General Metal and Holloware

E. P. Jenks Ltd. Monmore Green

Jenks' offices and works in Monmore Green, seen in 1953. The main offices and factory were completed in 1937 and covered about six acres.

The firm was founded in 1873, as Hyde & Co, and they were washer and small pressed work makers.  It was taken over by a Mr. E. P. Jenks in 1918 and changed its name to E. P. Jenks Ltd in 1935.

They seem to have started off by specialising in water fittings made from hot brass stampings and then, since they need so much brass and so many brass bits, they expanded into providing brass extrusions and brass wire to others.  From there it seems to have been a natural progression to get into many forms of metal bashing.  In 1950 they installed a copper tubes and copper billets plant and sold copper tubes.  (The advert from 1943, below, shows them offering brass wires and extrusions.)  

In the 1953 edition of the Wolverhampton Official Handbook they claim to be probably the largest makers of washers in the UK but with a much wider range, including automobile chassis brackets, wing stays, brake drums and engine plates, loudspeaker and gramophone components, railway wagon underframe pressed steel components, and parts for the aircraft, textile, shipbuilding, building and general engineering trades.  And they also made gas stove fittings and a large variety of garden tools, hearth furniture, etc..  And they had sections doing machining, welding, tempering, galvanizing, tinning, chromium, nickel and copper bronze plating.

At that time they employed about 500 men and 250 women.