in 1750, the eldest son of Abraham Darby the Younger (1711-1763) by his second wife, Abiah Maude, and educated at a school in Worcester kept by a Quaker named James Fell.

At age thirteen, Darby inherited his father's shares in the family iron-making businesses in the Severn Valley, and in 1768, aged eighteen, he took over the management of the Coalbrookdale ironworks. He took various measures to improve the conditions