Birmingham merchant and manufacturer.

Established a sulphuric acid plant at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, in cooperation with John Roebuck (1749). Founding partner of the Carron iron works (1760). Friend of Matthew Bolton, who introduced him to Franklin (1766), and of Lord Shelburne.

xiii, 166n; Robert E. Schofield, The Lunar Society of Birmingham (Oxford, 1963), p. 40n.