He was born the son of James Glynn of the Ouseburn Iron Foundry in Newcastle upon Tyne and taught by John Bruce at the Percy Street Academy.
[1] He started work as an assistant to his father at the Ouseburn foundry until 1820 when he designed and built a steam engine to drain the Talkin Colliery in Cumberland.
In 1821 he designed the system for street lighting by coal gas in Berwick-on-Tweed and subsequently in Aberdeen.
[1] His most remembered achievement was the design and construction of steam engines to drain the Fens of eastern England, making it possible to farm many thousands of acres for the first time.
He wrote a book "Cranes, the Construction of, and other Machinery for Raising Heavy Bodies" He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1838.