Other Industries

Wednesbury was at the centre of a vast area of industrialisation, which greatly affected the landscape and everyday sights and sounds. In 1854 John Nock Bagnall published his book "A History of Wednesbury in the County of Stafford" which includes a chapter describing Wednesbury as it was at the time. In the book he describes the view from Church Hill at night:

Today the scene couldn't be more different. It is now a tranquil scene, only broken by the roar of traffic on its way through the town, and illuminated at night by countless street lamps, enveloping the whole area in an orange glow.

Industrial Wednesbury. From an old postcard.

Iron and Steel

The earliest references to iron mining in the area are from 1315 but there are no records of iron smelting until the 16th century. Much of the local ore would have been exported to other towns until the later part of the 18th century when the growth of local industry provided a new market. Early iron making used large amounts of charcoal, and so much of the local woodland would have disappeared in the process. The locally found iron ore would have been heated with a large amount of charcoal in a bloomery, consisting of a hearth of stones, covered by a dome of clay. A constant blast of air would be applied using bellows, and a spongy, metallic bloom of iron would be the result. The bloom would then be reheated and worked down with a large hammer to remove some of the impurities (slag and clinker), to make the iron hard enough for forging. The end product would then be wrought into bars or rods for the production of horseshoes, nails or tools.

In 1597 there was a water-powered iron mill (a forge) owned by William Comberford and leased to William Whorwood, which is mentioned in the records of the Quarter Sessions. Two of the employees were Blaise Uyntam, a finer, and William Heeley, a hammer man. In 1606 Walter Coleman leased the forge for 21 years. It had finery and chafery hearths. In 1708 it was owned by Richard Shelton and leased to John Willetts, who probably used it as a rolling mill.

There were two types of hearth at the forge, the finery and the chafery. Both would have burned charcoal and been fed with air from bellows. In the smaller finery the lump of iron was re-melted to produce a bloom; a lump of iron with slag.

The chafery would have held several bars at a time, all in various stages of production.

In 1675 Frederick de Blewstone from Germany constructed an experimental furnace in the town, in an attempt to smelt iron using coal, traditional charcoal being in short supply. Unfortunately the attempt failed because of contamination from the sulphurous gasses emitted by the coal.

By 1785 there were 4 forges in the town:

Adams’s Forge opened in Camp Hill Lane around 1760 in the middle of the Seven Years War. The business sold special quality iron to the government, made from specially selected scrap. As the forge was situated on the south side of the town, well away from any natural watercourse, the hammers were powered by a horse gin. This was superseded by one of the earliest Watt steam engines in the area, and supplied with water from a large reservoir extending from Camp Hill Lane to Camp Street, possibly from a spring. Unfortunately unhealthy gases arose from the water and so in 1869 the company moved to Ridgeacre, West Bromwich.

Sparrow’s Forge was run by Mr. Edwards in partnership with Edward Elwell, who later ran Wednesbury Forge. It was situated next to Forge Pool and Forge Pool Colliery, just off Sparrow’s Forge Road, now called Park Lane. The forge was initially powered by a horse gin, and later used water from the adjacent Forge Pool, which flowed into Willenhall Brook. By 1851 it became Heath Works, owned by Addison Russell, and sometime before 1900 the works closed, and the buildings were demolished.

The most common method of producing wrought iron from pig iron in the 19th century was puddling, invented by Henry Cort in 1784.

A section through a puddling furnace.

Puddlers at work.

The first coke furnace in the town was at Hallens’ Ironworks, which stood by the canal on part of the site later occupied by the Patent Shaft Steelworks. The following description of the works is from Aris’s Gazette of 6^th January, 1800:

A capital set of ironworks, consisting of a blast furnace, foundry, boring mill, forges, slitting and rolling mills, pattern and smiths shops, warehouses, six workmen’s houses and every suitable convenience for carrying on a very extensive trade, advantageously situated on the banks of the Birmingham Canal at Wednesbury: the whole comprising of about two and a half acres of freehold land with valuable mines of coal, ironstone and clay under the same; together with all the machinery, implements and tools now on the premises.

By 1830 there were only two furnaces in the town that were used for iron smelting, which is surprising considering that large amounts of iron ore were mined locally. The first was Matthews and Company who ran Broadwaters Furnaces. They had 2 furnaces which produced 6,368 tons of pig iron in 1830. The second was Lloyds and Fosters at Old Park Iron Works. In 1823 they had one furnace which produced 2,600 tons of pig iron in 1823, and in 1830 there were two furnaces producing 5,280 tons of pig iron.

Tapping a puddling furnace.

Also in the 1840s Adams & Richards of Bridge Street were producing coach springs.

White’s directory of Staffordshire from 1851 lists the following iron and steel companies in Wednesbury:

Others included Gospel Oak Ironworks owned by Philip Williams & Sons, Brunswick Iron Works, owned by Henry Pitt, and Bull's Bridge Ironworks owned by Molineux & Company.

The Victoria Ironworks at Leabrook were run by the Thorneycroft brothers, Edward and George Bernard Thorneycroft, who also ran Shrubbery Iron Works in Wolverhampton. Their business in Wednesbury was declared bankrupt, as can be seen from the notice below. The factory was then acquired by Fletcher, Rose & Company and in 1852 by the Patent Shaft and Axletree Company.

From the London Gazette, 5th December, 1843.

Most of the early iron and steel works closed as a result of the depression of 1875 to 1886 after which the main players were the Old Park Works, the Patent Shaft, and F.H. Lloyd at James Bridge Steel Works.

Wednesbury had many foundries including:

By the 1850s Wednesbury had secured a monopoly of the new iron tube trade and had become the largest local supplier of iron to the railways.

An advert from 1861.

Wednesbury Forge

Wednesbury Forge was leased by Edward Elwell in 1817 and purchased by him in 1831. His father, William Elwell, an ironfounder at Walsall, became Mayor of the town in 1778 and 1787. Edward trained as a surgeon and served with the Royal Artillery from 1807 to 1811. After returning to Walsall and practicing there for a while he set himself up as a maker of edge tools at Sparrow’s Forge in Wednesbury.

Elwell's Pool and Forge.

An advert from 1949.

A railway accident at Elwell's Pool in 1859.

Spearwell Tools was jointly owned by the 2 companies, but after several years of losses, Spear and Jackson acquired the whole group, taking over Wednesbury Forge in 1970. In 1995 the company became Spear and Jackson plc.

Wednesbury Forge continued to produce tools until Christmas 2005, when the factory closed. The administrative, warehousing and maintenance sections continued to operate throughout part of 2006. In 2007 the buildings were demolished, and the site cleared.

A company letterhead.

A close up view of the factory from the above letterhead. On the left is the Elwell family's house.

In the 1860s Josh. & Thos. Davies manufactured a wide range of products, including high and low pressure steam engines on the vertical direct action, beam and horizontal principles, steam donkeys for feeding boilers, improved metallic pistons and safety valves without stalk or guide, winding and pumping machinery, and brakes for collieries, hydraulic presses, lift and force pumps by hand or power, portable mounted steam threshing machines, improved water heaters by waste steam, blowing fans by hand or power, hoisting crabs and cranes, circular saw and rack benches, shearing and punching presses, pipe fittings, nut and bolt screwing machines, forge hammers, and boring and grooving machines for coach axle work, sluice glan plug, valve and other cocks, lathes, carriage shafting, pulleys and couplings, etc. The firm also carried out turning, boring, planing, fitting, shaping, and repairs done to order.

The firm's small steam engines were as follows:

Other Companies and Products

Henry Hope & Sons Limited. Windows

An advert from the early 1960s,

The company started in 1818 in Birmingham and started to produce metal casements in 1819. In between 1845 and 1857 they made all of the windows for the Houses of Parliament, and by 1900 their main product was metal windows.

In 1904 the company purchased some land at the corner of Dartmouth Road and Halford's Lane, Smethwick and in 1905 built the Halford Works. In 1919 the whole business was transferred there, and by the late 1950s the factory covered around 10 acres.

The company acquired a 37 acre, old coal mining site in Wednesbury in 1938 and built a new works there which included a hot dip galvanising plant. The plant included a 120 ton bath of zinc at a temperature of 852 degrees Fahrenheit.

The company had a large export market and in 1965 merged with another metal window manufacturer, the Crittall Manufacturing Company Limited of Braintree to form Crittall-Hope Limited. Braintree then became the new company's headquarters.

The hot dip galvanising tank.

Quilliam Limited. Jute Bag Manufacturers

An advert from the early 1960s.

They produced new and reconditioned sacks for all types of small metal components, steel strip and wire, nuts, bolts, nails, washers, rivets, stampings, castings, and chains.

The factory survived until the early 1960s when it was destroyed in a disastrous fire.

Within a short while the business moved across the road into larger premises with a new bakehouse. Martha soon became pregnant and had the job of bringing-up her first son Joe, followed by two others Bert and Len. Sam then employed a baker and was able to greatly increase the product range.  

Early success encouraged him to purchase a pony and cart but such was their financial position that this was sometimes hired out when not required for the Hickinbottom business. The income from this hiring helped to feed the pony.

As business increased an opportunity arose to move to better premises. The owner of a business opposite their shop offered to build a small new bakehouse onto the existing building in return for them signing a seven year lease. Sam and Martha seized this opportunity and Sam further increased the facilities by building a small stable for the pony and a covered area for loading.

By the time the seven year lease had expired the Hickinbottoms had three sons, Joe (1893), Bert (1897) and Len (1901) and when old enough, the boys helped in the business by delivering bread in three wheeled baskets. Despite this help, Sam did not usually finish work on a Saturday until between 8pm and 9pm.

In 1906 at the age of 13, Joe started classes in shorthand, typewriting and book-keeping and began work at Stockdale and Sargent, solicitors, in Lower High Street. The Senior Partner wanted Joe to take Articles and become a lawyer, but instead he took his father's offer of joining the family business.

The business became extremely successful. By the First World War, Sam had been joined by his three sons, and had moved into a larger premises in Victoria Street with better facilities, including two Cornthwaite ovens. Only the best ingredients were used including top grade flour from Rank's Flour Mills. The bread gained a deserved reputation for high quality.

During the war the business thrived because other foods were in short supply and so the demand for bread greatly increased. By this time Joe was going out with Annie Lett of Tipton, whom he had met at Camp Street Sunday School. She later became his wife and was recruited into the business to take charge of a horse and cart to help with deliveries.

The firm soon outgrew the Victoria Street premises and so a larger bakery was built nearby in Victoria Street. It included a lot of second-hand equipment from Birmingham bakeries, and opened in June 1923. The employees even hauled 30,000 glazed bricks for the building, to the site, after normal working hours. The second-hand equipment was slowly updated, and the firm acquired its first motorised van and a large horse-drawn flat wagon to transport 25 tons of flour weekly, from the nearby GWR goods depot to the bakery. The second hand equipment was gradually updated. Sam died in 1939 and his eldest son Joe became Managing Director.

In 1951 Hickinbottoms joined Allied Bakeries of London, makers of Sunblest bread. By 1960 the Victoria Street bakery supplied around 30,000 customers, and it became essential to extend the bakery in order to cope with increasing demand. The Hickinbottom brothers stayed in control of the Wednesbury operation, Joe as Managing Director, Bert as Transport Director, Len as Sales Director and Bert's son Geoffrey as Sales Manager.

The firm decided to build a new bakery at Wednesbury and if possible acquire the area around the existing bakery so that the new bakery could link-up with the existing buildings. Over the next two years Bert Hickinbottom set about purchasing adjoining properties, which were demolished to make way for a new bakery.

In 1961 the family lost two members from the second generation, Bert and Len. Third generation Geoffrey was appointed Managing Director and his cousin Michael, Director, and second generation Joe became Chairman.

Building work soon got underway and  the new Electric Bakery in Albert Street opened in May 1963. At the time the bakery supplied around 30,000 retail customers, 800 wholesale customers, and employed 180 people. The company operated eighty vehicles and had its own maintenance department.

Michael Hickinbottom soon became Chief Executive of the group, leaving Geoffrey in charge of the operation at Wednesbury. In 1977 Geoffrey decided to retire to Norfolk. At the time there were 600 employees and well over 200 vehicles at the Wednesbury site.

Soon the Hickinbottom name ceased to be used and door to door deliveries were discontinued. The Wednesbury bakery closed in 1989 and production was transferred elsewhere. Demolition of the bakery soon followed, to make way for the Mecca Bingo Club, which stands on the site today.

   
The Steel Nut & Joseph Hampton Limited. Fastenings, Steel Bars, Tools

Two views of the Steel Department.