John Cragg  1767 - 1854
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John Cragg met Thomas Rickman in 1812 by which time Rickman was a reader in Arcitecture at the Liverpool Academy. He was some ten years Cragg's junior and had been a chemist and mercantile clerk before turning his amateur  passion for classical arcitrecture to practical use. He had not had any commissions for buildings until shortly after he met Cragg. In 1813 they jointly won a contract to design and build a new church in Everton on the  site of the old, storn-damaged, beacon. This was St George's, Everton.  A local subscription raised £10,900 and Cragg donated £600 himself.  Cragg's idea was to illustrate the uses to which iron could be put in buildings as at this time most were wood, stone or brick with very little iron in evidence even in such places as warehouses and factories. Accordingly the tracery around the windows, the columns and the gallery were all made of iron, (although much of the church body itself was constructed of stone). Cragg contracted for land at what was to become St Michaels Hamlet in February 1813 and in 1814, even before St George's was finished,  work began on their second venture together, which was St Michaels church in Toxteth. Around 1830 James Nasmyth, the inventor of (amongst other things) the steam hammer visited Liverpool with a letter of introduction to John Cragg 'an intelligent and enterprising ironfounder. He was an extensive manufacturer of the large sugar-boiling pans used in the West Indies. He had also given his attention to the introduction of iron into buildings of different sorts'. Nasmyth and Cragg developed a friendship to the point that Cragg made an offer to Naesmyth - " he told me that he was desirous of retiring from the more active part of his business. Whether he liked my looks or not I do not know; but, quite unexpectedly, he made me a very tempting offer to enter his works as his successor. He had already amassed a fortune, and I might do the same. I could only thank him most sincerely for his kindness. But, on carefully thinking the matter over, I declined the proposal'. On the same visit Nasmyth also carried a letter of introduction to 'Mr Roscoe the head of the Mersey Steel and Iron Company'. This is the original forge/foundry of Ralph Clay and it appears to be in separate ownership to Cragg's company ' The Mersey Iron Foundry' which was (originally at least) situated in Tithebarn Street.  The two companies have been linked by some commentators, this assumed connection may be true although I can find no evidence for it. Perhaps they became the same company but it seems just as likely that almost two hundred years after the founding of Clay's company, two distinct companies have been confused or connected, when there is no connection. The Mersey Steel and Iron Company becoming the munitions yard manufacturing at 'The Mersey Forge' close to Grafton Street whilst Cragg's Tithebarn Street company, which cast the iron for almost all of the buildings in St Michaels in the Hamlet, was a separate entity. Certainly in 1855 The Mersey Forge still appears to have been in the hands of the Clay family since one William Clay was then the manager.