Richard Roberts

Richard Roberts (1789 to 1864) was a Welsh patternmaker, engineer and prolific inventor whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production. Born at Llanymynech on the border between England and Wales, he trained in pattern shops and then worked for Henry Maudslay in London before setting up as a turner in Manchester in 1816. He built gear-cutting machines, a screw-cutting lathe, a planing machine in 1817 and a slotting machine in 1825, and he improved the power loom and invented the self-acting spinning mule. To finance his textile machines he took Thomas Sharp and his brothers as partners, and their ventures were amalgamated in 1826 as Sharp, Roberts and Company, a Manchester firm that later became well known for locomotives and closed in 1852, by which time Sharp, Stewart and Company had been formed. He was not a successful businessman and died in London in 1864, aged 74.