John Hughes

John James Hughes (1814 – 17 June 1889) was a Welsh engineer, businessman and founder of the city of Donetsk. The village was originally named Yuzovka (Hughesovka, Russian: Юзoвка) or Yuzivka (Ukrainian: Юзівка) after Hughes ("Yuz" being a Russian and Ukrainian approximation of Hughes), formally becoming a town in May 1917 and in 1924 being renamed to Stalino (Ukrainian: Сталіно). In 1961, the name was changed to Donetsk.

Biography

Hughes was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, where his father was head engineer at the Cyfarthfa Ironworks. It was there that Hughes started his career, under his father's supervision.

He then moved to Ebbw Vale, before joining the Uskside Foundry in Newport, Monmouthshire, in the 1840s. It was here that Hughes made his reputation and fortune, patenting a number of inventions in armaments and armour plating. The resultant revenues allowed him to acquire a shipyard aged 28, and by the age of 36 he owned a foundry in Newport. It was also during this time that he married Elizabeth Lewis, and had eight children: six boys and two girls, all born in Newport.

Millwall Iron Works

In the mid-1850s, Hughes moved to London to become manager of C.J. Mare and Company's forges and rolling mills, which was then taken over by the Millwall Iron Works & Shipbuilding Company, part of the Millwall Iron Works, Shipbuilding and Graving Docks Company. Hughes was a director of the company when it foundered, and resultantly became manager of the residual Millwall Iron Works Company. During this period, the various companies and successors won worldwide acclaim for the iron cladding of wooden warships for the British Admiralty, for which Hughes was given much of the credit. In 1864 he designed a gun carriage for heavy cannons, which came to be used by the Royal Navy, as well as the navies of some other European countries.