Summary

John Dudgeon was apprenticed to his father's business as a millwright after completing his schooling at the village school of Tynninghame. At the age of eighteen he went to Glasgow were he worked in a number of workshops including those of Messrs. Girdwood and Co. and Messrs. Nasmyth of Patricroft. Having spent three years in Egypt he returned to London where he was employed by Messrs. Seward and Co., marine engineers. After having spent a term as the Board of Trade Marine Surveyor to the Port of London he went into business on his own account and with his younger brother William established the Sun Ironworks, Millwall. By 1862 he and his brother had a thriving shipbuilding business which at its peak employed about 2,500 men. John Dudgeon died in 1882, and was interred in the churchyard of Town Malling, Kent.