Richard Roberts (engineer)
Welsh patternmaker and engineer (1789–1864)
Richard Roberts (22 April 1789 – 11 March 1864) was a Welsh patternmaker and engineer whose development of high-precision machine tools contributed to the birth of production engineering and mass production.
Early life
Roberts was born at Llanymynech, Powys, on the border between England and Wales. He was the son of William Roberts, a shoemaker who also kept the New Bridge tollgate. Roberts was educated by the parish priest and early found employment with a boatman on the Ellesmere Canal and later at the local limestone quarries. He received some instruction in drawing from Robert Baugh, a road surveyor, who was working under Thomas Telford.
Roberts then found employment as a patternmaker at Bradley Iron works, Staffordshire and, probably in 1813, moved to a supervisory position in the pattern shop of the Horseley Ironworks, Tipton. He had gained skills in turning, wheel-wrighting and the repair of millwork. He was drawn for the militia and to avoid this made for Liverpool, but finding no work there he shifted to Manchester, where he found work as a turner for a cabinet-maker. He then moved to Salford working at lathe- and tool-making.
Because the militia was still seeking him, he walked to London where he found employment with Henry Maudslay as a fitter and turner.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Richard Roberts (engineer)” is welsh patternmaker and engineer (1789–1864). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Richard, Roberts and engineer, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “welsh patternmaker and engineer (1789–1864)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q329017. VIAF identifies the subject as 12554329. The Library of Congress control number is n88142556. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1789, 1864 and 1813.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Richard Roberts (engineer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Richard Roberts (engineer) primary sources, Richard Roberts (engineer) archive and Richard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Richard Roberts (engineer)”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Richard Roberts (engineer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.