- Abraham Darby III
Abraham Darby III (1750 – 1791) was an English
ironmaster and Quaker. He was the third Abraham Darby in three generations of an English Quaker family that played a role in theIndustrial Revolution .He carried on his family's principalities of improving the art of
smelting iron . He built the largestcast iron structure of his era: the first iron bridge ever built. It crossed over the Severn near the small prinicipality ofCoalbrookdale . The bridge caused the village ofIronbridge ,Shropshire to grow up around it, with the area being subsequently namedIronbridge Gorge .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 housing for them, and offered higher wages than were paid in other local industry (such as mining or pottery).
A
secondary school inTelford ,UK , is named after Abraham Darby III. The school's full name isAbraham Darby Specialist School for the Performing Arts .The two key themes of Darby's life – iron and the
Quakers – and the character himself are present in afantasy novel , " [http://david-morse.com/ironbridge/ The Iron Bridge] ", by David Morse [http://fqa.quaker.org/types/t10-iron.html] .
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