Dudley, Dud

Dudley, Dud

(born 1599, England?—died 1684, England?) English ironmaster. He was an illegitimate son of Edward Sutton, the 9th Baron of Dudley, who recalled him from Oxford in 1619 to manage the family's ironworks in Staffordshire. He was the first to experiment with smelting iron ore in a coal-fired furnace. Previously, charcoal had been exclusively used for smelting iron, but it was becoming increasingly costly, and unpopular, with the depletion of England's forests for fuel. Dudley patented his innovation in 1621, but the poor quality of his metal limited its sale. Dudley's work culminated in Abraham Darby's coke-fired furnace in 1709.