Samuel Garbett

Samuel Garbett (1717– 5 December 1803) was a prominent citizen of Birmingham England, during the Industrial Revolution, and a friend of Matthew Boulton. Historian Carl Chinn argues that he:

stood alongside Boulton as one of the key figures responsible for Birmingham's rapid expansion into one of the world's leading industrial towns.

Garbett's education extended:

[no] further than writing and accounts; but he was a man of great acuteness of genius and extent of understanding.

Garbett was employed by a London merchant named Hollis, as his agent for purchasing goods in Birmingham. In that role, he came:

into notice and rank among his townsmen; and the more he was known, the more he was esteemed.

He married Anne Clay (d. 1772) of Aston in August 1735.

He then made his fortune as a merchant in his own right, before entering partnership with Dr John Roebuck to set up a laboratory in Steelhouse Lane where precious metals were refined and assayed; a manufacturing centre for sulphuric acid in Prestonpans in 1749; and, with William Cadell and John Roebuck, founded the Carron Iron Works, in Scotland, in 1759, in which the two Birmingham men each held a 25% share. He also chaired, from January 1788, a Birmingham committee against the slave trade.