COLEBROOK-DALE IRON-WORKS--THE REYNOLDS'.

(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)

In the interesting extract you have given in your excellent Miscellany
(No. 321) from Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, when speaking of the
exhausted or impoverished state of the iron-ore and coals in Shropshire,
&c., an allusion is made in a note to that truly excellent man, the late
Mr. Richard Reynolds, and to the final extinction of the furnaces at
Colebrook-Dale, which is not altogether correct.

I beg leave, therefore, to point out the errors to you, and to add a
fact or two more relating to that distinguished philanthropist and his
family, which, perhaps, will not be unacceptable to many of your
readers.

Mr. Reynolds was by no means the _original_, nor, I believe, ever the
_sole_ proprietor, of the iron-works in Colebrook-Dale, as stated by Mr.
Bakewell; he derived his right in them from his wife's family the
Darbies; and the firm of "Darby and Company" was the well known mark on
the iron from these works for a very long period; more recently, that of
"Colebrook-Dale Company" was adopted.

The Darbies were an old and respectable family of the Society of
Friends, and a pair of the elder branches of it were the original "Darby
and Joan," whose names are so well known throughout the whole kingdom. I
had this anecdote from one of the sons of Mr. Reynolds,[7] and have no
doubt of its authenticity.