John Roebuck
| John Roebuck | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1718 Sheffield, England |
| Died | 17 July 1794 |
| Resting place | Carriden Churchyard, Bo'ness |
| Education |
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| Alma mater | Edinburgh University |
John Roebuck FRS (1718 – 17 July 1794) was an English inventor and industrialist who played an important role in the Industrial Revolution and who is known for developing the industrial-scale manufacture of sulphuric acid.
John Roebuck was born at Sheffield, where his father had a prosperous manufacturing business. After attending Sheffield Grammar School and Dr. Philip Doddridge's academy at Northampton, Roebuck studied medicine at Edinburgh, where he developed a taste for chemistry from the lectures of William Cullen and Joseph Black. He finally graduated M.D. at the University of Leiden in 1742. Roebuck started medical practice at Birmingham, but devoted much of his time to chemistry, especially its practical applications. Among the most important of his early achievements in this field was the introduction, in 1746, of leaden condensing chambers for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. Together with Samuel Garbett, in 1749 he built a factory at Prestonpans, in Scotland, for the production of the acid, and for some years they enjoyed a monopoly. Having omitted to take out patents, Roebuck's was unable to prevent others from making use of his methods as they eventually became known.
Roebuck next became involved in the manufacture of iron, and in 1760 established the Carron Company ironworks at Carron, Stirlingshire with Garbett and other partners. There he introduced various improvements in methods of production, including the conversion (patented in 1762) of cast iron into malleable iron "by the action of a hollow pit-coal fire" urged by a powerful artificial blast.
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