John Lane

Who was John Lane?

Dr John Lane was an 18th-century doctor and metallurgist, who is said to have experimented with making metallic zinc, probably without result.

He studied at the Exeter College, Oxford and medicine at Leiden in 1702. He married Elizabeth Pollard, heiress of Marsh Baldon, Oxfordshire in 1713, who survived him, only dying in 1771 at the age of 83.

In 1694, Lane and John Pollard became partners of Thomas Collins in copper works at Neath Abbey, but the partenrship was dissolved in 1716. In 1717 Lane and Pollard established the Llangyfelach copper works at Landore near Swansea, but became bankrupt in 1726, a victim of the South Sea Bubble. His works "near Swansea", held for a long term of years, were advertised for sale in May 1727. The Llangefelach Works were subsequently used by Lockwood Morris & Co.

In addition, at some stage he had a stamping mill at Kidwelly, on the site later used for Kidwelly Tinplate Works. His partner had copper mines in Cornwall.

Lane seems to have lived at Bristol, where he was practising medicine by 1702.