Joseph Wilkes

Joseph Wilkes
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth Wood
Parent(s)	Joseph Wilkes (farmer)

Joseph Wilkes (1733–1805) was an 18th-century English industrialist and agricultural improver born in the village of Overseal in Derbyshire but more commonly associated with the village of Measham in Leicestershire.

From a farming family, Wilkes was one of the leading businessmen in the area during the early part of the Industrial Revolution in England.

Joseph Wilkes' business enterprises were many and varied, and during his lifetime he transformed Measham from a tiny mining village to a model settlement of the Industrial Revolution. Purchasing the manor with his brothers from William Wollaston in 1777 for £56,000, he undertook the development and expansion of the village, opening a bank, an inn, building factories, a boat yard, a market house and a vicarage, and constructing affordable housing for his workers. Many signs of this development are still visible today.

To commemorate Wilkes, a mosaic sundial displaying many of his enterprises, by the artist Steve Field, has been constructed near Wilkes Avenue in Measham.

One aspect of this industrial development was the mining of hard-crude-coal, that important mineral which was to fuel the furnaces of the Industrial revolution sweeping the nation at that time. In 1767 Wilkes leased the rights from William Wollaston to mine coal in Measham area, he later went on to own collieries in Measham, Oakthorpe, Donisthorpe, Moira and Brinsley in Nottinghamshire.

Wilkes sunk many new pits, employing Newcomen engines to pump water from their works which allowed coal to be mined at much greater depths. He also went on to employ steam winding gear at his Oakthorpe colliery which allowed men to be transported down, and coal to be brought up from the coalface more efficiently. To connect these collieries to the wider markets made available by the canals, Wilkes laid down horse-drawn iron tramways which made the movement of heavy loads of coal overland far more cost effective.

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