Editing Richard Roberts (engineer) (section)

==Early life==
Roberts was born at [[Llanymynech]], [[Powys]], on the border between [[England]] and [[Wales]]. He was the son of William Roberts, a shoemaker who also kept the New Bridge tollgate. Roberts was educated by the parish priest and early found employment with a boatman on the [[Ellesmere Canal]] and later at the local limestone quarries. He received some instruction in drawing from [[Robert Baugh]], a road surveyor, who was working under [[Thomas Telford]].<ref name="TheEngineer"/>

Roberts then found employment as a patternmaker at Bradley Iron works, [[Staffordshire]] and, probably in 1813, moved to a supervisory position in the pattern shop of the [[Horseley Ironworks]], [[Tipton]]. He had gained skills in [[turning]], wheel-wrighting and the repair of [[Millwork (machinery)|millwork]]. He was drawn for the [[militia (Great Britain)|militia]] and to avoid this made for [[Liverpool]], but finding no work there he shifted to [[Manchester]], where he found work as a turner for a cabinet-maker. He then moved to [[Salford]] working at lathe- and tool-making. 

Because the militia was still seeking him, he walked to London where he found employment with [[Henry Maudslay]] as a fitter and turner.<ref name="TheEngineer" /> At Maudslay's he absorbed his master's philosophy of "the importance of accurate machine tools where hand-work was replaced by mechanisms".<ref name="Hills2002">{{cite book|author=[[Richard Leslie Hills]]|title=Life and Inventions of Richard Roberts, 1789-1864|page=228|year=2002|publisher=Landmark Publishing|isbn=978-1-84306-027-7}}</ref> 

By 1816, when defeat of [[Napoleon]] had removed the threat of the militia, it was safe for him to return north, he had set up at Manchester as a "turner of plain and eccentric work at No 15 Deans Gate". The lathe was upstairs in a bedroom, driven by a big wheel in the basement turned by his wife. Roberts soon moved into New Market Buildings at Pool Fold, and was described as a "Lathe and Tool Maker".