Mechanical engineering as a profession was on the rise and the advent of the steam age opened up viable career alternatives for many young Englishmen who, like Joshua Routledge, grew up in an agriculture-based society.

It is known that William with wife Sarah Bell (1746-1819), one-year-old Joshua and his two-year-old sister Dinah (1771-1791), joined a group of Methodists sailing to Nova Scotia, Canada in 1774.

[7] The firm became famous as designers and builders of textile machinery and steam engines that rivalled the Soho Works in Birmingham operated by steam-age pioneers James Watt and Matthew Boulton.

According to a handwritten, unsigned document on file at Bolton Archives (Lancashire)[10] Routledge acquired a patent for his improved slide rule in 1813 but, to date, no record of this has been traced.

"[15][16] A newspaper account dated 8 August 1822 and quoted in Historical Gleanings Bolton & District describes him as the "spirited and ingenious inventor" of a portable, steam-powered machine that broke stones for road repair at the "astounding rate of 70 or 80 tons in ten hours," something "never before contemplated.

[20] Sometime before leaving England, in 1824, for Warsaw, Poland, Routledge undertook another engineering project with Joseph (1765–1842)[21] and Thomas Ridgway (1778–1839)[22] to extend and rearrange the pioneering Wallsuches Bleach Works in Horwich, Lancashire.

Wallsuches Bleach Works is preserved as a Grade II listed complex,[23] described as a "rare survival of a once large scale important industry in the Bolton area".

[26] A contemporary of Routledge by the name of Benjamin Hick (1787/90–1842) also received training at the Round Foundry, and the two ambitious young men left Leeds for greener pastures sometime around 1810.

Both settled in Bolton Lancashire where engineering advances in the machinery needed for large scale cotton milling would soon bring about boom times for the whole region.

John Hick, besides his notable engineering career while extending the family firm, distinguished himself as Bolton town councillor for 9 years before serving as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1868 to 1880.

Upon marrying Joshua she became stepmother to his daughter Ann who died on 19 August 1814 and was buried, alongside her half siblings, in the Abel family plot at St Peter's Parish Church.

[30] During 1819, in reference to the infamous Peterloo Massacre, William Bowker, as Boroughreeve, wrote a letter advising the local Magistrate that the leading men of the town intended to protest by "meeting publicly to address the Prince Regent on the late proceedings at Manchester on the 16th of August last."

[31] Tragically, Routledge contracted a cancerous tumor while in Poland where he died on 8 February 1829 in a state of near penury, having received little or no payment or support from his employers during his illness.