Dudley was he a man of public spirit and
enterprise, an enlightened political economist (long before political
economy had been recognised as a science), and in many respects a true
national benefactor. Bishop Watson said that he ought to have had a
statue erected to his memory because of his eminent public services;
and an able modern writer has gone so far as to say of him that he was
"the founder of English political economy, the first man in England who
saw and said that peace was better than war, that trade was better than
plunder, that honest industry was better than martial greatness, and
that the best occupation of a government was to secure prosperity at
home, and let other nations alone." [1]

Yet the name of Andrew Yarranton is scarcely remembered, or is at most
known to only a few readers of half-forgotten books. The following
brief outline of his history is gathered from his own narrative and
from documents in the State Paper Office.

Andrew Yarranton was born at the farmstead of Larford, in the parish of
Astley, in Worcestershire, in the year 1616.[2] In his sixteenth year
he was put apprentice to a Worcester linendraper, and remained at that
trade for some years; but not liking it, he left it, and was leading a
country life when the civil wars broke out. Unlike Dudley, he took the
side of the Parliament, and joined their army, in which he served for
some time as a soldier. His zeal and abilities commended him to his
officers, and he was raised from one position to another, until in the
course of a few years we find him holding the rank of captain. "While
a soldier," says he, "I had sometimes the honour and misfortune to
lodge and dislodge an army;" but this is all the information he gives
us of his military career. In the year 1648 he was instrumental in
discovering and frustrating a design on the part of the Royalists to
seize Doyley House in the county of Hereford, and other strongholds,
for which he received the thanks of Parliament "for his ingenuity,
discretion, and valour," and a substantial reward of 500L.[3] He was
also recommended to the Committee of Worcester for further employment.
But from that time we hear no more of him in connection with the civil
wars. When Cromwell assumed the supreme control of affairs, Yarranton
retired from the army with most of the Presbyterians, and devoted
himself to industrial pursuits.

We then find him engaged in carrying on the manufacture of iron at