Dud Dudley’s contribution to metallurgy

Abstract

Dud Dudley was the illegitimate son of Lord Dudley and managed certain of his ironworks in the early 1620s. He attempted to smelt iron with mineral coal, but this proved to be a failure, commercially at least. After a series of such failures, his father expelled him from his furnace and coalworks in winter 1630-1. Twenty years later while a fugitive, he attempted to smelt lead (not iron) in a ‘belhouse’ near Bristol, and advised others who were attempting to smelt iron with mineral coal. In 1665, he published an account of his efforts entitled Metallum Martis. This was followed by his erection of a horsemill-powered blast furnace at Dudley, using a mixture of charcoal and coke. This furnace subsequently passed through several hands and probably closed by 1681. In the intervening years, it was associated with several forges in the nearby Stour valley and an experiment in making tinplate. Sir Clement Clerke, one of the partners in these enterprises, and later a significant metallurgical innovator, may have been trained by Dud Dudley. If so, Dud Dudley was the progenitor of later coal-based metallurgy, not merely its forerunner.