Hello Richard & Virginia ONINES,
I'm not sure if this has any direct relevance to your line of
research or if you already have the information but I have just come across
the following entry in the bibliography of a book I am currently reading.
** Onions, Peter (c.1719-98), forgeman and engineer. Married Elizabeth
(d.1787), the sister of John Guest, his fellow Salopian who managed the
Dowlais works from 1767. Onions patented a coal-fired technique for refining
pig iron in 1783. In the 1795 Universal British Directory he is listed as a
'mathematical instrument maker' in Merthyr. His son William Onions, worked
at Cyfarthfa in the late 1780s and early 1790s. Several other men bearing
the same surname were active in the Merthyr iron industry during this
period, and the Onions family also came to prominence as ironmasters in
Staffordshire. **
Regards,
David,
NSW,Oz.