Richard Foley (ironmaster)
# Richard Foley (ironmaster)

Richard Foley (1580–1657) was a prominent English ironmaster. He is best known from the folktale of "Fiddler Foley", which is either not correct or does not apply to him.

## Ironmaster

Richard was the son of another Richard Foley (1551-1600), a nailer at Dudley, though the son is likely to have traded in nails rather than making them. In the 1620s, he became a partner in a network of ironworks in south Staffordshire, which were undoubtedly the source of the family's fortune.

## "Fiddler Foley"

According to the folktale, "Fiddler Foley", he went to Sweden where, posing as a simple fiddler, he succeeded in discovering the secret of the slitting mill, which was enabling the price of English nails to be undercut. He returned home and set up a slitting mill at Hyde Mill in Kinver, thus making his fortune. Unfortunately, the earliest version of the legend, while applying to Hyde Mill, referred not to Richard Foley, but to a member of the Brindley family, who owned the mill until the 1730s. This may possibly have been George Brindley, Richard's brother-in-law. Richard certainly leased Hyde Mill in 1627 and converted it to a slitting mill, though it was not the first in England or even in the Midlands.

## Family

Richard Foley married twice, and was able to set up several of his sons as gentlemen or in other prominent positions.

By his first marriage:

* Richard Foley (1614–1678) of Birmingham, and then an ironmaster at Longton in north Staffordshire.

By his second marriage to Alice Brindley, daughter of Sir William Brindley of Willenhal:

* Thomas Foley (1616-1677), another prominent ironmaster, whose descendant was elevated to the peerage as Baron Foley.
* Robert Foley (d. 1676), ironmonger
* Priscilla, who married first Ezekiel Wallis and then in 1665 Henry Glover
* Samuel Foley, a cleric, of Clonmel and Dublin
* John Foley (1631-c.1684), a Turkey merchant, i.e. a trader with the Levant.
