-iron weekly, and it was
of a very inferior character,[11]--the means not having yet been
devised at Cyfartha for malleableizing the pit-coal cast-iron with
economy or good effect. Yet Crawshay found a ready market for all the
iron he could make, and he is said to have counted the gains of the
forge-hammer close by his house at the rate of a penny a stroke. In
course of time he found it necessary to erect new furnaces, and, having
adopted the processes invented by Henry Cort, he was thereby enabled
greatly to increase the production of his forges, until in 1812 we find
him stating to a committee of the House of Commons that he was making
ten thousand tons of bar-iron yearly, or an average produce of two
hundred tons a week. But this quantity, great though it was, has since
been largely increased, the total produce of the Crawshay furnaces of
Cyfartha, Ynysfach, and Kirwan, being upwards of 50,000 tons of
bar-iron yearly.

The distance of Merthyr from Cardiff, the nearest port, being
considerable, and the cost of carriage being very great by reason of
the badness of the roads, Mr. Crawshay set himself to overcome this
great impediment to the prosperity of the Merthyr Tydvil district; and,
in conjunction with Mr. Homfray of the Penydarran Works, he planned and
constructed the canal[12] to Cardiff, the opening of which, in 1795,
gave an immense impetus to the iron trade of the neighbourhood.
Numerous other extensive iron works became established there, until
Merthyr Tydvil attained the reputation of being at once the richest and
the dirtiest district in all Britain. Mr. Crawshay became known in the
west of England as the "Iron King," and was quoted as the highest
authority in all questions relating to the trade. Mr. George Crawshay,
recently describing the founder of the family at a social meeting at
Newcastle, said,--"In these days a name like ours is lost in the
infinity of great manufacturing firms which exist through out the land;
but in those early times the man who opened out the iron district of
Wales stood upon an eminence seen by all the world. It is preserved in
the traditions of the family that when the 'Iron King' used to drive
from home in his coach-and-four into Wales, all the country turned out
to see him, and quite a commotion took place when he passed through
Bristol on his way to the works. My great grandfather was succeeded by
his son, and by his grandson; the Crawshays have followed one another