Thomas Potter (industrialist)

Thomas Potter (24 May 1745 – 12 October 1811) was a Scottish-born Danish industrialist and merchant who founded the first iron foundry in Denmark at Christianshavn in Copenhagen in 1785.

Born in Edinburgh to unknown parents, Thomas Potter came to Copenhagen at an early age where he obtained a royal licence to establish an iron foundry on rented land at Appelbys Plads in 1769.

[3] Over the years, he built a considerable export of pots, nails and forged anchors to both the East and West Indies.

On 2 March 1789 in St. Nicolas' Church, he then married Inger Marie Wismer (3 August 1768 – 19 March 1789), a daughter of tea and porcelain merchant Nicolaj Henrik Wismer and Anne Marie Meinerth; she died just 17 days later at 20 years old.

On 3 May 1794 in the Garrison Church, he married Inger Dorothea Hertz, a daughter of Rotal Forester in Vordingborg County Herman Michelsen H. (1734–75) and writer Birgitte Cathrine Boye (1742–1824).