He invented a process that enabled white soap to be made and a means of using china clay to create better quality paper.

He owned several china clay pits in Cornwall, and a mine at Tredegar in South Wales, and was briefly a Liberal Member of Parliament.

The tramway was operated by a small fleet of steam locomotives known as "Pochin's Puffing Billies", carrying clay to the wharf in crude three plank wagons.

Between 1863 and 1867, Alderman Pochin led a consortium of Manchester business men in the formation of a number of companies in the iron, steel and coal industries.

The mine was named after Pochin's daughter, Laura, who later married Charles McLaren, the Tredegar Company chairman later created first Baron Aberconway.

At Bodnant, Pochin realised the superb qualities of the Dell through which the estate river ran and after first strengthening the banks to deter erosion he set about planting with great American and Oriental conifers.