﻿Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlix. (1905), No. 15. 7 



cannon, which was one of the most profitable branches 

 of John Wilkinson's business, he was but following his 

 father, whose last patent (1758), like John Wilkinson's 

 first (1774), was for methods of making and boring iron 

 guns or cannon. Unlike his father, John Wilkinson 

 appears to have been uniformly successful in business, and 

 to the end of his long life he went on adding estate to 

 estate, and forge to forge. Wherever money was to be 

 made, John Wilkinson seems to have been. He had a 

 most thorough belief in the value of iron, and there 

 seemed to be nothing, from a ship to a coffin, that he did 

 not make of that material. Most of John Wilkinson's 

 estates were, obviously, bought for business reasons ; but 

 it may be surmised that it was sentiment that caused him 

 to buy the estate of Castlehead, near Grange, and not far 

 from the place where his father had laid the fortunes of 

 the family. At Castlehead he built a house, covered the 

 bare rock with soil, and converted it into beautiful 

 gardens and shrubberies. In this garden it was his will 

 that he should be buried in an iron coffin, which he had 

 made many years before his death. He died at Hadley, 

 his body was taken to Castlehead, and there, after two 

 temporary interments, was buried. Appropriately enough, 

 his tombstone was of iron. Some years after his death, 

 his body was disinterred, and was buried for the fourth 

 and last time in the church at Lindal. Singularly enough, 

 one man was employed on each of these occasions, who 

 thus helped to bury John Wilkinson four times, and to 

 disinter him thrice. 



John Wilkinson, like many of his contemporaries, 

 found the government supply of small coins inadequate, 

 and accordingly issued tokens of his own. He also issued 

 his own notes, and for a time he paid his workmen in 

 French paper money. Wilkinson, though brought up 



