Charles Roe

Charles Roe was an English industrialist involved in the mining and metal industries who had an important role in establishing the silk industry in Macclesfield, Cheshire.

Born in 1715 in Castleton Derbyshire, a young Charles Roe began his career in the “button and twist” trade – making the traditional Macclesfield buttons and twisting silk. In 1742 he became a freeman of Macclesfield. His first spinning mill Roe opened in 1743 and five years later the first silk production mill. By 1758 his business interests encompassed profitable copper mining and smelting operations with copper works in Macclesfield, Eaton and Bosley, and later at Parys Mountain, Anglesey. In 1767 his company founded a copper smelting works at Liverpool and became involved in “slave trade copper” manufacturing goods for the African trade. The Roe & Company, also known as the Macclesfield Copper Company emerged as one of the three greatest brass companies of the late 18th century.