £149 1s. 4d., “one pound having been abated on the lime-works.”
In 1695 the Madeley constables were to collect duties upon “marriages, births, and burials, and upon bachelors and widows,” for carrying on the war with France, according to the rank of the individuals.
In 1696, and 1697, we find constables have various duties assigned them; and in 1698, they are required to carry out an act for preventing frauds and abuses in the charging and collecting, and paying of duties upon marriages, births, and burials, bachelors and widows. Also for collecting a quarterly poll for the year.
In 1702 instructions are given to constables to present all papists, Jesuits, and all others that have received orders from the see of Rome. Also all popish recusants and others that do not come to their several parish churches within the divisions.
In 1703 they were to collect subsides for her majesty (Queen Anne), for carrying on the war with France and Spain, and to charge those who had not taken the oath of allegiance double.
In 1708 constables were to ascertain what masters or servants gave or took greater wages than were allowed by law.
Our account of instructions to constables continues to 1714, but nothing to merit comment occurs. Many names of old Madeley families occur, which we shall notice hereafter.
Demesne lands in Madeley, (537a. 3r. 33p.) or those attached to the Court House, with the 770 trees upon it, valued at twenty years purchase, was said to be £6,459 10s. 4d.; yearly rent, £289 13s. 6d. The whole acreage of Madeley, including the above, was 2073 acres, the yearly value of which was £1,021; trees, 3369; loads of wood, 160; purchase, £17,366 9s. 4d. For names of proprietors, see Appendix.
We find from a survey of the lordship of Madeley, that the demesne lands of the Court in 1786, belonged to Richard Dyett, Esq., one of an old Shropshire family, from whom it was purchased by William Orme Foster, Esq., about the year 1830.
During the period events previously recorded were being enacted, the coal and iron industries now employing so many hands, and which have brought so much wealth to individual proprietors, were being developed. Francis Wolfe, who gave shelter to King Charles, is supposed to have been a shareholder in some ironworks at Leighton, and probably at Coalbrookdale, from the fact that an iron plate, bearing date 1609, has the initials “T.R.W.,” and another with the date 1658 (the latter removed here from Leighton), also bears a “W” among other initials. We read also of a clerk of a Shropshire ironworks being the first to convey the news of the disastrous defeat of the royal army at Worcester. We find, too, that as early as 1332 Walter de Caldbroke obtained from the Wenlock monks license to dig for coals at the outcrop at the Brockholes. We also learn from Fuller, who lived and wrote in the seventeenth century, that what he calls “fresh-water coal” was dug out at such a distance from the Severn as to be easily ported by boat into other shires.
Iron, too, was made as we have seen from the Patent Roll, 36 Henry VIII., part v., where the grant of the manor of Madeley to Robert Brooke, Esq. is expressly said to include “the rights attached to the whole of the place and buildings that go under the one name of the Smithy Place, and Newhouse called Caldbrooke Smithy, with its patronages in the aforesaid Madeley.”
The first ironworks were of course of a very humble description; the outcrop of the mines did not then determine the situation so much as the presence of a powerful stream which supplied a force to work the leathern bellows which blew the fires. The first Abraham Darby came to the Dale in 1709, and in 1713 the make was but from five to ten tons per week. In 1712 he used coal in smelting iron. He died at the Court House, Madeley, in 1717, and was succeeded by his son, the second Abraham Darby, who in 1760 is said to have laid the first rails of iron for carriages with axles having fixed wheels. The third Abraham Darby effected another great achievement, the casting and erecting the first iron bridge, for which he obtained the medal of the Society of Arts. The credit of having laid the first iron rails is claimed for Richard Reynolds, who succeeded the second Abraham Darby in the management of these works in 1763, and who, according to Sir Robert Stephenson, who examined the books of the works, cast six tons of iron rails for the use of the works in 1767. It was at these works, too, that the brothers Cranege anticipated Henry Cort by seventeen years by the discovery of the process of puddling in a reverberatory furnace, by the use of pit-coal, in 1766, under the management of Mr. Reynolds.
Mr. Reynolds also took a warm interest in the success and introduction of the steam engine, which he adopted in 1778. “For no one,” observes his daughter, “did he entertain sentiments of more affectionate esteem than for James Watt,” with whom, as well as with Wedgwood and Wilkinson, he was associated in several public movements of the time. Being a Friend he was opposed to war and refused Government orders for cannon; and he was stung to the quick when Pitt’s ministry proposed to lay a war tax upon coal. The country had been carrying on wars—wars everywhere, and with everybody, and to meet the lavish expenditure, the popular minister of the day, on whom Walpole tells us, “it rained gold boxes” for weeks running, “the pilot that weathered the storm,” sought to replenish the exchequer by a tax of 2s. per ton, to be paid on all coal without exception raised to the pit’s mouth. The iron-masters of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Yorkshire, as well as those of other English and Scottish counties were alarmed; it was felt to be an important crisis in the history of the trade. Deputations and petitions were sent up, but the wily premier had so carefully yet quietly surrounded himself with facts, that he knew of every pound of iron made and of every ton of coal that was raised. Pitt received the gentlemen connected with the trade with the greatest freedom and affability; bowed them in and out; appointed hours and places to meet their convenience, and left them dumbfounded at his knowledge of details of their own business. Mr. Reynolds entered the field in opposition to the tax, gave evidence before the Privy Council, and by petitions to the House and letters to members of the Cabinet, materially aided in defeating the attempt. The gravity of the occasion is, perhaps, even more evident to us, on whom the advantages of a cheap and plentiful supply of iron have fallen. We can better measure the consequences that must have followed. A tax upon coal at that period would have paralysed the trade, checked its development in this country, and thrown into the lap of others benefits we ourselves have derived; would have disendowed the island of advantages in which it is peculiarly rich,—upon which it is mainly dependent for its wealth, its progress, and its civilization. A tax upon coal would have been a tax upon iron, upon the manufacture of iron, upon its consumption, and its use in the arts and manufactures of the kingdom,—a tax upon spinning, weaving, and printing,—a tax upon the genius of Watt and Arkwright, whose improvements it would have thrown back and thwarted,—upon the extension of commerce at home and abroad. The immense advantages possessed by the manufacturers of the New World would then have given them the lead in a race in which, even now, it is as much as we can do to keep up. Our energies, just at a time when the iron nerves of England were put to their greatest strain, would have been paralysed, and we should have been deprived of our railways, our locomotives, our steam-fleets, and much of our commerce, and prosperity. Mr. Reynolds saw the evil in prospective, and in a letter to Earl Gower, President of the Council, dated the 7th month, 1784, takes a very just review of the past history of the trade and the improvements then about to be adopted. He says:—
“The advancement of the iron trade within these few years have been prodigious; it was thought, and justly, that the making of pig iron with pit coal was a great acquisition to the nation by saving the woods and supplying a material to manufactories, the make of which, by the consumption of all the wood the country produced, was unequal to the demand; and the nail trade, perhaps the most considerable of any one article of manufactured iron, would have been lost to this country, had it not been found practicable to make nails of iron made with pit coal; and it is for that purpose we have made, or rather are making, the alterations at Donnington-Wood, Ketley, &c., which we expect to complete in the present year, but not at a less expense than twenty thousand pounds, which will be lost to us and gained by nobody if this tax is laid on our coals. The only chance we have of making iron as cheap as it can be imported from Russia, is the low price of our fuel, and unless we can do that there will not be consumption equal to half the quantity that can be made, and when we consider how many people are employed on a ton of iron, and the several trades dependent thereupon, we shall be convinced the Revenue is much more benefited even by the consumption of excisable articles, &c., than by the duty on a ton of foreign iron; nor will it, I believe, escape observation that the iron trade, so fatally affected by this absurd tax, is only of the second, if indeed, on some account, it is not of the first importance to the nation. The preference I know is given, and I believe justly, as to the number of hands employed, to the woollen manufactory; but when it is remembered that all that is produced by making of iron with pit coal is absolutely so much gained to the nation, and which, without its being so applied, would be perfectly useless, it will evince its superior importance, for the land grazed by sheep might be converted with whatever loss to other purposes of agriculture or pasturage; but coal and iron stone have no value in their natural state, produce nothing till they are consumed or manufactured, and a tax upon coal, which, as I said, is the only article that in any degree compensates for our high price of labour, &c., or can be substituted in the stead of water for our wheels, and bellows, would entirely ruin this very populous country, and throw its labouring poor upon the parishes, till the emigration of those of them who are able to work shall strengthen our opponents, and leave the desolated wastes, at present occupied by their cottages, to the lords of the soil.”
In the year following (1785) the interests of the iron trade were again considered to be endangered from commercial arrangements proposed by the Irish House of Commons for the consideration of Parliament. Mr. Reynolds, Messrs. Boulton, Watt, Wedgwood, Wilkinson, and others, united in forming an association for the protection of the trade, under the title of “The United Chamber of Manufacturers of Great Britain.” The Shropshire iron and coal masters petitioned the House, and Mr. Reynolds again wielded the pen in defence of the trade. We extract sufficient to show the extent of the works. He says, addressing Earl Gower, under date 28th of the third month, 1785,—
“We solicit thy effectual interposition against a measure so injurious to us and to the many hundreds of poor people employed by us in working and carrying on mines, &c., for the supply of a large sale of coals by land and water, and of coals and mine for sixteen fire-engines, eight blast furnaces, and nine forges, besides the air furnaces, mills, &c., at the foundry at Coalbrookdale, and which, with the levels, roads, and more than twenty miles of railways, &c., still employs a capital of upwards of £100,000, though the declension of our trade has, as stated in a former letter, obliged us to stop two blast furnaces, which are not included in the number before mentioned. Nor have we ever considered ourselves as the first of many others employed in iron or coal works in this kingdom.”
We have considered the subject of our present sketch chiefly under one aspect only—as a man of action—and that mainly in connection with the iron trade, and in providing against those reverses to which not only that but other branches of industry were peculiarly liable, more particularly during the latter end of the last and the commencement of the present centuries. Mr. Reynolds, however, has claims no less distinguished under a classification beneath which is frequently found another division of human benefactors. He was not only a man of action—great in dealing with things tangible,—but he was a man of thought and of genius—as quick to devise and to plan as to execute. What is still more rare, he possessed those qualities in proportions so finely balanced, that their happy combination, during a long and active life, gave birth to schemes of noble enterprise, valuable to the district, and important to the nation. That which merited, from vulgar shortsightedness, the epithet of eccentricity, a state of deep and penetrating thought, was oftentimes the conceiving energy of a vigorous mind mastering in the mental laboratory of the brain, plans and schemes of which the noblest movements of the day are the just and legitimate offspring. The schemes he inaugurated were victories won, the improvements he effected were triumphs gained to the nation or for humanity.
That quality of mind which too often runs waste or evaporates in wild impracticable ideality, with him found an object of utility on which to alight, and under the magic of a more than ordinary genius difficulties disappeared, formidable obstacles melted into air, and the useful and the true were fused into one. He never felt the fluttering of a noble thought but he held it by the skirts, and made it do duty in this work-day world of ours, if it had relation to the tangible realities of time. “Though I do not adopt,” he writes to a friend, “all the notions of Swedenbourg, I have believed that the spiritual world is nearer to us than many suppose, and that our communication with it would be more frequent than many of us experience, did we attain to that degree of purity of heart and abstraction from worldly thoughts and tempers which qualify for such communion or intercourse.” He was not a man whose soul ran dry in solitude, or that grew melancholy the moment the click of money-making machinery no longer sounded in his ears. He was one of the old iron-kings, ’tis true, but with a soul in harmony with the silvery music of the universe. Often with no companion but his pipe, he retired to some retreat, consecrated perhaps by many a happy thought, and watched the declining sun, bathing in liquid glory the Ercall woods, the majestic Wrekin, the Briedden hills, and the still more distant Cader Idris. A deep vein of genuine religious feeling often appeared upon the surface, and seemed to penetrate reflections of the kind. Speaking of a new arbour he had made, be says—
“From thence I have seen three or four as fine sunsets as I at any time have seen, and if the gradual going down, and last, last twinkle of the once radiant orb, the instant when it was, and was not, to be seen—made me think of that awful moment when the last sigh consigns the departing soul to different if not distant scenes, the glorious effulgence gilding the western horizon with inimitable magnificence, naturally suggested the idea of celestial splendour, and inspired the wish that (through the assistance of His grace) a faithful obedience to the requirings of our great Maker and Master, may in that solemn season justify the hope of my being admitted into that city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.”
The Wrekin was a favourite object; to its summit he made his annual pilgrimage, together with his family, his Dale relations, his clerks, and most of the members of the little Society of Friends. The following bit of landscape painting betrays a master hand, and is so faithful in itself, depicting no less the features of the country than the genius of his mind, that we incorporate it with our present sketch:—
“We went upon the Wrekin,” he writes, “sooner than usual this year, that my children might partake of the pleasure. The weather was pleasant, though rather windy. From the top of that hill the prospect is so rich, so extensive, so various, that, considered as a landscape only, it beggars all description; and yet I cannot forbear, as thou desirest it, mentioning the tufted trees in the adjoining woods, upon which, occasioned perhaps by the uncommonness of the scene, I always look down with a particular pleasure, as well as survey those more distant, which are interspersed among the corn and meadows, contrasted with the new-ploughed fallow-grounds and pastures with cattle; the towns and villages, gentlemen’s seats, farm-houses, enrich and diversify the prospect, whilst the various companies of harvest men in the different farms within view enliven the scene. Nor are the rivers that glitter among the laughing meadows, or the stupendous mountains which, though distant, appear awfully dreary without their effect considered part of the landscape only. But not to confine the entertainment to visual enjoyment, what an intellectual feast does the prospect from that hill afford when beheld, ‘or with the curious or pious eye.’ Is not infinite power exerted, and infinite goodness displayed, in the various as well as plentiful provision for our several wants. Should not the consideration expand over hearts with desires to contribute to the relief of those whose indigence, excluding them from an equal participation of the general feast, is for a trial of their faith and patience and of our gratitude and obedience! Whilst with an appropriation of sentiment which receives propriety from the consciousness of our unworthiness, we substitute a particular for the general exclamation of humble admiration, in the word of the psalmist—‘Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou (thus) visitest him?’ The romantic scenes of Benthall Edge,—its rocks and precipices, its sides and top covered with wood; the navigable Severn, in which its feet are immersed; the populousness of the opposite shore; the motion, noise, and life on the river; the adjoining wharves and manufactories, are capable of affording a high entertainment, and I should willingly devote one day in the year to a repetition of the enjoyments of the pleasures I have heretofore received from them: though equally near, and equally desirable, a jaunt to Benthall Edge is not equally facile with one to the Wrekin. It seems more out of my province.”
Our readers, ere this, must have discovered a power of description, a grace and polish, blended with a masculine force of thought, in the correspondence of Mr. Reynolds, of a more than common order; and would still more, could we feel at liberty to quote more copiously from numerous letters to his friends. If we follow him more closely into private life, and lift the veil that too often hides a dualism of character from the unsuspicious public eye, we find the sterling elements of the gentleman and the Christian.
Take the experience of the past as recorded, or the traditions of the present, as found among a generation second in remove from Richard Reynolds’s time, and they bring out into relief still more striking traits of character, that do honour to our common nature. The guiding principle of his life, in all cases of bargain and of sale, Mrs. Rathbone tells us, were in accordance with the old adage—“Live and let live;” and as an instance of the consistency with which he acted up to his motto she adds that, at the breaking out of the American war, when bar-iron rose to an extravagant price, and the makers of pig-iron could obtain their own terms, instead of taking an unreasonable advantage of the opportunity, he proposed to his customers that it should be left to one of themselves to name a fair price for pig-iron in the then state of the trade, and to determine the scale of proportionate reduction which should take place when the price of bar-iron should fall, as he foresaw that it would follow the then great and unsatisfied demand. The proposal was accepted, and by the scale which was then fixed his conduct was governed.
Order and punctuality were exemplified in his dealings. “A place for everything and everything in its place”—a maxim for which he confessed his obligation to De Witt—was not only his rule, but was painted in large characters in the kitchen, over the fireplace, for the benefit of the servants. The appellation “honest,” given to his father, was a term equally applicable to the son, who at the outset and in after life made it a rule to regulate his affairs by that principle of prudence and of equity.
He yielded to every man his own, not only as concerned demands upon his purse, but in what are usually deemed small matters, such as those of respect which one man owes to another. He would follow a poor person to his or her home to apologise if he had spoken warmly or unbecomingly in the heat of temper. It was painful, his granddaughter tells us, for him to see waste. “I cannot bear to see sweeping on the ground that which would clothe a poor shivering child” was his remark made respecting the long dresses of the time.
Mrs. Rathbone, in her memoir, says:—
“My grandfather had great respect and regard for a very amiable and excellent minister of the Gospel, who lived in his neighbourhood, the Rev. Joshua Gilpin; and it was mainly through his exertions and personal interest that Mr. Gilpin was presented to the living of Wrockwardine. He also enjoyed the acquaintance of many scientific and well-informed men. His manners, as a host, were courteous and dignified, and his conversation, when he was perfectly at ease, animated, and often diversified with a quaint wit and humorous satire. His fine countenance beamed with intelligence and kindness; his eyes were piercing, and were remarkable for the brightness which seemed literally to flash from them under strong emotion. It was something almost fearful to meet their glance in anger or indignation, whilst equally striking was their beautiful expression under the excitement of admiration or affection.”
In the short sketch we gave of Mr. Reynolds in the “Severn Valley,” we said, “the stamp of heaven’s nobility was visible in his face, and the free and open features with which nature had endowed his person were not dwarfed by the uniform look and expression sometimes demanded by sects. Eyes of liquid blue, full-orbed, gave back the azure tint of heaven, and lighted up a manly face, fair and ruddy. To these indications of a Saxon type were added others, such as light brown hair, that in flowing curls fell upon the shoulders of a tall and full-developed figure.”
The portrait we have hereafter described was obtained with some difficulty, as Mr. Reynolds refused for a long time to concede to the wishes of his friends on the subject; and the first attempt made was by a miniature-painter, who made a sketch from the garden as he sat reading by candle-light. This was not successful, and a second attempt, made as he sat at meeting, being no better, he was induced to sit to Mr. Hobday. The books shown in the background were favourites of his, and they are arranged in the order in which he regarded them.
In a letter to his son, dated 8th of 12th month, 1808, he says:—
“John Birtell has paid £48 4s. 7d. for the pictures, frames and cases, which should be repaid to him. I understood from S. A. it was thy wish to make thy sister a present of one of them, and in that case please to remit the amount to John Birtell; if she (S. A.) is mistaken, remit the money to J. B. nevertheless, and I will repay thee the half of it; but I insist upon one condition both from thee and thy sister: that as long as I live, the pictures be nowhere but in your bed-chambers. The first was begun without my knowledge, and indirect means used to accomplish it; at length I was candidly told it was determined to have it, and when I saw what was done, I thought it better to sit for the finishing than to have it a mere caricature; but I think it a very moderate performance at last. I was willing too, to avail myself of the opportunity, if such a one must be presented, of exhibiting my belief of Christianity as exhibited in the 5th chapter of the Romans; and my estimation of certain authors, by affixing their names to the books delineated in the back ground.”
In reference to this subject (his portrait), some twelve months after, in a letter to his son, he says:—
“This reminds me to mention what I intended to have mentioned before; that is, an alteration I propose to be made in the one here, and if this could be done in the others, I should like it; and which, I suppose, would be best effected by obliterating the books, and arranging them differently, according to the estimation in which their writings or character may be supposed to be held; with the addition of Kempis and Fenelon, not only for their intrinsic merits, but to show that our good opinion was not confined to our own countrymen. They would then stand thus:—
“Fox and Penn.
Woolman and Clarkson.
Hanway and Howard.
Milton and Cowper.
Addison and Watts.
Barclay and Locke.
Sir W. Jones and Sir W. Blackstone.
Kempis and Fenelon.“I do not know whether I gave thee my reasons, as I did to thy sister, for the original selection. She may shew thee my letter to her, and thou may communicate the above to her, with my dear love to all, repeated from
“Thy affectionate father,
“Richard Reynolds.”
It was the custom when Mr. Reynolds had charge of the Coalbrookdale works to perform long journeys on horseback, and we have heard it said that on one occasion, being mounted on the back of an old trooper, near Windsor, where George III. was reviewing some troops, the horse, on hearing martial music, pricked up his ears, and carried Mr. Reynolds into the midst of them before he could be reined up. He was a good horseman, and a grandson of Mr. Reynolds writes:—
“We also enjoyed very much our grandfather’s account of a visit paid to the Ketley Iron Works by Lord Thurlow, the then Lord Chancellor. My grandfather, having gone through the works with his lordship, and given him all requisite information and needful refreshment, proposed to accompany him part of the way on his return, which offer his lordship gratefully accepted, and the horses were ordered to the door accordingly. They were, both of them, good riders, and were, both of them, well mounted. The Lord Chancellor’s horse, no doubt a little instigated thereto by his owner, took the lead, and my grandfather’s horse, nothing loth to follow the example, kept as nearly neck and neck with his rival as his owner considered respectful. The speed was alternately increased, until they found themselves getting on at a very dashing pace indeed! and they became aware that the steeds were as nearly matched as possible. At last, the Chancellor pulled up, and complimenting my grandfather upon his ‘very fine horse’ confessed that he had never expected to meet with one who could trot so fast as his own. My grandfather acknowledged to a similar impression on his part; and his lordship, heartily shaking hands with him, and thanking him for his great attention, laughed, and said, ‘I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is probably the first time that ever a Lord Chancellor and a Quaker rode a race together.’”
The years 1774, 1782, and 1796 were periods of great distress. Haggard hunger, despairing wretchedness, and ignorant force were banded to trample down the safeguards of civil right, and armed ruffians took the initiative in scrambles for food. The gravity of the occasion, in the latter case, may be estimated by the subscriptions for the purchase of food for the starving population. We give those of the iron companies of this district only: Messrs. Bishton and Co. gave £1,500; Mr. Botfield, for the Old Park Company, £1,500; Mr. Joseph Reynolds, for the Ketley Company, £2,000; Mr. R. Dearman, for the Coalbrookdale Company, £1,500; Mr. William Reynolds, for the Madeley-Wood Company, £1000. Mr. Richard Reynolds gave £500 as his individual subscription. Applications, in times of distress, from far and near were made to Mr. Reynolds for assistance. Taking a general view of the distress existing in the beginning of the year 1811, he says, in reply to a letter from a clergyman, “I am thankful I am not altogether without sympathy with my fellow-men, or compassion for the sufferings to which the want of employment subjects the poor, or the sufferings still more severe of some of their former employers. Thou mentions Rochdale, Bolton, Leeds, and Halifax. Wilt thou apply the enclosed towards the relief of some of them, at thy discretion? Those who want it most and deserve it best should have the preference,—the aged, honest, sober, and industrious. I am sensible how limited the benefits from such a sum in so populous a district must be, and of the difficulty of personal investigation before distribution. If it could be made subservient to the procuring an extensive contribution it would be of more important service. If it cannot I think it would be best to commit it to some judicious person or persons in each place, to distribute with the utmost privacy, and (that) for their own sakes, were it only to avoid applications from more than they could supply, and yet the refusal would subject them to abuse. But in whatever manner thou shalt dispose of it, I send it upon the express condition that nobody living knows thou ever had it from me; this is matter of conscience with me. In places where we are known, and on public occasions, when one’s example would have an influence, it may be as much a duty to give up one’s name as one’s money; but otherwise I think we cannot too strictly follow the injunction:—‘Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.’”
If some poor tradesman in London or elsewhere was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, and a friend was found to write to Richard Reynolds, he was put upon his legs again. Poor debtors found themselves relieved from the King’s Bench by an unknown hand. Unwilling to be known as the giver of large sums, he would sometimes forward his subscriptions with his name, and send a larger contribution anonymously afterwards. In this way he gave a sum in his own name on behalf of the distress in Germany, and then forwarded a further sum of £500 privately. For years he had almoners in London and elsewhere, dispensing sums to meet distress, and on behalf of public and private charities, scrupulously enacting that his name should not appear in the transactions. To one party he sent £20,000 during the distress of 1795. He had four distributors of his bounty constantly employed in Bristol alone. They brought in their accounts weekly, giving the names of persons or families, the sums given, and the circumstances under which they were relieved. Not the least to be appreciated was the consideration and delicacy with which he assisted persons not ostensibly objects of charity (to use the word in its common sense) and many who, through relationship, personal interest, or estimable conduct were felt to have claims on his kindness and generosity.
He solicited in Bristol subscriptions on a large scale for augmenting the fund for the payment of a weekly sum to the inhabitants of the almshouses, going from house to house,—his own zeal kindling that of others. One gentleman to whom he applied, of acknowledged wealth and importance in the city, having given him a cheque for £500, he said he would give him back the cheque, as such a sum from him would do more harm than good. The gentleman immediately wrote another for £1000. He himself gave £2000 (one of his friends says £4000), and £4000 to the Trinity almshouses. In 1808 he placed in the hands of the trustees the sum of £10,500 to be invested in land, the rent of which was to be devoted to seven charitable institutions in Bristol, named in the deed and trust, in such manner and proportion, either to one alone, or between any, as should at the time appear expedient to the trustees. An addition to the infirmary being needed, he devoted much of his time to that object, subscribing £2,600. The committee also received an anonymous donation of £1000, entertaining no doubt who was the giver; and on the following day one of their number happening to meet Richard Reynolds, thanked him in the name of the committee for his acceptable donation. He said—“Thou hast no authority for saying I sent the money,” and the gentleman repeating the acknowledgment of the committee, Mr. Reynolds quietly said—“Well, I see thou art determined that I should give thee a thousand pounds,” and the next day they received a donation of that sum with his name attached, thus doubling his first contribution. To these gifts may be added (besides his annual subscription) donations:—£1,260 to the Stranger’s Friend; £900 to the Misericordia; £500 to the Refuge, and the same to the Orphan Asylum; and to the Bible Society, £900. Of several other small amounts one need only be mentioned, from his purse,—that of £300 to the Temple parish, towards providing a better supply of water to the poor.
Mr. Reynolds’s last visit to Ketley, the scene of his labours, and the source of his vast income, was in June, 1816. His funeral took place on the 18th of September, amidst a manifestation of respect, as marked and profound as ever was paid to the remains of mortal man. The city of Bristol offered spontaneously to his memory that signal tribute of general regard that a name embalmed by good deeds alone can win. Columns of schoolboys, with mournful recollections of the good man’s smile, formed a melancholy passage to the dwelling of their benefactor. These were flanked by vast crowds of sympathising poor, who felt they had lost a friend. The clergy of the Church of England, ministers of dissenting congregations, gentlemen forming the committees of various societies, and other leading men, besides a large body of the Society of Friends, followed the several members and relatives of the family in procession. So great was public curiosity excited on this occasion, and such the eagerness manifested by the poor, who had lost their best friend, to pay their last respect to his remains, that not only was the spacious burial-ground filled with spectators and mourners, but the very tops of walls and houses surrounding the area were covered. The behaviour of the vast concourse of people was in the highest degree decent, orderly and respectful, the poor, considering it a favour to be permitted in their turn to approach the grave of their departed friend, and to drop the silent tear as a mark of their regard for the man whose life had been spent in doing good.
Montgomery, in verses from which we extract the following, paid a just tribute to his memory:
Strike a louder, loftier lyre;
Bolder, sweeter strains employ;
Wake remembrance! and inspire
Sorrow with the song of joy.Who was he for whom our tears
Flowed, and will not cease to flow?
Full of honours and of years,
In the dust his head lies low.. . . . . . .
He was one whose open face
Did his inmost heart reveal;
One who wore with meekest grace
On his forehead heaven’s broad seal.Kindness all his looks express’d,
Charity was every word;
Him the eye beheld and bless’d,
And the ear rejoiced and heard.Like a patriarchal sage,
Holy, humble, courteous, mild,
He could blend the awe of age
With the sweetness of a child.. . . . . . .
Oft his silent spirit went,
Like an angel from the throne,
On benign commission bent,
In the fear of God alone.Then the widow’s heart would sing,
As she turned her wheel, for joy;
Then the bliss of hope would spring
On the outcast orphan boy.To the blind, the deaf, the lame,
To the ignorant and vile,
Stranger, captive, slave, he came,
With a welcome and a smile.Help to all he did dispense.
Gold, instruction, raiment, food,
Like the gifts of Providence,
To the evil and the good.Deeds of mercy, deeds unknown,
Shall eternity record,
Which he durst not call his own,
For he did them for the Lord.As the earth puts forth her flowers,
Heaven-ward breathing from below;
As the clouds descend in showers,
When the southern breezes glow.. . . . . . .
Full of faith, at length he died,
And victorious in the race,
Wore the crown for which he died,
Not of merit but of grace.
The father, Richard Reynolds, as will be seen from our sketch, managed to realize immense wealth at Ketley, and, what is more, to remain superior to the influence wealth too often has upon its possessor. The finer feelings of the man never succumbed to the vulgar circumstances of his position, but maintained their freshness, and graduated to maturity by the mastering force of a resolute will and a well-disciplined and highly enlightened mind. Never so completely absorbed in the arts and intricacies of money-making as to lose sight of higher and worthier aims, he sought an opportunity earlier than men in his circumstances usually do of enjoying the well-earned fruits of an active life; of indulging in that repose and retirement congenial to minds similarly constituted to his own. Accordingly, his shares in the works were turned over to his two sons, William and Joseph. William was the more distinguished of the two in carrying out improvements connected with the works. Like his father, he possessed an active mind, an elevated taste, and a desire for knowledge; to which were added a mechanical genius, and an aptitude for turning to account resources within his reach. He saw the necessity of uniting science with practice in developing the rich resources of the district; and that knowledge and discovery must keep pace with aptitude in their use.
“An equal appreciation of all parts of knowledge,” it was remarked by Humboldt, “is an especial requirement of an epoch in which the material wealth and the increasing prosperity of nations are in a great measure based on a more enlightened employment of natural products and forces. The most superficial glance at the present condition of European states shows that those which linger in the race cannot hope to escape the partial diminution, and perhaps the final annihilation, of their resources. It is with nations as with nature, which, according to a happy expression of Goethe, knows no pause in ever-increasing movement, development, and production—a curse, still cleaving to a standstill. Nothing but serious occupation with chemistry and physical and natural science can defend a state from the consequences of competition. Man can produce no effect upon nature, or appropriate her powers, unless he is conversant with her laws, and with their relations to material objects according to measures and numbers. And in this lies the power of popular intelligence, which rises or falls as it encourages or neglects this study. Science and information are the joy and justification of mankind. They form the spring of a nation’s wealth, being often indeed substitutes for those material riches which nature has in many cases distributed with so partial a hand. Those nations which remain behind in manufacturing activity, by neglecting the practical application of the mechanical arts, and of industrial chemistry, to the transmission, growth, or manufacture of raw materials—those nations amongst whom respect for such activity does not pervade all classes—must inevitably fall from prosperity they have attained; and this so much the more certainly and speedily as neighbouring states, instinct with the power of renovation, in which science and the arts of industry operate or lend each other mutual assistance, are seen pressing forward in the race.”
Upon this principle Mr. Reynolds placed himself under the teaching of Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, a gentleman who by his eminent ability and teaching did so much to inspire a love for the science in England during the latter part of the last century. He was thus enabled to bring the knowledge he possessed of elementary substances and of their peculiar qualities, gained in the laboratory, to bear upon the manufacture of iron in the furnace and the forge, and to anticipate some of the discoveries of later times.
Steel and iron have long been manufactured at Ulverstone, and the quality or fitness of the ore for the purpose is attributed to the presence of manganese in the ore, which since the establishment of railways has come into general use. In Mr. Reynolds’s time we imported large quantities of iron and steel; and ignorant of what constituted the difference between our own and that of foreign markets, had with some humiliation to confess our dependence. In no case had a uniform quality of bar-iron with the superior marks of Sweden and Russia been produced. A great variety of processes had been tried, and makers were not wanting who made laudable efforts for the accomplishment of the object, feeling that in so doing they devoted their time to the service of their country, and that in a national as well as a commercial point of view no experiments were fraught with more important consequences.
Mr. Reynolds thought he saw the solution of the problem how to produce metal equal to that made from the magnetic and richer ores of the Swedish and Siberian mines, when Bergman published his analysis of Swedish iron, showing the large percentage of manganese it contained. The analysis showed the following results:
Cast Iron. |
|
Parts. |
|
Plumbago |
2.20 |
Manganese |
15.25 |
Silicious Earth |
2.25 |
Iron |
80.30 |
100 |
|
Steel. |
|
Plumbago |
.50 |
Manganese |
15.25 |
Silicious Earth |
.60 |
Iron |
83.65 |
100 |
|
Bar-Iron. |
|
Plumbago |
.50 |
Manganese |
15.25 |
Silicious Earth |
1.75 |
Iron |
84.78 |
100 |
|
In order to effect a combination corresponding with this analysis of the French chemist he introduced manganese into the refinery during the re-smelting process, and succeeded in producing bar-iron capable of conversion into steel of better quality than had previously been made from coke-iron. From subsequent experiments the per-centage introduced of metallic manganese could be traced into bar-iron, the inference being that the purpose served was the additional supply of oxygen it gave to burn out the impurities—a result the Bessemer process has since attained in another way. When it is remembered that the end to be attained in these processes is to consume the impurities of the metal, and that those impurities are of such a nature as to unite with oxygen at a high temperature and form separate compounds, also that this boiling and bubbling up of the liquid metal was carefully watched and tended formerly, one can understand how near the iron-kings of a past age were to the Bessemer discovery of the present.
“The old men,” as they are frequently called in the works, appear to have had an inkling of the real nature of the process: The rising impurities and combination of opposite gases indicated by bubbles were called the “Soldier’s coming.” At any rate the Bessemer invention is an adaptation of a principle acted upon during the past century in the Shropshire ironworks. Mr. Reynolds’s patent was obtained December 6, 1799, and was stated to be for “preparing iron for the conversion thereof into steel.” In his specification he described his invention to consist in the employment of oxide of manganese in the conversion of pig-iron into malleable iron or steel, but did not enter into details as to the method he employed for carrying his invention into effect.
John Wilkinson obtained a patent January 23, 1801, for making “Pig or cast metal from ore, which when manufactured into bar-iron will be found equal in quality to any that is imported from Russia or Sweden.” The patentee states his invention to consist “in making use of manganese, or ores containing manganese, in addition to ironstone and other materials used in making iron, and in certain proportions, to be varied by the nature of such ironstone and other materials.”
Mr. Reynolds was not only a chemist, but a geologist. He succeeded in forming a collection of carboniferous fossils to which modern professors acknowledge their obligations, and which, with the additions made by Mr. William Anstice, Dean Buckland pronounced one of the finest in Europe. Other manufacturers, every day dealing with subterranean treasures that give iron in abundance, were as dwellers amid the ruins of some ancient city, taking down structures of the builders of which and of the history of which they were ignorant. With him minerals had an interest beyond their market value. Coal and ore from the dusky mine, raised at so much per ton, were not minerals merely, but materials prepared to his hand by Nature. He detected traces of that venerable dame’s cast-off garments in one; the others were fabrics, the result of processes as varied as his own, the produce of machinery more wonderful and powerful than that he was about to employ in converting them to the general uses and purposes of mankind. His pit-shafts to him were mere inlets to the deep storehouse of the globe where Providence had treasured means whereby to enrich future inhabitants of the surface. Geology as a science, ’tis true, was but beginning to shed its light on the cosmogony of the world; endeavours to make out a connected history of the earth from examinations of the structure itself were deemed strange; and the more intelligent of his contemporaries, who without hesitation adopted speculations daring and beyond the province of human intellect, looked coldly upon his labours. The old workmen to whom he offered premiums for the best specimens could not for the life of them make out the meaning of his morning visits to the mines, his constant inquiries respecting fossils, his frequent hammering at ironstone nodules, his looking inside them and loading his pockets with them—seeing that he did not confine attention to those that seemed likely to make good iron. Some considered it to be one of the good old Quaker’s eccentricities, and did not forget when he turned his back to point to their heads, intimating that “all was not right in his upper garrets.” Others, knowing that he sometimes used the blow-pipe and tried experiments in his laboratory, believed his aim to be to extract “goold,” as they said, from the stone—a supposition to which the presence of iron pyrites gave some degree of colouring. One fine morning, in particular, as flitting gleams of sunshine came down to brighten young green patches of copse and meadow, telling of returning spring, a group of his men were seated with bottle and tot, drinking the cuckoo’s foot-ale, when, “Here comes Measter William, here comes Old Broadbrim,” it was said, “with his pecker in his pocket, fatch the curiosities from the crit.” Mr. Reynolds was not very well pleased, for large orders were in the books unexecuted, and coal and ore could not be got fast enough. Every engine had its steam up; but not a beam-head or pulley creaked or stirred. One or two bands of workmen had gone down, but had come up again. The cuckoo’s voice that morning for the first time had been heard, and it was more potent than the master’s; for it was the custom, and had been from time immemorial, to drink his foot-ale, and to drink it out of doors; and the man was fined, who proposed to deviate from custom by drinking it in-doors. On May Day too it was the custom, as it now is, to gather boughs or sprigs of the birch, with its young and graceful fronds, and mount them on the engines, the pit heads, and cabins, and on the heads of horses, to proclaim the fact that we had entered upon the merry, merry month of May.