Basil Brooke (metallurgist)

Sir Basil Brooke (1576 – 31 December 1646), English metallurgist and recusant, inherited the manor of Madeley from his father. This contained iron and steel works and coal mines. The coal mines had been worked in his father's time, coal being transported on the River Severn to cities and towns from Shrewsbury to Gloucester.

About 1615, he obtained an interest in a patent for making steel by the cementation process. This led to his building steel furnaces at Coalbrookdale, which certainly existed by the 1640s, and perhaps from 1615. The patent contained a clause prohibiting the import of steel, but he was unable to meet demand and was required to surrender his patent, but he evidently continued making steel, probably using iron from the Forest of Dean, though this was subsequently found not to be quite the best raw material.

In 1615, he and Richard Chaldecott of London took over two furnaces and a forge of the king's ironworks in the Forest of Dean, but in 1618, they were accused of illegal felling and their lease was suspended. The same accusation was made against the next farmers (i.e. lessees), but their lease was allowed to run its course. Brooke (with George Mynne and Thomas Hackett) leased all the king's works (four furnaces and three forges, but in 1633, new claims were made that the ironworks were having a disastrous effect on the Forest. By that stage they had built one or two more forges adjoining the Forest. Their lease was suspended, and at the following enquiry at the Forest Eyre, he and his partner were fined heavily, being deprived of their lease, and the works were let to others. The fine was subsequently abated somewhat. Every farmer of these works was accused of misfeasance; it is not clear that Brooke and his partners did anything wrong, or anything worse than any other farmer.

Sir Basil probably had ironworks at Coalbrookdale on his own estate of Madeley. There was a 'smithy', that is a bloomery forge there when Wenlock Abbey was dissolved, but how long this continued in use remains unknown. However it is likely that there were (at least) forges there in his time. He certainly had ironworks somewhere in Shropshire in 1622, including Bromleys Forge near the mouth of the River Perry. He and his ironworks partners were also concerned in Shelsley Forge (in Shelsley Walsh).

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