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Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

Samuel Smiles · 1863

passage 52 of 240 · C.E., Mr. Henry Maudslay, C.E., and Mr. J. Kitson, Jun., iron manufacturer, Leeds, in the preparation of the other memoirs of mechanical engineers included in this volume. > CHAPTER III. (11/12)

[6] Patent No. 117, Old Series, granted in 1638, to Sir George Horsey, David Ramsey, Roger Foulke, and Dudd Dudley.

[7] By his own account, given in Metallum Martis, while in Scotland in 1637, he visited the Highlands as well as the Lowlands, spending the whole summer of that year "in opening of mines and making of discoveries;" spending part of the time with Sir James Hope of Lead Hills, near where, he says, "he got gold." It does not appear, however, that any iron forges existed in Scotland at the time: indeed Dudley expressly says that "Scotland maketh no iron;" and in his treatise of 1665 he urges that the Corporation of the Mines Royal should set him and his inventions at work to enable Scotland to enjoy the benefit of a cheap and abundant supply of the manufactured article.

[8] The Journals of the House of Commons, of the 13th June, 1642, contain the resolution "that Captain Wolseley, Ensign Dudley, and John Lometon be forthwith sent for, as delinquents, by the Serjeant-at-Arms attending on the House, for giving interruption to the execution of the ordinance of the militia in the county of Leicester."

[9] Small pieces of artillery, specimens of which are still to be seen in the museum at Woolwich Arsenal and at the Tower.

[10] State Paper Office, Dom. Charles II., vol. xi. 54.

[11] The Journals of the House of Commons, on the 2nd Nov. 1652, have the following entry: "The House this day resumed the debate upon the additional Bill for sale of several lands and estates forfeited to the Commonwealth for treason, when it was resolved that the name of Dud Dudley of Green Lodge be inserted into this Bill."

[12] Mr. Mushet, in his 'Papers on Iron,' says, that "although he had carefully examined every spot and relic in Dean Forest likely to denote the site of Dud Dudley's enterprising but unfortunate experiment of making pig-iron with pit coal," it had been without success; neither could he find any traces of the like operations of Cromwell and his partners.

[13] Dudley says, "Major Wildman, more barbarous to me than a wild man, although a minister, bought the author's estate, near 200L. per annum, intending to compell from the author his inventions of making iron with pitcole, but afterwards passed my estate unto two barbarous brokers of London, that pulled down the author's two mantion houses, sold 500 timber trees off his land, and to this day are his houses unrepaired." Wildman himself fell under the grip of Cromwell. Being one of the chiefs of the Republican party, he was seized at Exton, near Marlborough, in 1654, and imprisoned in Chepstow Castle.

[14] June 13, 1661. Petition of Col. Jas. Proger and three others to the king for a patent for the sole exercise of their invention of melting down iron and other metals with coal instead of wood, as the great consumption of coal [charcoal?] therein causes detriment to shipping, &c. With reference thereon to Attorney-General Palmer, and his report, June 18, in favour of the petition,--State Papers, Charles II. (Dom. vol. xxxvii, 49.)

[15] In his second petition he prays that a dwelling-house situated in Worcester, and belonging to one Baldwin, "a known traitor," may be assigned to him in lieu of Alderman Nash's, which had reverted to that individual since his return to loyalty; Dudley reminding the king that his own house in that city had been given up by him for the service of his father Charles I., and turned into a factory for arms. It does not appear that this part of his petition was successful.

[16] State Papers, vol. xxxi. Doquet Book, p.89.

[17]

Pulvis et umbra sumus Memento mori.

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Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers · Samuel Smiles · 1863