English mechanic.

Worked as a weaver in Darlington, England. Immigrated to America (c. 1789). Contracted with Tench Coxe to provide a working model of Richard Arkwright’s water- powered spinning machine (1790). Foreman of a cotton mill in Paterson, New Jersey. Obtained patents for a flax spinning machine (1791) and cordage (1794).

First letter in correspondence: December 22, 1789; Jacob E. Cooke, Tench Coxe and the Early Republic (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1978), pp. 189-90, 195; Anthony F. C. Wallace and David J. Jeremy, “William Pollard and the Arkwright Patents,” W&MQ, 3rd ser., xxxiv (1977), 411.