Birth of John Loudon McAdam

Britain’s greatest creator of roads since Roman times was born in Ayr, the youngest of ten children, eight of whom were girls. His parents were minor gentry: his mother was a Cochrane and a niece of the Earl of Dundonald. But the family finances were not in the best of shape and when John’s father died in 1770, the fourteen-year-old needed to start earning a living. He went to New York, to his Uncle William, a well-to-do businessman with a smart wife. They had no children of their own and welcomed John into their home and Uncle William’s business. The boy did well and in his early twenties married a wealthy lawyer’s daughter, but the American colonists’ drive for independence made things difficult and in 1783 he returned to Scotland, where he involved himself in the coal-tar business.