Part 6

“We also enjoyed very much our grandfather’s account of a visit paid to the Ketley Iron Works by Lord Thurlow, the then Lord Chancellor. My grandfather, having gone through the works with his lordship, and given him all requisite information and needful refreshment, proposed to accompany him part of the way on his return, which offer his lordship gratefully accepted, and the horses were ordered to the door accordingly. They were, both of them, good riders, and were, both of them, well mounted. The Lord Chancellor’s horse, no doubt a little instigated thereto by his owner, took the lead, and my grandfather’s horse, nothing loth to follow the example, kept as nearly neck and neck with his rival as _his_ owner considered respectful. The speed was alternately increased, until they found themselves getting on at a very dashing pace indeed! and they became aware that the steeds were as nearly matched as possible. At last, the Chancellor pulled up, and complimenting my grandfather upon his ‘very fine horse’ confessed that he had never expected to meet with one who could trot so fast as his own. My grandfather acknowledged to a similar impression on his part; and his lordship, heartily shaking hands with him, and thanking him for his great attention, laughed, and said, ‘I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is probably the first time that ever a Lord Chancellor and a Quaker rode a race together.’”

The years 1774, 1782, and 1796 were periods of great distress. Haggard hunger, despairing wretchedness, and ignorant force were banded to trample down the safeguards of civil right, and armed ruffians took the initiative in scrambles for food. The gravity of the occasion, in the latter case, may be estimated by the subscriptions for the purchase of food for the starving population. We give those of the iron companies of this district only: Messrs. Bishton and Co. gave £1,500; Mr. Botfield, for the Old Park Company, £1,500; Mr. Joseph Reynolds, for the Ketley Company, £2,000; Mr. R. Dearman, for the Coalbrookdale Company, £1,500; Mr. William Reynolds, for the Madeley-Wood Company, £1000. Mr. Richard Reynolds gave £500 as his individual subscription. Applications, in times of distress, from far and near were made to Mr. Reynolds for assistance. Taking a general view of the distress existing in the beginning of the year 1811, he says, in reply to a letter from a clergyman, “I am thankful I am not altogether without sympathy with my fellow-men, or compassion for the sufferings to which the want of employment subjects the poor, or the sufferings still more severe of some of their former employers. Thou mentions Rochdale, Bolton, Leeds, and Halifax. Wilt thou apply the enclosed towards the relief of some of them, at thy discretion? Those who want it most and deserve it best should have the preference,—the aged, honest, sober, and industrious. I am sensible how limited the benefits from such a sum in so populous a district must be, and of the difficulty of personal investigation before distribution. If it could be made subservient to the procuring an extensive contribution it would be of more important service. If it cannot I think it would be best to commit it to some judicious person or persons in each place, to distribute with the utmost privacy, and (that) for their own sakes, were it only to avoid applications from more than they could supply, and yet the refusal would subject them to abuse. But in whatever manner thou shalt dispose of it, I send it upon the express condition that nobody living knows thou ever had it from me; this is matter of conscience with me. In places where we are known, and on public occasions, when one’s example would have an influence, it may be as much a duty to give up one’s name as one’s money; but otherwise I think we cannot too strictly follow the injunction:—‘Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.’”

If some poor tradesman in London or elsewhere was tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, and a friend was found to write to Richard Reynolds, he was put upon his legs again. Poor debtors found themselves relieved from the King’s Bench by an unknown hand. Unwilling to be known as the giver of large sums, he would sometimes forward his subscriptions with his name, and send a larger contribution anonymously afterwards. In this way he gave a sum in his own name on behalf of the distress in Germany, and then forwarded a further sum of £500 privately. For years he had almoners in London and elsewhere, dispensing sums to meet distress, and on behalf of public and private charities, scrupulously enacting that his name should not appear in the transactions. To one party he sent £20,000 during the distress of 1795. He had four distributors of his bounty constantly employed in Bristol alone. They brought in their accounts weekly, giving the names of persons or families, the sums given, and the circumstances under which they were relieved. Not the least to be appreciated was the consideration and delicacy with which he assisted persons not ostensibly objects of charity (to use the word in its common sense) and many who, through relationship, personal interest, or estimable conduct were felt to have claims on his kindness and generosity.

He solicited in Bristol subscriptions on a large scale for augmenting the fund for the payment of a weekly sum to the inhabitants of the almshouses, going from house to house,—his own zeal kindling that of others. One gentleman to whom he applied, of acknowledged wealth and importance in the city, having given him a cheque for £500, he said he would give him back the cheque, as such a sum from _him_ would do more harm than good. The gentleman immediately wrote another for £1000. He himself gave £2000 (one of his friends says £4000), and £4000 to the Trinity almshouses. In 1808 he placed in the hands of the trustees the sum of £10,500 to be invested in land, the rent of which was to be devoted to seven charitable institutions in Bristol, named in the deed and trust, in such manner and proportion, either to one alone, or between any, as should at the time appear expedient to the trustees. An addition to the infirmary being needed, he devoted much of his time to that object, subscribing £2,600. The committee also received an anonymous donation of £1000, entertaining no doubt who was the giver; and on the following day one of their number happening to meet Richard Reynolds, thanked him in the name of the committee for his acceptable donation. He said—“Thou hast no authority for saying I sent the money,” and the gentleman repeating the acknowledgment of the committee, Mr. Reynolds quietly said—“Well, I see thou art determined that I should give thee a thousand pounds,” and the next day they received a donation of that sum with his name attached, thus doubling his first contribution. To these gifts may be added (besides his annual subscription) donations:—£1,260 to the Stranger’s Friend; £900 to the Misericordia; £500 to the Refuge, and the same to the Orphan Asylum; and to the Bible Society, £900. Of several other small amounts one need only be mentioned, from his purse,—that of £300 to the Temple parish, towards providing a better supply of water to the poor.

Mr. Reynolds’s last visit to Ketley, the scene of his labours, and the source of his vast income, was in June, 1816. His funeral took place on the 18th of September, amidst a manifestation of respect, as marked and profound as ever was paid to the remains of mortal man. The city of Bristol offered spontaneously to his memory that signal tribute of general regard that a name embalmed by good deeds alone can win. Columns of schoolboys, with mournful recollections of the good man’s smile, formed a melancholy passage to the dwelling of their benefactor. These were flanked by vast crowds of sympathising poor, who felt they had lost a friend. The clergy of the Church of England, ministers of dissenting congregations, gentlemen forming the committees of various societies, and other leading men, besides a large body of the Society of Friends, followed the several members and relatives of the family in procession. So great was public curiosity excited on this occasion, and such the eagerness manifested by the poor, who had lost their best friend, to pay their last respect to his remains, that not only was the spacious burial-ground filled with spectators and mourners, but the very tops of walls and houses surrounding the area were covered. The behaviour of the vast concourse of people was in the highest degree decent, orderly and respectful, the poor, considering it a favour to be permitted in their turn to approach the grave of their departed friend, and to drop the silent tear as a mark of their regard for the man whose life had been spent in doing good.

Montgomery, in verses from which we extract the following, paid a just tribute to his memory:

Strike a louder, loftier lyre; Bolder, sweeter strains employ; Wake remembrance! and inspire Sorrow with the song of joy.

Who was he for whom our tears Flowed, and will not cease to flow? Full of honours and of years, In the dust his head lies low.

. . . . . . .

He was one whose open face Did his inmost heart reveal; One who wore with meekest grace On his forehead heaven’s broad seal.

Kindness all his looks express’d, Charity was every word; Him the eye beheld and bless’d, And the ear rejoiced and heard.

Like a patriarchal sage, Holy, humble, courteous, mild, He could blend the awe of age With the sweetness of a child.

. . . . . . .

Oft his silent spirit went, Like an angel from the throne, On benign commission bent, In the fear of God alone.

Then the widow’s heart would sing, As she turned her wheel, for joy; Then the bliss of hope would spring On the outcast orphan boy.

To the blind, the deaf, the lame, To the ignorant and vile, Stranger, captive, slave, he came, With a welcome and a smile.

Help to all he did dispense. Gold, instruction, raiment, food, Like the gifts of Providence, To the evil and the good.

Deeds of mercy, deeds unknown, Shall eternity record, Which he durst not call his own, For he did them for the Lord.

As the earth puts forth her flowers, Heaven-ward breathing from below; As the clouds descend in showers, When the southern breezes glow.

. . . . . . .

Full of faith, at length he died, And victorious in the race, Wore the crown for which he died, Not of merit but of grace.

WILLIAM REYNOLDS.

The father, Richard Reynolds, as will be seen from our sketch, managed to realize immense wealth at Ketley, and, what is more, to remain superior to the influence wealth too often has upon its possessor. The finer feelings of the man never succumbed to the vulgar circumstances of his position, but maintained their freshness, and graduated to maturity by the mastering force of a resolute will and a well-disciplined and highly enlightened mind. Never so completely absorbed in the arts and intricacies of money-making as to lose sight of higher and worthier aims, he sought an opportunity earlier than men in his circumstances usually do of enjoying the well-earned fruits of an active life; of indulging in that repose and retirement congenial to minds similarly constituted to his own. Accordingly, his shares in the works were turned over to his two sons, William and Joseph. William was the more distinguished of the two in carrying out improvements connected with the works. Like his father, he possessed an active mind, an elevated taste, and a desire for knowledge; to which were added a mechanical genius, and an aptitude for turning to account resources within his reach. He saw the necessity of uniting science with practice in developing the rich resources of the district; and that knowledge and discovery must keep pace with aptitude in their use.

“An equal appreciation of all parts of knowledge,” it was remarked by Humboldt, “is an especial requirement of an epoch in which the material wealth and the increasing prosperity of nations are in a great measure based on a more enlightened employment of natural products and forces. The most superficial glance at the present condition of European states shows that those which linger in the race cannot hope to escape the partial diminution, and perhaps the final annihilation, of their resources. It is with nations as with nature, which, according to a happy expression of Goethe, knows no pause in ever-increasing movement, development, and production—a curse, still cleaving to a standstill. Nothing but serious occupation with chemistry and physical and natural science can defend a state from the consequences of competition. Man can produce no effect upon nature, or appropriate her powers, unless he is conversant with her laws, and with their relations to material objects according to measures and numbers. And in this lies the power of popular intelligence, which rises or falls as it encourages or neglects this study. Science and information are the joy and justification of mankind. They form the spring of a nation’s wealth, being often indeed substitutes for those material riches which nature has in many cases distributed with so partial a hand. Those nations which remain behind in manufacturing activity, by neglecting the practical application of the mechanical arts, and of industrial chemistry, to the transmission, growth, or manufacture of raw materials—those nations amongst whom respect for such activity does not pervade all classes—must inevitably fall from prosperity they have attained; and this so much the more certainly and speedily as neighbouring states, instinct with the power of renovation, in which science and the arts of industry operate or lend each other mutual assistance, are seen pressing forward in the race.”

Upon this principle Mr. Reynolds placed himself under the teaching of Dr. Black, the discoverer of latent heat, a gentleman who by his eminent ability and teaching did so much to inspire a love for the science in England during the latter part of the last century. He was thus enabled to bring the knowledge he possessed of elementary substances and of their peculiar qualities, gained in the laboratory, to bear upon the manufacture of iron in the furnace and the forge, and to anticipate some of the discoveries of later times.

Steel and iron have long been manufactured at Ulverstone, and the quality or fitness of the ore for the purpose is attributed to the presence of manganese in the ore, which since the establishment of railways has come into general use. In Mr. Reynolds’s time we imported large quantities of iron and steel; and ignorant of what constituted the difference between our own and that of foreign markets, had with some humiliation to confess our dependence. In no case had a uniform quality of bar-iron with the superior marks of Sweden and Russia been produced. A great variety of processes had been tried, and makers were not wanting who made laudable efforts for the accomplishment of the object, feeling that in so doing they devoted their time to the service of their country, and that in a national as well as a commercial point of view no experiments were fraught with more important consequences.

Mr. Reynolds thought he saw the solution of the problem how to produce metal equal to that made from the magnetic and richer ores of the Swedish and Siberian mines, when Bergman published his analysis of Swedish iron, showing the large percentage of manganese it contained. The analysis showed the following results:

CAST IRON. Parts. Plumbago 2.20 Manganese 15.25 Silicious Earth 2.25 Iron 80.30 100 STEEL. Plumbago .50 Manganese 15.25 Silicious Earth .60 Iron 83.65 100 BAR-IRON. Plumbago .50 Manganese 15.25 Silicious Earth 1.75 Iron 84.78 100

In order to effect a combination corresponding with this analysis of the French chemist he introduced manganese into the refinery during the re-smelting process, and succeeded in producing bar-iron capable of conversion into steel of better quality than had previously been made from coke-iron. From subsequent experiments the per-centage introduced of metallic manganese could be traced into bar-iron, the inference being that the purpose served was the additional supply of oxygen it gave to burn out the impurities—a result the Bessemer process has since attained in another way. When it is remembered that the end to be attained in these processes is to consume the impurities of the metal, and that those impurities are of such a nature as to unite with oxygen at a high temperature and form separate compounds, also that this boiling and bubbling up of the liquid metal was carefully watched and tended formerly, one can understand how near the iron-kings of a past age were to the Bessemer discovery of the present.

“The old men,” as they are frequently called in the works, appear to have had an inkling of the real nature of the process: The rising impurities and combination of opposite gases indicated by bubbles were called the “Soldier’s coming.” At any rate the Bessemer invention is an adaptation of a principle acted upon during the past century in the Shropshire ironworks. Mr. Reynolds’s patent was obtained December 6, 1799, and was stated to be for “preparing iron for the conversion thereof into steel.” In his specification he described his invention to consist in the employment of oxide of manganese in the conversion of pig-iron into malleable iron or steel, but did not enter into details as to the method he employed for carrying his invention into effect.

John Wilkinson obtained a patent January 23, 1801, for making “Pig or cast metal from ore, which when manufactured into bar-iron will be found equal in quality to any that is imported from Russia or Sweden.” The patentee states his invention to consist “in making use of manganese, or ores containing manganese, in addition to ironstone and other materials used in making iron, and in certain proportions, to be varied by the nature of such ironstone and other materials.”

Mr. Reynolds was not only a chemist, but a geologist. He succeeded in forming a collection of carboniferous fossils to which modern professors acknowledge their obligations, and which, with the additions made by Mr. William Anstice, Dean Buckland pronounced one of the finest in Europe. Other manufacturers, every day dealing with subterranean treasures that give iron in abundance, were as dwellers amid the ruins of some ancient city, taking down structures of the builders of which and of the history of which they were ignorant. With him minerals had an interest beyond their market value. Coal and ore from the dusky mine, raised at so much per ton, were not minerals merely, but materials prepared to his hand by Nature. He detected traces of that venerable dame’s cast-off garments in one; the others were fabrics, the result of processes as varied as his own, the produce of machinery more wonderful and powerful than that he was about to employ in converting them to the general uses and purposes of mankind. His pit-shafts to him were mere inlets to the deep storehouse of the globe where Providence had treasured means whereby to enrich future inhabitants of the surface. Geology as a science, ’tis true, was but beginning to shed its light on the cosmogony of the world; endeavours to make out a connected history of the earth from examinations of the structure itself were deemed strange; and the more intelligent of his contemporaries, who without hesitation adopted speculations daring and beyond the province of human intellect, looked coldly upon his labours. The old workmen to whom he offered premiums for the best specimens could not for the life of them make out the meaning of his morning visits to the mines, his constant inquiries respecting fossils, his frequent hammering at ironstone nodules, his looking inside them and loading his pockets with them—seeing that he did not confine attention to those that seemed likely to make good iron. Some considered it to be one of the good old Quaker’s eccentricities, and did not forget when he turned his back to point to their heads, intimating that “all was not right in his upper garrets.” Others, knowing that he sometimes used the blow-pipe and tried experiments in his laboratory, believed his aim to be to extract “goold,” as they said, from the stone—a supposition to which the presence of iron pyrites gave some degree of colouring. One fine morning, in particular, as flitting gleams of sunshine came down to brighten young green patches of copse and meadow, telling of returning spring, a group of his men were seated with bottle and tot, drinking the cuckoo’s foot-ale, when, “Here comes Measter William, here comes Old Broadbrim,” it was said, “with his pecker in his pocket, fatch the curiosities from the crit.” Mr. Reynolds was not very well pleased, for large orders were in the books unexecuted, and coal and ore could not be got fast enough. Every engine had its steam up; but not a beam-head or pulley creaked or stirred. One or two bands of workmen had gone down, but had come up again. The cuckoo’s voice that morning for the first time had been heard, and it was more potent than the master’s; for it was the custom, and had been from time immemorial, to drink his foot-ale, and to drink it out of doors; and the man was fined, who proposed to deviate from custom by drinking it in-doors. On May Day too it was the custom, as it now is, to gather boughs or sprigs of the birch, with its young and graceful fronds, and mount them on the engines, the pit heads, and cabins, and on the heads of horses, to proclaim the fact that we had entered upon the merry, merry month of May.