Short answers, pulled from the story.
John Wilkinson (1728-1808) was an English industrialist who pioneered the manufacture and use of cast iron during the Industrial Revolution. He earned the nickname "Iron-Mad" because in the 1790s he had almost everything around him made of iron, including several coffins and a massive iron obelisk to mark his grave.
In 1774 Wilkinson invented a boring machine whose cutting shaft was supported at both ends rather than cantilevered, producing far more accurate cylinders than had previously been possible. This allowed Boulton and Watt's first commercial steam engine to operate with greatly reduced steam leakage, and Wilkinson received an exclusive contract to supply cylinders as a result. His boring machine has been called the first machine tool.
Wilkinson was the prime mover in initiating the Iron Bridge project in 1775, persuading a committee of subscribers to use iron rather than wood or stone and steering it through a difficult parliamentary process. He sold his shares to builder Abraham Darby III in 1777; the bridge was completed in 1779 and opened in 1781, and the surrounding district took the name Ironbridge from the structure.
Wilkinson received UK Patent 1063 in 1774 for boring iron guns from a solid piece by rotating the gun barrel rather than the boring bar, producing a more uniform bore and safer, more accurate cannon. The Royal Navy sought to overturn the patent as a monopoly and succeeded in having it quashed in 1779, though Wilkinson remained a major cannon manufacturer.
By 1796, when Wilkinson was sixty-eight years old, he was producing approximately one-eighth of all the cast iron made in Britain. His enterprises spanned multiple iron foundries, lead mines, coal mines, copper mine shareholdings, canal investments, and banking partnerships across England and Wales.
Wilkinson died on the 14th of July 1808 at his Bradley works, leaving an estate worth more than £130,000. His nephew Thomas Jones contested the will in the Court of Chancery, and by 1828 the estate had largely been dissipated by lawsuits and poor management. His iron coffin was moved multiple times after burial and has since been lost.