Family History ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT- “How the Other Half Lived” - Part 4 - What Made the Jesson Family so prominent?

With so many generations of Jesson ‘gentlemen’ I had to ask myself, what made the Jesson family so prominent in the small area of West Bromwich in England?

Wealth, I discovered came in the form of iron. Iron was one of the most basic requirements of the rapidly industrialising British economy.

The Jessons come from a long line of ironmongers. Since the 16th century the main industrial activity of West Bromwich has been concerned with smelting iron ore and working the iron into a wide range of manufactured articles including nails. Richard Thomas Jesson (1741 – 1810) ran a very successful (handmade) nail making business. It was one of three firms operating on a larger scale; between them they employed between 1,200 and 1,300 Nailers. 

Richard also established an ironmasters partnership with his brother Joseph Jesson, and his brother-in-law. They developed and patented one of the first commercially successful methods of producing wrought iron with coke. This method became widely adopted. The family business grew into the largest iron makers in the West Bromwich area and turned them into very wealthy men.