John Vaughan | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 16 September 1868 68) London | (aged
Nationality | English |
Occupation | Ironmaster |
Employer | Bolckow Vaughan |
Spouse(s) | (1) Eleanor Downing (2) Widow Ann Mills Hughes, previously Brown, nee Poole |
Children | (1) John, Joseph, Thomas, John (2) Adopted Ann Poole's children Ann Jane, Mary Ann, William |
Parent(s) | John, Mary |
John Vaughan, known as Jacky, was born in Worcester on "St Thomas' Day" in 1799, the son of Welsh parents. [1] He worked his way up the iron industry, becoming an ironmaster and co-founder of the largest of all the Victorian iron and steel companies, Bolckow Vaughan. Where Henry Bolckow provided the investment and business expertise, Vaughan contributed technical knowledge, in a long-lasting and successful partnership that transformed Middlesbrough from a small town to the centre of ironmaking in Britain.
Vaughan is best known for his discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills, on an exploratory walk with his mining engineer, John Marley in June 1850.
Vaughan began his working life, like his father before him, at Sir John Guest's Dowlais Ironworks in South Wales. His first job "at an early age" was in the scrap mill; from there, he became a puddler, then a furnaceman, then foreman. [1]
After Dowlais, he worked in Staffordshire, then to Carlisle in 1825 becoming a factory manager. He then moved East to Walker-on-Tyne near Newcastle, where he became the works manager for the Losh, Wilson and Bell Ironworks. [1] While doing business in Newcastle, he met Henry Bolckow, who at that time was a corn merchant looking to get into the iron business. [1]
In 1839, Bolckow and Vaughan decided to form a business partnership. They looked at Stockton, on the pioneering Stockton and Darlington Railway, as it had good communications, but could not find a suitable site for an ironworks. However, the railway had run to Middlesbrough since 1833, and the partners started their ironworks there on a cheap plot of land, most of which flooded at high tide. Their iron ore consisted of iron nodules in the coal measures, or of imported hematite. As this was limiting their growth and profitability, they decided to make their own pig-iron. [1]
In 1846 they built blast furnaces at Witton Park, County Durham for smelting iron ore; the Stockton and Darlington Railway, seeking to exploit the coal and iron trade, was conveniently extended past Witton to several of the Durham collieries; limestone could arrive from Stanhope, and coke from Crook, so the site appeared ideal. [1] But in 1847 there was "a commercial panic" (an economic crisis), and the Witton Park Ironworks suffered both from difficult trading conditions, and from a continual shortage of iron nodules. [1]
Knowing of earlier attempts at extracting ironstone in Cleveland, Vaughan suspected a more abundant supply of ironstone could be found close to hand. He instructed his mining engineer, John Marley, to study Cleveland's geology. [3]
On 8 June 1850, the two of them walked the Cleveland Hills and quickly found a plentiful source, in the shape of the main seam of Cleveland Ironstone [4] "above sixteen feet" (about five metres) thick. Bolckow and Vaughan moved rapidly: within 12 weeks, they had signed agreements with the landowners, started the first mine, built a tramway to carry the ironstone, and delivered the first load of seven tones to Witton Park. [1]
From that moment, their business grew swiftly. They opened more mines at Eston and added blast furnaces at Middlesbrough. The combination of Vaughan's technical skills and Bolckow's financial skills was effective and long-lasting. The partnership grew into steelmaking giant Bolckow Vaughan & Co., Ltd., formed with capital of £2,500,000 in 1864: the largest company in existence at that time. [1]
In 1855 Vaughan became Mayor of Middlesbrough. He was a Borough Magistrate and a member of the Tees Conservancy Board. [1]
After the death of his first wife, Vaughan married widow Ann Hughes of Newcastle, daughter of Joseph Poole and sister of Bolckow's first wife. [1]
With increasing wealth, he and Bolckow "both moved from Cleveland Street to Marton: Bolckow built Marton Hall in 1853 and moved there in 1856, and John Vaughan moved to Gunnergate Hall in 1858. [5]
Vaughan died in London on 16 September 1868.
Middlesbrough is a port town in North Yorkshire, England. The town's built-up area, an area spanning from the south bank of the River Tees, up to and including Coulby Newham and Nunthorpe, had a population of 148,215 at the 2021 UK Census. The town's borough is governed by Middlesbrough Council. It is the postal town further south to the North York Moors National Park. The largest town of Teesside and the largest of the Tees Valley region, it is the direct regional centre for a population of 678,400 in 2021 and de facto centre for northern Yorkshire and southern County Durham.
Teesside is a built-up area around the River Tees in North East England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The area contains the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Billingham, Redcar, Thornaby-on-Tees, and Ingleby Barwick. Teesside's economy was once dominated by heavy manufacturing until deindustrialisation in the latter half of the 20th century. Chemical production continues to contribute significantly to Teesside's economy.
Marton or Marton-in-Cleveland is an area of Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England. Until the 1950s, it was a small village next to the hamlet of Tollesby in Yorkshire's North Riding.
Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into bridge building. The company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange.
An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain.
The Cleveland Hills are a range of hills on the north-west edge of the North York Moors in North Yorkshire, England, overlooking Cleveland and Teesside. They lie entirely within the boundaries of the North York Moors National Park. Part of the 110-mile (177 km) long Cleveland Way National Trail runs along the hills, and they are also crossed by a section of Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk. The hills, which rise abruptly from the flat Tees Valley to the north, include distinctive landmarks such as the cone-shaped peak of Roseberry Topping, near the village of Great Ayton – childhood home of Captain James Cook.
Stewart Park is a 120-acre public park in Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, in the suburb and former village of Marton, England.
Bedlington Ironworks, in Blyth Dene, Northumberland, England, operated between 1736 and 1867. It is most remembered as the place where wrought iron rails were invented by John Birkinshaw in 1820, which triggered the railway age, with their first major use being in the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in 1825, about 45 miles (72 km) to the south.
Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow, originally Heinrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Bölckow, was a Victorian industrialist and Member of Parliament, acknowledged as being one of the founders of modern Middlesbrough.
The Teesside Steelworks was a large steelworks that formed a continuous stretch along the south bank of the River Tees from the towns of Middlesbrough to Redcar in North Yorkshire, England. At its height there were 91 blast furnaces within a 10-mile radius of the area. By the end of the 1970s there was only one left on Teesside. Opened in 1979 and located near the mouth of the River Tees, the Redcar blast furnace was the second largest in Europe.
The Cleveland Ironstone Formation is a sequence of marine ironstone seams interbedded with shale and siltstone units which collectively form a part of the Lower Jurassic System of rocks underlying Cleveland in North Yorkshire. Exploitation of the ironstone seams became a major driving force behind the industrialisation of the Teesside district during the mid- to late-1800s.
Losh, Wilson and Bell, later Bells, Goodman, then Bells, Lightfoot and finally Bell Brothers, was a leading Northeast England manufacturing company, founded in 1809 by the partners William Losh, Thomas Wilson, and Thomas Bell.
Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd was an English ironmaking and mining company founded in 1864, based on the partnership since 1840 of its two founders, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan. The firm drove the dramatic growth of Middlesbrough and the production of coal and iron in the north-east of England in the 19th century. The two founding partners had an exceptionally close working relationship which lasted until Vaughan's death.
John Marley was an English mining engineer from Darlington who together with ironmaster John Vaughan made the "commercial discovery" of the Cleveland Ironstone Formation, the basis of the wealth of their company Bolckow Vaughan and the industrial growth of Middlesbrough. He was an effective leader of engineering operations at Bolckow Vaughan's mines and collieries. He ended his career as a wealthy independent mine-owner and president of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers (NEIMME).
Witton Park Colliery was a coal mine located in Witton Park, near Witton-le-Wear and Bishop Auckland in County Durham, Northern England.
The Cleveland Institution of Engineers (CIE) is a regional engineering institution in the Teesside region of England. It aims to serve the regional scientific and engineering community through a wide range of technical lectures and visits and by acting as the professional body for materials scientists and engineers. The CIE is one of the oldest institutions of its kind in the world and has been in continuous existence since it was founded in 1864. It is affiliated to the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and a founder member of the Cleveland Scientific Institution
Gunnergate Hall was a mansion house with grounds in the south of Middlesbrough in North Yorkshire, England.
Middlesbrough started as a Benedictine priory on the south bank of the River Tees, its name possibly derived from it being midway between the holy sites of Durham and Whitby. The earliest recorded form of Middlesbrough's name is "Mydilsburgh", containing the term burgh.
Ironstone mining in Cleveland and North Yorkshire occurred on a sizeable scale from the 1830s to the 1960s in present-day eastern parts of North Yorkshire but was recorded as far back as Roman times mostly on a small scale and intended for local use. This Cleveland is not to be confused with a smaller area covered by the county of Cleveland from 1974-96.
Edward Williams was a Welsh teacher, industrialist and iron-master. Born in Merthyr Tydfil, he was part of a migration of Welsh iron-workers who moved to Middlesbrough, England, in the 1860s. Williams was the eldest son of Taliesin Williams and the grandson of Iolo Morganwg.