In 1762 he had married the daughter of Isaac Wilkinson, a Wrexham ironmaster.
At the township of Masborough, opposite Rotherham across the Don, works were established in 1746 by Samuel Walker, a successful ironmaster.
Experiments he made with South Wales iron were failures because the product was devoid of malleability; Mr GOransson, a Swedish ironmaster, using the purer charcoal pig iron of that country, was the first to make good steel by the process, and even he was successful only after many attempts.
He became an ironmaster and owned several copper and iron works in the west of England.
According to a local ironmaster more than 30,000 individuals were employed in the brass trade in 1721.