Samuel Holden Blackwell
Samuel Holden Blackwell (1816-1868), Ironmaster, of Russells Hall Ironworks, near Dudley, and Crookhay, Wednesbury
1816 May 8th. Born at Worcester the son of John Blackwell and his wife Elizabeth Holden
1841 Living at Dudley (age 25), an Ironmaster.[1]
1851 of Russell's Hall Iron Works, near Dudley.[2]
1861 Living in Wellington Road, Dudley: Samuel H. Blackwell (age 44 born Worcester), Magistrate and Ironmaster and a Widower. Also a visitor and two servants. [3]
- A brother-in-law of Mr. Ebenezer Rogers
1869 Obituary [4]
SAMUEL HOLDEN BLACKWELL was born near Worcester on 8th May 1816.
At an early age he became engaged in the iron trade in South Staffordshire, and was for many years the proprietor of numerous blast furnaces, and of mills and forges, in the neighbourhood of Dudley and Bilston. He was also engaged at various periods in large collieries in Monmouthshire; and in the mining of iron ore in the Forest of Dean, in Exmoor, in Northamptonshire, and near Whitehaven.
Shortly before his death he was also occupied with blast furnaces at Yniscedwyn in the anthracite district of Glamorganshire, north of Swansea.
At an early period of his life he paid much attention to the geological features of the South Staffordshire coalfield; and at the first Birmingham meeting of the British Association in 1839 he read a paper on the rocks of basaltic origin which occur in that coalfield, giving the first connected account of the intruded beds of green rock that extend unconformably through the coalfield from the Rowley hills to the neighbourhood of Wednesfield and Walsall. The leading faults which traverse the coalfield were first collected and laid down by him on the ordnance map of South Staffordshire; and the data collected by him were afterwards used largely in preparing the map of the geological survey.
He was the first to call public attention to the extensive deposits of iron ore in Northamptonshire, to trace them northwards through Leicestershire into Lincolnshire, and to introduce the smelting of these ores in South Staffordshire.
He paid much attention to the question of utilising the waste gas from blast furnaces; and in 1852 read a paper to the Institution giving the results of his experience upon this subject in various districts.
He was a Member of the Institution from 1851, and for some years one of the Vice-Presidents.
He died at Birmingham On 25th March 1868, in the fifty-second year of his age, after a long and painful illness.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ 1841 Census
- ↑ 1851 Institution of Mechanical Engineers: New Members
- ↑ 1861 Census
- ↑ 1869 Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Obituaries