﻿10 NICHOLSON, Notes on the Wilkinsons, Ironmasters. 



benefiting perhaps by his father's failures or favoured by 

 circumstances, brought all his schemes to a profitable 

 conclusion. Isaac's experiments with peat moss for 

 smelting, were, as we have seen, unsuccessful, although 

 since his time a method of smelting by this means has 

 been devised, but John, after many experiments, was 

 enabled to substitute common coal for charcoal in these 

 operations, and immediately doubled the produce of his 

 furnaces. Isaac and John Wilkinson were undoubtedly 

 among the great men of the iron age. 



Isaac Wilkinson is not noticed in the " Dictionary of 

 National Biography," and the information given here has 

 not hitherto been collected. Of John Wilkinson there is 

 a life in the " Dictionary of National Biography." Stock- 

 dale's " Annales Caermoelenses " contains some details 

 (not altogether accurate) of the Lancashire career of the 

 Wilkinsons. The connection of John Wilkinson with 

 the Bersham Iron Works is the subject of an excellent 

 monograph by Mr. A. N. Palmer, of Wrexham, which 

 appeared in the " Transactions of the Honorable Society 

 of Cymmrodorion," and has since been issued separately. 



