William Dunn

William Dunn (1770–1849) was a Scottish agriculturist, mechanic, and mill owner. Life He was born at Gartclash, in the parish of Kirkintilloch, Dumbartonshire, on 5 October 1770, and was educated at the parish school and partly at the neighbouring village of Campsie. Before he was eighteen he was left an orphan, with four brothers and a sister dependent on him for support. He had already given evidence of possessing an aptitude for mechanical contrivances. His first situation was in the establishment of a cotton-spinner named Waddington, at Stockingfield, near Glasgow. Here he learned iron-turning and machine-making. Three or four years later he was in Messrs. Black & Hastie's works at Bridge of Weir, from which he went to Pollokshaws, to the factories of John Monteith. About 1800, having acquired a few hundred pounds by the sale of his patrimony of Gartclash, he resolved to start in business for himself, and accordingly opened a manufactory of machines in High John Street, Glasgow. In or about 1802, he bought a small spinning-mill in Tobago Street, Calton of Glasgow, and in 1808 he purchased the Duntocher mill, some seven miles distant from that city. A few years later he purchased from the Faifley Spinning Company the Faifley mill, which stood about a mile distant from the other.