Jeremiah Head was born in Ipswich on the 11th July 1835 to Jeremiah and Mary Head. He received his early education at home and later at a private school at Ipswich and at the School of the Society of Friends at Tulketh Hall near Preston.

In 1851, at the age of sixteen he was articled for five years in the works of Robert Stephenson and Co (RS&CO), Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He served three and a half years in the pattern-making, fitting, and erecting shops, and the remaining year and a half in the drawing office. In 1857 Stephenson selected him as resident engineer in the construction of Rowland Burden’s cast iron bridge over the River Wear at Sunderland. He also worked on the design for a steam plough based on an idea conceived by John Fowler of Leeds and in 1863, winning a prize at Chester Show in 1858

He went to work for Kitson and Co in Leeds and then became manager of John Fowler and Co’s Steam Plough Works until 1860. He went on to found the firm Fox, Head and Co work included manufacturing iron plates. In conjunction with Mr. Theodore Fox and others, he established the Newport Rolling-Mills at Middlesbrough, and from 1867 to 1874 these works were carried on the industrial co-partnership principle. In 1885 the works were stopped, and Jeremiah Head became a consulting engineer.

He was the originator, in 1865, of the Cleveland Institution of Engineers, of which he acted as secretary until 1871, when he became president and in 1893 was president of the Mechanical Science Section of the British Association. He was also one of the most prominent members of the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration for the Manufactured Iron Trade of the North of England and acted as one of the treasurers up to the time of his death. He died at St. Leonards on the 10th March 1899 at the age of 63.