Born in Manchester, he was himself the son of a cotton trader and manufacturer and he started his career representing his father's business in London.
[1] His career importing raw cotton from the Levant and the West Indies was successful to the extent that manufacturers in Manchester began to suspect him of seeking a monopoly.
[1] In 1742 he became involved with the Birmingham inventors Lewis Paul and John Wyatt, who had designed the first machinery to successfully spin cotton mechanically, receiving a grant for 300 spindles off Wyatt.
[4] As Touchet became very wealthy over the course of the 1750s his business interests diversified into shipping, insurance broking and the sugar and slave trades.
This article about a Member of the Parliament of Great Britain (1707–1800) representing an English constituency is a stub.