George Haynes (businessman)

George Haynes (1745-1830) was a British entrepreneur, pottery manufacturer, banker, and newspaper proprietor of Swansea, Wales.

Haynes was born in 1745 to a Quaker family with its origins in Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, although his exact place of birth and continuing religious affiliations are uncertain. As a young man he migrated to Philadelphia in the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania where he established himself as a merchant. He was a subscriber to the Bank of Pennsylvania in 1780 and held two shares in the Bank of North America of which he was briefly a director from 1782 until his return to Britain in 1783.

On his return from Pennsylvania he settled in Swansea, Wales for reasons that are no longer clear. Here in about 1786 he became a partner in the Swansea Pottery. In 1790 he became managing partner and set about modernising the works along the lines adopted by Josiah Wedgwood at his Etruria works and changed the name of the works to the Cambrian Pottery. Under his management the concern flourished and produced high quality porcelain; Haynes was probably the only person in south Wales at this time to have any knowledge of the processes involved in its manufacture. Following the death of John Coles, the son of the founder of the Pottery, Haynes became the sole proprietor and traded as Haynes & Co. However, in 1802 William Dillwyn purchased the remainder of the lease and invested a substantial amount of capital in the business. Dillwyn's son, Lewis Weston Dillwyn, was taken into the firm as an active partner on instructions from his father. Haynes continued to manage the business, but the partnership was an uneasy one and in 1810 Haynes terminated the arrangement and left the pottery to concentrate on his other interests.

From about 1800 Haynes was associated with Henry Pocklington in a banking house in Swansea. Following the death of Pocklington in 1816 Haynes became the senior partner and took his son, George Haynes junior, into the business. George Day and William Lawrence were subsequently admitted as partners and the bank traded as Haynes, Day, Haynes & Lawrence. This partnership subsequently extended its activities to Llanelli where it traded as the Llanelly Bank. In 1820 Haynes opened a further bank in Neath in partnership with his older son George and his younger son William Woodward Haynes. The Swansea bank acted as Treasurer to the Swansea Tontine which was formed in 1805 to build the Theatre Royal and the Assembly Rooms, with Haynes as one of its promoters and its Secretary. The following year he became Treasurer of the Swansea Society for the Education of Children and by 1816 was also Treasurer of the Swansea Savings Bank and of the Royal Swansea Lancasterian Free School.

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