Crown Works - Davies Brothers

On the site they built a new factory called Crown Works, next to Ceres Works, with a wharf on the southern side of an existing basin.

There was also a second narrower basin just south of Lock 6.

Crown Works in 1872. From Griffith's Guide to the Iron Trade of Great Britain.

When the factories were in operation the whole area must have filled with unpleasant acrid smells from galvanising, and an equally unpleasant smell from Ceres manure works, and the Corporation’s sewage works in Crown Street.

Most of their products carried the "Crown and Knot" trademark, the crown being a symbol almost universally used to denote the quality of iron and the knot being the Staffordshire knot. 

For other products they used the brand name "Nonsuch". 

The business is described in Samuel Griffith’s “Guide to the Iron Trade of Great Britain” published in 1873, as follows:

We believe Mr. Davies was the first to introduce galvanising on a large scale to Wolverhampton, in 1838. The trade has since become one of the principal staple trades of the town. Nevertheless, Mr. Davies’s article has always kept a very high position in the market. The brand of the Crown Works is a crown surmounting the Staffordshire knot.

His best Crown Sheets have always been well known and appreciated in the market, and occupy the very highest position in the United States of America and Australia.

Mr. Davies likewise galvanises best, and high class charcoal sheets. Iron is also tinned for various purposes. Galvanised iron houses for export are made largely at Mr. Davies’s factory, which is well situated for railway and canal accommodation.

An advert from 1924.

The iron houses referred to in Griffith’s description were built with galvanised corrugated iron sheets.

The firm made huts and shelters which grew in size until houses, halls, churches, and other sizeable buildings were made, and exported all over the world. This part of the business grew into the Constructional Department.

Edward Davies retired in the mid 1870s and his two sons Edward Albert Davies and James Davies took over the business, which became known as Davies Brothers & Company.

In 1884 the partnership was dissolved when James left to start his own business.

On 7^th March, 1885 a new company, Davies Brothers & Company Limited was formed with a capital of £100,000 in 1,000 shares of £100 each.

The new company purchased the premises, machinery, stock, and goodwill from Davies Brothers & Company.

Also on the board were his nephew William Maddock Bayliss, the then present chairman of Bayliss, Jones and Bayliss, and his son William Maddock Bayliss, who became chairman of Davies Brothers in 1895 after the death of his father. The Company Secretary was James Saunders.

William was one of the leading authorities on physiology and became Professor of General Physiology at University College London in 1912. He was knighted in 1922 for his physiological work.

Although the company had extensive canal wharfage, products were also sent by rail. In the 1885 minute book, guaranteed payments are listed to the Midland Railway, the Great Western Railway, and the BCN.

The new company got off to a bad start, finding it difficult to compete with other manufacturers of galvanised sheet iron. The directors even considered moving to South Wales to produce steel in order to manufacture galvanised sheet steel.

The situation greatly improved when the company patented a method of automatically galvanising sheets of iron or steel, which could also be corrugated as part of the process. This was the first process of its kind in the world.

Patents were taken out in 7 countries, and manufacturers paid royalties to Davies Brothers for using their system, which became very popular in the USA.

The company was awarded a gold medal for the breakthrough at the 1893 Chicago World Trade Fair. As a result the company became very profitable.

An invoice from 1912.

In the 20^th century corrugated sheet roofing, and galvanised corrugated sheets became successful products which were exported to many countries.

The company’s tank and cistern making department became very successful, and produced a wide variety of riveted or welded galvanised tanks, cisterns, and hot water tanks for domestic installations.

Other products included water barrows, feeding troughs, drinking troughs, buckets and tubs, sanitary vessels of all kinds, gutters, and downpipes.

The Constructional Department began to manufacture steel framed buildings that were cladded with asbestos cement sheets.

Some of the tanks for storing liquids, such as oil and petrol, were too large to be galvanised.

The site of Crown Works, as seen from lock 6.

The derelict site of the factory in 2009.

The canal basins were still in use in the early 1930s when the acid used in the works was conveyed by narrow boat from Oldbury by Thomas Clayton, and coke was conveyed from Stafford Road Gas Works by George and Mathews. The waste acid was also transported by canal, on Fellows, Morton and Clayton boats to Courtaulds in Horton Road. The same company transported the galvanised sheets for export to Ellesmere Port.

In 1946 Peter Davies the great grandson of the founder, Edward Davies joined the management team.

He was the last member of the Davies family to work for the company. He left in 1964.

The site of the large basin.

An advert from 1935.

The company’s entry in the 1949 Wolverhampton Handbook is as follows:

Davies Brothers & Company Limited, Crown Works, Wolverhampton. Manufacturers of riveted or welded tanks for storage of water, petrol, or fuel oil, galvanised cisterns, cylinders and hot water tanks for domestic hot water supply, galvanised gutters and downpipes, galvanised cattle troughs, garden and water barrows, steel hay barns, roofs and buildings.

In 1963 the company acquired Gittins and Mellor Limited to replace the Constructional Department which closed. Gittins and Mellor shared the factory and the offices with the parent company, and manufactured ‘Liteway’ steel flooring, tubular steel handrailing, and constructional steelwork.

The Davies Brothers letterhead from 1978 lists the following products:

Oil tanks, petrol tanks, galvanised cisterns, cylinders, tanks and cattle troughs, corrugated cisterns, galvanised feeding appliances, swing water barrows, coal bunkers, street bins, water cart bodies, pipes and hoppers, galvanised sinks, steel platework, open-type steel flooring, handrailing, handrail standards, structural steelwork.

The company closed in 1981 and the factory became a scrap yard.

The site was acquired by Wolverhampton Council in 1993.

The factory has since been demolished and the area cleaned of toxic substances.

It has been used as a car park, but is now derelict.

An advert from 1965.