Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

Chapter III Iron Smelting by Pit-Coal — Dud Dudley

Greatly reduced production of English iron
  Proposal to use pit-coal instead of charcoal of wood in smelting
  Sturtevant’s patent
  Rovenson’s
  Dud Dudley; his family his history
  Uses pit-coal to smelt iron with success
  Takes out his patent
  The quality of the iron proved by tests
  Dudley’s works swept away by a flood
  Rebuilds his works, and they are destroyed by a mob
  Renewal of his patent
  Outbreak of the Civil War
  Dudley joins the Royalists, and rises to be General of artillery
  His perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes
  His estate confiscated
  Recommences iron-smelting
  Various attempts to smelt with pit-coal
  Dudley’s petitions to the King
  His death