John Macadam 1756 - 1836

John Loudon McAdam was born in Ayr in 1756; his early years were spent in the nearby village of Moffat. As a young man in 1770 McAdam went to New York where he made his fortune. On returning home during the American Revolution he purchased a Farm in Moffat. Being a road trustee McAdam set to work trying to find ways to improve the roads of Britain. He’d concluded that roads had to be raised above the surrounding ground, and should be constructed from layered rocks and gravel.


At that time Thomas Telford and John Metcalfe were also working on road construction techniques, and each of them put forward the idea of building raised, cambered roads, which allowed water to drain easily. But McAdam's technique, which became known as “tarmacadam” used tar mixed with stone, and his method became widely used. It was eventually developed into the method of road building as we know it today.


Macadam’s roads was built with side ditches, and the road foundation was laid with three layers of rocks that decreased in size from the foundation up. The finished road was compacted with cast-iron rollers, while traffic did further compacting of the surface.


With his success, McAdam was appointed surveyor-general of the metropolitan roads in England. By the turn of the century most of the main roads in Europe were built using his technique. John McAdam died at and was buried in Moffat in Ayrshire in 1836.