Giles Edwards

Giles Edwards (born September 26, 1824 in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales; died April 26, 1892 in Woodstock) was the furnace master for the Shelby Iron Works and the pioneer of coke-fueled blast furnaces in the Birmingham District.

Edwards immigrated to the United States in 1842 and worked as a draftsman for iron manufactories at Carobondale and Scranton, Pennsylvania. He rose to the position of superintendent at the furnaces in Tamaqua and Catasauqua, where he gained the notice of its designer, fellow Welshman David Thomas. After a brief posting at the Novelty Ironworks in New York, Thomas sent him to Chattanooga, Tennessee, partly in hopes that the change of climate might benefit his failing health.

Edwards worked with James Henderson to convert the East Tennessee Iron Manufacturing Company's Bluff Furnace in downtown Chattanooga from charcoal to coked mineral coal in 1860.

Later that same year, Edwards was hired as assistant superintendent for the Shelby Furnace, which was to be modernized. In 1863, with federal troops nearing Chattanooga, the Bluff Furnace was dismantled and its machinery hauled to the vicinity of Anniston. Edwards helped to build the new Oxford Iron Furnace with that equipment. He brought some of the un-needed parts back with him to Shelby Furnace. He supervised the production of iron rolled at the Shelby Rolling Mill and used to clad the C.S.S. Tennessee.