William Menelaus
William Menelaus (10 March 1818 – 30 March 1882) was a Scottish-born mechanical engineer, who made his name and fortune as the works manager at the Dowlais Ironworks in South Wales. Early life Born in East Lothian on 10 March 1818, his father was a writer to the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet in Edinburgh. Educated locally, he was an apprenticed millwright to a group of engineers at Haddington. Career In 1844 Rowland Fothergill of Hensol Castle engaged Menelaus to remodel a corn mill. Persuading him to stay, Menelaus rose to manage Fothergill's Aberdare Ironworks at Llwydcoed. Dowlais Ironworks (1851–1884) After the death of Thomas Guest died in 1807, his son John Josiah Guest became sole manager of the Dowlais Ironworks, by 1815 owning nine of the sixteen shares. His brother Thomas Revel Guest owned one and Whyndham Lewis, the remaining six. In 1835 Guest made the acquaintance of engineer G. T. Clark, who had both had been involved in the Taff Vale Railway. In 1850, Clark married Ann Price Lewis (died 1885), a descendant of Thomas Lewis. Ann's brother had sold her family's last remaining interests in the firm that year, to Guest. Having become sole owner,