Charles Roe

Charles Roe
Profile of Charles Roe on a Macclesfield halfpenny dated 1758
Born	7 May 1715 Castleton, Derbyshire, England
Died	3 May 1781 Macclesfield, Cheshire
Resting place	Christ Church, Macclesfield
Nationality	English
Education	Macclesfield Grammar School
Occupation	Industrialist
Known for	Silk manufacture, mining, copper and brass smelting
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Lankford (1743–50) Mary Stockdale (1752–63) Rachel Harriott (1766–81)
Parent(s)	Rev Thomas Roe Mary Turner

Charles Roe (7 May 1715 – 3 May 1781) was an English industrialist. He played an important part in establishing the silk industry in Macclesfield, Cheshire and later became involved in the mining and metal industries.

Charles Roe was born in Castleton, Derbyshire, the youngest of the eight children of Rev Thomas Roe, vicar of Castleton, and his wife Mary née Turner. His father died when he was aged eight and the family moved to , Cheshire. Soon after this his mother also died and Charles went to live with siblings in Macclesfield. According to Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, it is thought that he was educated at Macclesfield Grammar School. He then entered the button and twist trade and became a freeman of Macclesfield in 1742. In 1743–44 he built a small spinning mill on Park Green and in 1748, in partnership with Glover & Co., a larger mill for the production of silk on Waters Green: both were based on Lombe's Mill in Derby. Roe was mayor of Macclesfield in 1747–48.

He started mining copper at Coniston in the Lake District in 1756 and around the same time at Alderley Edge, Cheshire. In 1758 he built a copper smelter on Macclesfield Common using coal from a shallow outcrop outside the town. He entered into partnership with Brian Hodgson of Buxton, who had coal-mining interests at Disley. Roe then built brass-wire and rolling mills at Eaton near Congleton and at Bosley. Initially he bought copper ores from the Duke of Devonshire's mine at Ecton Hill, Staffordshire (see also Ecton Mines) but then extended his own mining interests to Penrhyn-Du in North Wales in 1763. In 1764 he obtained a 21-year mining lease from the Bayly family for Parys Mountain in Anglesey and for a lead mine in Caernarvonshire. In March 1768 a discovery was made of a very large deposit of copper ore, which was known as 'The Great Lode' and which turned the mine into the largest copper mine in Europe.