William Wood followed his father-in-law's trade until 1715, when he became an ironmaster too and later entered into a contract to provide copper coinage for Ireland.
He was also a projector, floating his business as an ironmaster as a joint stock company at the time of the South Sea Bubble (1720).
He returned to Cumberland to marry Anne Piele of Buttermere and then went to Jamaica to superintend lead mines in Liguanea.
[4] In this period, William Brownrigg (from 1742 a Fellow of the Royal Society) reported Wood's experiments on a metal, subsequently known as platinum.
In December 1763, Peter How's tobacco firm became bankrupt, as did the braziers' business of Gabriel Griffiths and Robert Ross.
William Brownrigg and Anthony Bacon (a London merchant born in Whitehaven) leased the mines in 4,000 acres (16 km2) at Merthyr Tydfil.
A blast furnace, 50 feet (15 m) high and blown by blowing cylinders was begun to be built that autumn, but was probably not completed until the following year.
In the meantime, pig iron was needed for the forge to work, so Wood arranged for the owners to take over the nearby Plymouth Furnace.