Commercial Road Works

Beginnings
A large factory once stood on the corner of Commercial Road and Lower Walsall Street, Wolverhampton. The entrance was in Commercial Road near the junction with Lower Walsall Street. Today the site is occupied by Evans Halshaw and is used for storing road vehicles.

Little is known about the factory other than documents relating to mortgages, conveyances and leases. Sadly no photographs of the main building seem to survive. It was probably demolished in the late 1930s. It is not shown on the 1842 tithe map, although a much smaller building was on the site, but on a different orientation. At that time the site was occupied by William Gibbons who bequeathed it on his death to Elizabeth Gibbons in January, 1857.

The building was used by a number of small businesses. Their owners included Benjamin Nicholls, John Hawksford, Richard Ward, John Edward Reeve, Sydney Hodges, and Thomas Bayley.


The factory is marked in red.
On 24th June, 1882 Paul Bedford Elwell purchased part of the building for his company; The Patent Tip & Horse Shoe Company. After joining forces with Thomas Parker to form Elwell-Parker Limited, Elwell leased his part of the building to Elwell-Parker Limited on 1st September, 1886. On 12th March, 1887 Elwell-Parker Limited began to rent another part of the building from John Ryan Danks and Benjamin Danks.

On 8th September, 1887 Elwell-Parker Limited purchased Paul Bedford Elwell’s part of the property, which they owned until 16th June, 1890 when it was sold to the Electric Construction Corporation, which they became part of.

The Electric Construction Corporation sold their part of the building to John Brotherton and Francis Simms for the use of Brotherton Tubes Limited. The company seems to have acquired much of the property, which was conveyed to the New Brotherton Tube Company Limited on 26th October, 1897. In 1903 another part of the building was occupied by the Metropolitan Bank of England and Wales Limited.

In 1901 Wolverhampton Corporation purchased another part of the building, and sold it to the New Brotherton Tube Company Limited on 26th February, 1903. In 1912 Brotherton Tubes and Conduits Limited leased another part of the building, which they purchased on 13th February, 1920.

Acquisition by A.J.S.

On 28th October, 1925 A. J. Stevens and Company (1914) Limited purchased the whole of the site. Unfortunately nothing seems to be known about their activities on the site. After A.J.S. went into voluntary liquidation in 1931, the site was sold to W. E. Jones, timber merchants and timber importers, who occupied the site for many years.

I have searched without success to discover what A.J.S. did on the site. None of the surviving members of the Stevens family know anything about it. It is still a mystery.


An extract from the deeds to the site.

A photograph from a W. E. Jones advert from 1954. It shows the company's office building which must have been there when the site was owned by A.J.S.
Return to the
list of factories