Darby, Abraham (1677–1717)

English iron manufacturer who developed a process for smelting iron ore using coke instead of the more expensive and scarce charcoal (1709).

He employed the cheaper iron to cast strong thin pots for domestic use, and after his death it was used for the huge cylinders required by the new steam pumping-engines. In 1779 his grandson Abraham Darby (1750–1791)constructed the world's first iron bridge, over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale, Shropshire.

Darby was born near Dudley, Worcestershire, and trained in engineering, setting up his own business in 1698. In about 1704 he visited Holland and brought back with him some Dutch brass founders, establishing them in Bristol, later moving to Coalbrookdale. They experimented with substituting cast iron for brass in some products, and in 1708 Darby took out a patent for a new way of casting iron pots and other ironware in sand only, without loam or clay. This process cheapened utensils much used by poorer people and at that time largely imported from abroad.