John Harvey (ironfounder)

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John Harvey was a Cornishman whose career started as a blacksmith and engineer at Carnhell Green near Hayle, in West Cornwall. In 1779 he established a foundry and engineering works at Hayle called Harvey & Co.^[1] By 1800 the company employed more than 50 people and continued to grow as Harvey worked with many of the great Cornish engineers and entrepreneurs of the day. These included Richard Trevithick, William West and Arthur Woolf. In 1797, Harvey's daughter, Jane, married Richard Trevithick.

Harvey & Co built up a reputation for world class stationary beam engines designed to pump water out of the deep Cornish tin and copper mines. The Cornish beam engine became world famous and was exported overseas and they remain the largest beam engines ever constructed. Harvey's also produced a range of products, from hand tools to ocean going ships including the USS Cornubia (1858). The company was expanded by John's son, Henry, in collaboration with Arthur Woolf and at that time it was the main mining engine foundry in the world, with an international market served through their own port at Foundry town, Hayle.

Harvey's of Hayle reached their peak in the early to mid 1800s and then, along with the Cornish mining industry, suffered a gradual and slow decline. Harvey's acquired the Cornish Copper Company in 1875 and the engineering works and foundry were closed in 1903 although the company continued to trade as a general and builders merchant, eventually merging with UBM to become Harvey-UBM in 1969.