Dud Dudley (1599-1684) was the first Englishman to smelt iron ore with coke. He was the natural son of Edward Lord Dudley of Dudley Castle, the fourth of eleven children by the same mother, and raised at Himley Hall. Events Swedish King Sigismund III Vasa is replaced by his brother Charles IX of Sweden. ... Events France under Louis XIV makes Truce of Ratisbon separately with the Empire and Spain. ... The English are a people originating in the lowlands of Great Britain descending from Angles, and Saxons (combined to form the Anglo-Saxons [English]. The name is used for those who have descent from these native tribes from over 1,600 years ago. ... Chemical reduction or smelting is a form of extractive metallurgy. ... This heap of iron ore pellets will be used in steel production. ... Coke is a solid carbonaceous residue derived from low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal from which the volatile constituents (including water, coal-gas and coal-tar) are driven off by baking in an airless oven at temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius so that the fixed carbon and... The title Baron Dudley was created by writ in the Peerage of England for Sir John Sutton, who served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. ... Dudley Castle is a ruined castle in the town of Dudley, West Midlands, England. ... Himley Hall is a country house situated between Kingswinford and Wombourne, near Dudley, West Midlands, in England. ...

Lord Dudley, though married and having legitimate heirs at the time, seems to have attended to the up-bringing of his natural children; educating them carefully, and afterwards employing them in confidential offices connected with the management of his extensive property. Dud describes himself as taking great delight, when a youth, in his father's iron-works near Dudley, where he obtained considerable knowledge of the various processes of the manufacture.

In 1618, Dud left Balliol College, Oxford, at the age of 20 to take over his father's furnace and forges on Pensnett Chase. There was little wood left in the area, so he resolved to use coal. First, however, he turned the coal into coke, which is a hard, foamlike mass of almost pure carbon made from bituminous coal. He did this via a process like that used for turning wood into charcoal. He soon claimed to have perfected the use of coal instead of charcoal for the production of iron, and obtained a Patent from the King in 1620. Full name Balliol College Motto - Named after John de Balliol Previous names - Established 1263 Sister College St Johns College, Cambridge Master Andrew Graham (academic) Location Broad Street Undergraduates 403 Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford... A tree trunk as found at the Veluwe, The Netherlands Wood is a organic material found as the primary content of the stems of woody plants, especially trees, but also shrubs. ... General Name, Symbol, Number Carbon, C, 6 Chemical series Nonmetals Group, Period, Block 14 (IVA), 2, p Density, Hardness 2267 kg/m3 0. ... Charcoal is the blackish residue consisting of impure carbon obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents of animal and vegetable substances. ... A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor or applicant for a limited amount of time (normally maximum 20 years from the filing date, depending on extension). ... Events September 6 - English emigrants on the Mayflower depart from Plymouth, England for the future New England and arrive at the end of the year. ...

In Dudley's "Metallum Martis" (1665), we read:

"The Authour Erected a new large Furnace on purpose, 27 foot square, all of stone for his new Invention, at a place called Hasco Bridge, in the parish of Sedgley, and County of Stafford; the Bellows of which Furnace were larger then ordinary Bellows are, in which work he made 7 Tuns of Iron per week, the greatest quantity of Pit-cole-Iron that ever yet was made in Great Brittain; near which Furnace, the Author discovered many new Cole-mines 10 yards thick, and Iron-mine under it, according to other Cole-works; which Cole-works being brought unto perfection, the Author was by force thrown out of them, and the Bellows of his new Furnace and Invention, by riotous persons cut in pieces, to his no small prejudice, and loss of his Invention of making of Iron with Pit-cole, Sea-cole, &c. So that being with Law-Suites, and Riots, wearied and disabled to prosecute his Art and. Invention at present, even untill the first Pattent was extinct: Nothwithstanding the Author his sad. Sufferings, Imprisonments wrongfully for several thousand pound in the Counter in London, yet did obtaine a new Pattent, dated the 2d of May, Anno 14. Caroli Primi of ever Blessed Memory, not only for the making of Iron into cast-works, and bars, but also for the Melting, Extracting, Refing and Reducing of all Mines, Minerals and. Mettals, with Pit-cole, Sea-cole, Peat, and Turf, for the preservation of Wood and Timber of this Island; into which Pattent, the Author, for the better support and management of his Invention, so much opposed formerly at the Court, at the Parliament, and at the Law, took in David Ramasey, Esquire, Resident at the Court; Sir George Horsey, at the Parliament; Roger Foulke, Esquire, a Counsellour of the Temple, and an Ingenious Man; and also an Iron Master, my Neighbour, and one who did well know my former Sufferings, and what I had done in the Invention of making of Iron with Pit-cole, etc."

Samuel Smiles, in "Iron Workers and Tool Makers" (1863), carries this story to its conclusion:

"Immediately after the second trial (of Iron smelting) had been made with such good issue, Dud wrote to his father the Earl, then in London, informing him what he had done, and desiring him at once to obtain a patent for the invention from King James. This was readily granted, and the patent (No. 18), dated the 22nd February, 1620, was taken out in the name of Lord Dudley himself.

"Dud proceeded with the manufacture of iron at Pensnet, and also at Cradley in Staffordshire, where he erected another furnace; and a year after the patent was granted he was enabled to send up to the Tower, by the King's command, a considerable quantity of the new iron for trial. Many experiments were made with it: its qualities were fairly tested, and it was pronounced "good merchantable iron." Dud adds, in his Treatise, that his brother-in-law, Richard Parkshouse, of Sedgley, "had a fowling-gun there made of the Pit-cole iron," which was "well approved." There was therefore every prospect of the new method of manufacture becoming fairly established, and with greater experience further improvements might with confidence be anticipated, when a succession of calamities occurred to the inventor which involved him in difficulties and put an effectual stop to the progress of his enterprise.

"From thence he removed to Himley in the county of Stafford, where he set up a pit-coal furnace; but being without the means of forging the iron into bars, he was constrained to sell the pig-iron to the charcoal-ironmasters, 'who did him much prejudice, not only by detaining his stock, but also by disparaging his iron.' He next proceeded to erect a large new furnace at Hasco Bridge, near Sedgley, in the same county, for the purpose of carrying out the manufacture on the most improved principles. This furnace was of stone, twenty-seven feet square, provided with unusually large bellows; and when in full work he says he was enabled to turn out seven tons of iron per week, "the greatest quantity of pit-coal iron ever yet made in Great Britain." At the same place he discovered and opened out new workings of coal ten feet thick, lying immediately over the ironstone, and he prepared to carry on his operations on a large scale; but the new works were scarcely finished when a mob of rioters, instigated by the charcoal-ironmasters, broke in upon them, cut in pieces the new bellows, destroyed the machinery, and laid the results of all his deep-laid ingenuity and persevering industry in ruins. From that time forward Dudley was allowed no rest nor peace: he was attacked by mobs, worried by lawsuits, and eventually overwhelmed by debts. He was then seized by his creditors and sent up to London, where he was held a prisoner in the Comptoir for several thousand pounds. The charcoal-iron men thus for a time remained masters of the field."

Dudley's last years are obscure. He seems eventually to have retired to St. Helen's in Worcestershire, where he died in 1684, at age 85. He was buried in the parish church there, and a monument, now destroyed, was erected to his memory, bearing the following Latin inscription: Events France under Louis XIV makes Truce of Ratisbon separately with the Empire and Spain. ...

"Dodo Dudley chiliarchi nobilis Edwardi nuper domini de Dudley filius, patri charus et regiae Majestatis fidissimus subditus et servus in asserendo regein, in vindicartdo ecclesiam, in propugnando legem ac libertatem Anglicanam, saepe captus, anno 1648, semel condemnatus et tamen non decollatus, renatum denuo vidit diadaema hic inconcussa semper virtute senex."