- Shadrach Fox
Shadrach Fox was the
ironmaster who preceded Abraham Darby atCoalbrookdale .Shadrach was probably the son of Captain Thomas Fox, who appears in the accounts of
Philip Foley in1669 as buying toughpig iron , [R. G. Schafer (ed.), "A selection from the Records of Philip Foley's Stour Valley Iron Works 1669-74" (Worcs. Hist. Soc., n.s. 9, 1978), 94-5 and "passim". ]In the 1690s, Shadrach was renting the Coalbrookdale ironworks and supplying shot (for
cannon ) to theBoard of Ordnance . He had some dispute with theCompany for Making Iron with Pitcoal . His brother Thomas Fox had worked that company as founder near London, castinggrenado shell s and shot for the Board in1693 , after which Thomas became warden of theFleet Prison , in which he stored 'bombs and grenado shells', probably ones empty ofgunpowder .In
1701 he placed his brother in charge of anotherblast furnace , atWombridge to which Isaac Hawkins supplied a large quantity of coal and ironstone, which suggests that they smelted iron with coke. Unfortunately, Coalbrookdale Furnace blew up, not later than April1703 , and Thomas died not long after. Coalbrookdale Furnace remained derelict until it was restored by Abraham Darby in1709 . [P. W. King, 'Sir Clement Clerke and the Adoption of Coal in Metallurgy' "Trans. Newcomen Soc." 73(1) (2001-2), 40. ]After leaving Coalbrookdale, Shadrach had an interest in a corn mill near London and worked as a
founder casting shells for contractors, probably supplying the East India Company. He was then recruited to go toRussia to enter the service ofPeter the Great . He travelled by way ofArchangel , but died in the course of his first winter in Russia, leaving a destitute widow in England and several children,of whom his son Mesech served as a soldier and later sought to recover his father's property (but there was none). [R. A. Mott, 'Coalbrookdale in the early years' "Trans. Shrops. Arch. Soc." 56 (1957-60), 82-93; N. Cox, 'Imagination and innovation of an industrial pioneer: The first Abraham Darby' "Ind. Arch. Rev." 12(2) (1990), 131. ]References
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