Doctor John Roebuck was born at Sheffield in Yorkshire, in the year 1718. His father was a considerable manufacturer and exporter of Sheffield goods, who, by his abilities and industry, had acquired a competent fortune. John, his eldest son, the subject of this memoir, was intended, by his father, for carrying on his own lucrative business at Sheffield; but was, from his early youth, irresistably attached to other pursuits, more calculated to gratify his ambition, and give fuller play to his powers. Notwithstanding this disappointment in his favourite object, his father had liberality enough to encourage his rising genius, and to give him all the advantages of a regular education.