Richard Roberts (engineer) - Sharp, Roberts & Co.

Sharp, Roberts & Co.

When developing his textiles machines, Roberts took as partners Thomas Sharp, an iron merchant, and his brother John Sharp, Robert Chapman, Thomas Jones Wilkinson and James Hill. They formed two firms, Sharp Hill & Co and Roberts, Hills & Co, and in May 1826 these were amalgamated to form Sharp, Roberts & Co. The firm later became well known for making locomotives (described in Sharp, Stewart and Company - Early days). In 1834 Charles Beyer joined the firm and contributed to its success in locomotive building as Roberts soon delegated most of the locomotive design work to Beyer.

Roberts was a prolific inventor and manufacturer, ranging over turret clock-making, to road vehicles, to iron ship building, to a punching machine, operating on the same system as the Jacquard loom, for punching the rivet holes in the iron plates making up the railway bridge over the river Conwy in North Wales.

He was not a particularly successful businessman, and Sharp, Roberts & Co. closed in June 1852 (by which time the more successful Sharp, Stewart and Company were formed).