John Wilkinson - (born 1728, died 1806) - His Black Country Stay - Born in Workington area of Cumberland in 1858 the son of Issac Wilkinson, who set up business as a pot founder. His success enabled him to send him to a Kendal Academy, following which he served as an apprenticeship with a Liverpool Ironmonger.
Issac Wilkinson had meanwhile acquired an iron furnace and a forge at Lindale and in addition to pots produced smoothing irons. In his return from Liverpool, father and son worked together, building a water wheel to provide power and made bricks from the local clay.
In November 1755 John Wilkinson married Ann Mawdsley around 1755 or 1756 when he was 27 arrived in Wolverhampton but soon moved to Bradley working for a Mr Hoo.
Following his marriage he was in a position to build a blast furnace in Lower Bradley, where he succeeded in using the local coal to smelt iron ore to produce pig iron. This was in the year 1772. It appears that John Wilkinson spent some time assisting his father who had leased a furnace at Bersham near, Wrexham. Therefore, it is possible that experimentation at both works contributed to his success at Bilston. Sometime in the late 1760s Wilkinson married for a second time, his first wife having died, and again there were financial advantages to him.
Wilkinson established three works in the Bradley area known as the lower, middle and upper works. Operating practices included blast furnaces, forges and foundries.
Wilkinson used the steam engines of Boulton and Watt to provide blast for his furnaces, he has patented an idea for boring cannon which he applied to the boring of steam and air cylinders. This boring machine enabled him to supply Bolton water with finish bored cylinders for their steam engines.
Wilkinson along with other industrialists had tokens produced to serve as payment, mainly of a half penny value.
John Wilkinson died in 1808 but the Wilkinson name continued in the Bradley area until the 1840s when the remaining works was sold off. The number of works and schemes both at home and abroad suggests that he spent a relatively short time at Bradley. He presented a cast iron pulpit together with window frames to the Weslyan chapel in Bilston.
Rollover the captions in the box to see the available images in thumbnail format, click the caption to see the full-size image
| Reference: | 419 |
| Keywords: | Iron Mad Wilkinson Cylinders Boring MCOL 1750s 1800c |
| Archive Ref: | 1994/013/381 EB 1A Man of Iron by John Hoyland - Engineering Heritage+J Wilkinson 1914 4.412 |
| Updated: | 6/9/2000 09:50:55 |