After his schooling in Maybole and the death of
his father, John Loudon was packed off to America at the age of 14,
into the care of his uncle, William MacAdam, an important merchant,
and worked for him in his counting house and during the American
Revolution made a small fortune as an agent for the sale of prizes.
Whilst in America John helped found the New York Chamber of
Commerce and also fell in love with Gloriana Nicoll whom he
married. John and his wife's family were loyal to the side of the
British in the war and John served in the British reserves. Forced
to leave America when the war ended in favour of the colonists, he
returned home to Scotland with his wife and two children. Aged 27,
he purchased an estate in Ayrshire at Sauchrie where he worked as a
deputy lieutenant of the county. His association with two members
of his mother's family, the 9th Earl of Dundonald and the great
Scottish naval hero, Admiral Lord Cochrane, allowed John to acquire
controlling interests in both the local iron works and the local
mills. His main business at this point was the manufacture of tar
for use as a sealant for sailing ships and ropes. He was also able
to gain a commission from George III as a Major in the Artillery
Corps which made him known in England.
Frustrated by the state of the roads on his estate he started to
research ways of improving them and published a couple of treatises
in which his argument was that roads needed to be higher than their
surrounding ground and built from layers of rock and gravel and
cambered to allow water to run off. He experimented locally with
his radical new designs, first he constructed a road from his
estate to the Alloway to Maybole road and then Furnace Road in
Muirkirk is allegedly the first public road to have McAdam's
processes applied to it. He was appointed surveyor for the Bristol
Turnpike Trust in 1816 where he started putting his theories into
practice large scale. His road building techniques were hailed as
the single greatest advance in road construction since
the Roman era and his methods soon spread around Europe
and America. This was probably the most significant event in the
advent of the Industrial revolution as all other
industries relied on communications and transport. He was made
Surveyor General of Metropolitan Roads throughout Great Britain in
1820.
The British Parliament never upheld his patents and he was never
adequately paid for his work, much of which had been done at his
own expense. He was eventually offered a knighthood which he
declined (although the honour was passed on to his son). John
Loudon McAdam died in Moffat on November 26, 1836, and was buried
there.
