John Hanbury

John Hanbury, Esq. (1664–1734) was a British ironmaster and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1701 and 1734. He was one of a dynasty of ironmasters responsible for the industrialisation and urbanisation of the eastern valley through which runs the Afon Llwyd (in English "grey river") in Monmouthshire around Pontypool. Hanbury is most notable for introducing the rolling process of tinplating in the early 18th century.

Background and marriage Hanbury was born into a family ultimately from Hanbury, Worcestershire, and was christened in Gloucester in 1664. Hanbury was the son of Capel Hanbury (1625–1704), who in turn was the third son of the first John Hanbury of Pursall Green.

At the 1715 Hanbury stood for Gloucester again but was defeated. He was eventually returned to Parliament in a by-election in 1720 for the Welsh constituency Monmouthshire. Although a supporter of the Whig party, in his later life he opposed several of Robert Walpole's most important bills.

In 1720 he benefited from the legacy of his friend Charles Williams of Caerleon, and with the £70,000 left to him he bought Coldbrook Park near Abergavenny,

Business career When his father died in Jan 1704, Hanbury inherited the estate at Pontypool. The estate included ironworks, some of which had long belonged to members of the family. Soon after his father's death he wrote down his observations about his ironworks. He had a blast furnace, forges (probably two), and mills (including a slitting mill) at Pontypool and a further furnace and forge at Llanelly (then in Breconshire). In 1708, he also became interested in the blast furnace at Melin Cwrt, near Neath. Hanbury continued his Pontypool and Llanelly ironworks for the rest of his life and they passed to his descendants with the rest of his Pontypool estate. Hanbury's Observations do not include tin among the costs, However, the concept of rolling plate iron was probably brought to Pontypool by Thomas Cooke, probably the son of Thomas Cooke, who had worked at Wolverley for Andrew Yarranton, who found out how to produce tinplate by visiting Saxony.

The first production of tinplate at Pontypool seems to date from 1725, when this commodity first appears in the Gloucester Port Books. This immediately follows the first appearance (in French of Réaumur's Principes de l'art de fer-blanc), but prior to a report of it being published in England – millfounded a rolling mill and started a tinplating industry. Together, they were the parents of:

John Hanbury of Caerleon, Monmouthshire (1705–1739) dsp. Capel Hanbury (1707–1765) MP Sir Charles Hanbury (1708–1759) KB, who later took the surname Hanbury-Williams of Coldbrook Park. George Hanbury of Coldbrook Park (1715–1764) Thomas Hanbury, Commander, Royal Navy (1722–1778) And others (dsp)

Hanbury died in 1734.