The Iron Men of Shropshire: How They Put the World to Work

Though the Industrial Revolution was born in Shropshire, iron-working techniques had been known for millennia. However, it was an expensive undertaking in real terms, needing large amounts of wood to make the charcoal to produce the iron and objects that had to be beaten out in a blacksmith’s forge.

Then one man made the breakthrough that kickstarted the Industrial Revolution: making iron in vast quantities using coke instead of charcoal. In 1709 Abraham Darby built his pioneering coke-fired blast furnace to produce cast iron at Coalbrookdale.

Abundant iron and coal brought together men with a common purpose. Amongst them, Wilkinson and Watt developed the technology of the modern steam engine. Richard Trevithick built his viable locomotive here, whilst Abraham Darby II supplied the iron rails for it. Hazledine’s ironworks at Shrewsbury built the Ditherington Flax Mill, still standing today as the grandfather of all skyscrapers. Thomas Telford became surveyor of public works here, and built forty bridges in the county, churches, major canal infrastructure, and the London to Holyhead road.

It was the technology and vision of these men that set the groundwork for modern mass production, which built our cities and all the complexity that sustains them, and us.