Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

Chapter V Coalbrookdale Iron Works — The Darbys and Reynoldses

Failure in the attempts to smelt iron with pit-coal
  Dr. Blewstone’s experiment
  Decay of the iron manufacture
  Abraham Darby
  His manufacture of cast-iron pots at Bristol
  Removes to Coalbrookdale
  His method of smelting iron
  Increased use of coke
  Use of pit-coal by Richard Ford
  Richard Reynolds joins the Coalbrookdale firm
  Invention of the Craneges in iron-refining
  Letter of Richard Reynolds on the subject
  Invention of cast-iron rails by Reynolds
  Abraham Darby the Second constructs the first iron bridge
  Extension of the Coalbrookdale Works
  William Reynolds: his invention of inclined planes for working canals
  Retirement of Richard Reynolds from the firm
  His later years, character, and death