Background
Lysaght was born on 23 July 1858, the son of Thomas Royse Lysaght and Emily Lysaght (née Moss).
business magnate sheriff of Monmouthshire
Lysaght was born on 23 July 1858, the son of Thomas Royse Lysaght and Emily Lysaght (née Moss).
After the death of his uncle 1895, Lysaght completed the project with the opening of the Orb Works in 1897.
From 1874 Lysaght worked at the Gospel Oak works in Tipton, learning to produce sheet iron. John Lysaght purchased the Swan Garden ironworks of Wolverhampton in 1878 and William then became its manager, and he also managed the Osier Bed ironworks after that was purchased in 1885. By 1901 Lysaght had transferred sheet metal production from Wolverhampton to Newport and went on to manage expansion of the company which employed 3000 workers by 1913.
The Lysaght companies were sold to H. Seymour Berry and became part of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds (GKN) in 1920, Lysaght becoming a director of GKN.
Lysaght married Effie Elizabeth Stavern Gladstone in 1890 and had three children.
In 1915 he became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire, and was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1918 New Year Honours for his services as an adviser to the wartime Ministry of Munitions. He died on 27 April 1945 at his home near Tidenham, Gloucestershire, with a wealth of £277,367 17s.
8d. Lysaght acquired most of his collection from East M Connop of Wroxham, near Norwich, in 1912 or 1913.
The vast majority of specimens were from Norfolk and it is believed that many of the remainder were added by Lysaght himself. The 1913 catalogue of the collection, then kept at Castleford Museum in Chepstow, lists 1,860 birds in 680 cases or as individual specimens.
At Newport, where employment at the Orb steel works peaked at over 3,500 employees, the was opened in December 1928 on Corporation Road, as a memorial to its namesake"s fifty years as the company"s chairman, and to celebrate the contribution of its employees to the success of the works. lieutenant was financed jointly by the company and its workers, stood in 8 acres of grounds near the works entrance, and provided a range of facilities for staff including a ballroom, tennis courts, bowling green, and ornamental gardens.
lieutenant closed in 2001, and soon became derelict.
The site was initially purchased by a housing developer, but was later sold and in 2008 was bought by Lincolnshire-Cymru. lieutenant was refurbished and reopened as a community centre in November 2012.
