Abraham Darby III

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Abraham Darby III (1750 – 1791) was an English ironmaster and Quaker.

He carried on his family's tradition of improving the art of smelting iron. His most famous achievement was building the largest cast iron structure of his era: a bridge over the Severn. The bridge's importance caused the village of Ironbridge, Shropshire to grow up around it, with the area being subsequently named Ironbridge Gorge.

The two key themes of Darby's life – iron and the Quakers – and the character himself are present in a fantasy novel, The Iron Bridge, by David Morse [1].

[edit] See also

• Abraham Darby I
• Abraham Darby II

Abraham Darby III took over the family business in the 1770s. As it grew, he attracted more workers with various measures. In times of food shortage, he bought up farms to grow food for his workers, built good housing for them, and offered higher wages than were available in any other local industry (such as mining or pottery). His main claim to fame, though, was building an iron bridge over the River Severn. This was the first of its kind in the world, and made the small prinicipality of Coalbrookdale famous. Around the bridge sprang up a new village, Ironbridge, which caused the area around it to be called Ironbridge Gorge. Many people came to Coalbrookdale to see this "wonder of the modern world."

[edit] External links

• The Darby family of inventors
• The Darby family
• The Darby dynasty
• The Coalbrookdale Company, with which the family was associated

Persondata
NAME	Darby, Abraham, III
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Ironmaster; fabricator of The Iron Bridge
DATE OF BIRTH	1750
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH	1791
PLACE OF DEATH