Clement Clerke
Sir Clement Clerke, 1st Baronet (died 1693) was an important (but financially unsuccessful)
Background
Clement Clerke was the third son of George Clerke of
Iron smelting
In the early 1670s, Sir Clement joined various other people in sponsoring
The River Stour
During their partnership, Andrew Yarranton persuaded John Foorth and Sir Clement Clerke to finance the completion of the navigation of the Worcestershire Stour. This would have been a convenience for them, as it ran near some of their works, but nothing was done except pay off some debts, due to the problems with the ironworks business. On its dissolution, George Skippe took over Foorth's share in the navigation; new contractors (including Andrew Yarranton's son Robert, and they were to be paid by instalments as the works progressed, but the money ran out when the river was only completed from Stourbridge to Kidderminster.[3]
Lead smelting
By this stage, Sir Clement had exhausted his resources; the manor of Rudge was ultimately foreclosed by the mortgagee. Lord Grandison had financed a certain Samuel Hutchinson, who had a patent for smelting lead with pitcoal, but failed. Grandison then approached Sir Clement. Grandison and Robert Thorowgood (a King's Lynn merchant) provided the capital in 1678 for Sir Clement and Francis Nicholson (Grandison's dependent) to set up lead works. Sir Clement went to Bristol and built cupolas - reverberatory furnaces, but when Sir Clement went back for the rest of the capital, he found that Nicholson had taken it to Derbyshire and lost it.
In 1683, there was a complicated agreement to the effect that business should be carried on by Sir Clement's son Talbot, but he was not quite 21 years old so that the business had to be in the name of a
Another venture related to the production of white lead. This was in the names of Talbot's trustee an Grandison's son Edward Fitzgerald Villiers, but was evidently not successful, with the result that money had to be obtained by mortgaging Launde Abbey to repay Villiers.
Copper and company flotations
In 1687, while the lead cupola was out of their possession, Sir Clement and Talbot built a reverberatory furnace at Putney and smelted copper there. A patent was obtained for this in 1688. This led to the establishment of a copper smelting works close to the banks of the River Wye at Redbrook and the chartering of the English Copper Company.
With the conclusion of the litigation, the cupola near Bristol reverted to Talbot Clerke. The Company for Smelting down Lead with Pitcoal (later in different ownership known as the London Lead Company) was chartered to run this, but this was evidently not successful and returned to Talbot (by then Sir Talbot) in 1695.
'A work for remelting and casting old iron with sea coal' was built at 'Fox Hall' (probably Vauxhall under the direction of Sir Clement. This was the first reverberatory furnace (in this case known as an 'air furnace') to be built for iron foundry purposes. This seems to have formed the basis for the Company for Making Iron with Pitcoal, though it may also have been intended to exploit a patent granted to Thomas Addison in 1692. The company ran its foundry for a few years, with Thomas Fox (the brother of Shadrach Fox of Coalbrookdale) as founder.[5]
Impact
Sir Clement apparently guided many of these developments; though he probably did not personally benefit from them financially, his sons probably did. Sir Clement is certainly to be credited with the practical application of the reverberatory furnace (or cupola) to several metallurgical processes. Until the introduction in the late 18th century of the foundry cupola (which is a sort of small blast furnace), his air furnace was the normal way of remelting pig for foundry purposes. The cupola (reverberatory furnace) long remained in use for smelted copper and lead, and was applied by Robert Lyddall to tin.
It is not clear where he obtained his knowledge of metallurgy, but it is possible that Dud Dudley was his teacher; certainly, his lead smelting efforts seem to be foreshadowed by an enterprise involving Dud Dudley at Okham Slade (location unknown) in Clifton, Bristol. Sir Clement died in debt in 1693. His baronetcy passed to Talbot, as did Launde Abbey, which was not swallowed by his debts because of his marriage settlement.
References
- ^ J. Nichols, History and Antiquities of Leicestershire III(1) (1800), 326.
- ^ King, P. W. (2002). "Dud Dudley's contribution to metallurgy". Historical Metallurgy. 36 (1): 43–53.
- ^ A. W. Skempton et al., Biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers I (2002), 808-13.
- ^ P. W. King, 'The cupola at Bristol' Somerset Archaeol. & Nat. Hist. 140 (1997), 37-51.
- ^ P. W. King, 'Sir Clement Clerke and the Adoption of Coal in metallurgy' Trans. Newcomen Soc. 73(1) (2001-2), 33-52.