Old George's nephew, John Salter, remained in
charge of the company until his death in 1852. He
had married Ann Bache of Stakenbridge, near Hagley,
just south of Stourbridge. John and Ann had four
sons, George, Thomas Bache, William Henry, and John.
Bache. For a while they lived in New Street, West
Bromwich, but later they were living in the Salter
family's old residence in High Street. Their row of
cottages and the old packing mill there, which was
the original factory, were slowly being redeveloped
to form a new and larger factory. In his will, John
left his property to his eldest son George, his
trade and goodwill to Thomas and John, and £50 to
William Henry, who at the time was a ship's surgeon,
but did enter the family business at a later date.
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When
George died in 1852, his sons were still young.
George was only 23, Thomas Bache was 22, and William Bache
was only 15. William Bache entered the family
business in the late 1850s. Sadly he died in 1871,
at the young age of 34. George and Thomas must have
heavily relied on the experience and ability
of John Silvester, who had joined their father in
the business some years earlier. John Silvester was
a sad iron manufacturer, whose premises adjoined the
Salter's factory. The two businesses amalgamated and
so Salter's added sad irons to their list of
products.
In 1854, Thomas Bache married Maria Horseley, known
as "Kitty". They decided to live in open countryside
rather than in the middle of the increasingly busy
town. For some years they lived at "Spon House,"
which had a large garden and two lodges, one
for a live-in gardener and another for the coachman.
It was here that their first three children were
born, Annie, in 1855 (who died four years later),
George, in 1856 and Florence, in 1858. Thomas Bache
then bought another house, "Springfields", at the
top of Roebuck Lane, where in 1860, their other son,
Thomas Henry was born.
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A cast-iron postal
balance for letters and parcels. |
In 1862, George Salter junior died, leaving his
brother Thomas Bache in overall control. Thomas then
entered into partnership with John Silvester with a
capital of £30,000, which was divided into five
parts: two fifths were held by him, two fifths by
John Silvester, and one fifth by John Bache. Four
members if the Silvester family worked at Salter's.
They were John, Ted, Enoch and Tom. John became
Works Manager and Thomas Bache Salter remained as head of
the firm.
The site of the factory in the
late 1870s.
Salter's first work's club was established in the
1850's, with a recreation room and dining rooms, and
later a work's library, which opened in 1859.
Library President was George Salter, Vice President
was Thomas Salter, Treasurer was John Silvester and
Secretary was John Hughes. In 1878 Thomas Salter
gave the club its first billiard table, and he
promoted frequent flower shows. At the time there
was no insurance for sickness or accidents, and so
he started the Sick and Burial Club. In 1897 a
Compensation Committee was formed, consisting of two
foremen, seven workpeople, one member of the staff,
and one representative of the firm, who enquired
into the circumstances of all accidents, the home
finances, etc., and provided compensation
accordingly.
Mr. Salter and his sons were keen cricketers, and
he started the Salter's Cricket Club, which played
matches on a ground in Roebuck Lane. It was during
his period as head of the firm, that seven of
Salter's employees played in West Bromwich Albion
Football team, which, in 1886, won the English Cup.
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The once familiar
Salter spring balance. |
In 1872, the firm is listed as makers of spring
balances, vertical jacks, steam gauges,
dynamometers, pocket steelyards, and spiral springs.
Thomas Bache Salter always looked after the
workforce. He knew all their Christian names or
nicknames and was known by all as "Gaffer Thomas".
As already mentioned, John Bache Salter, died in
1871. He left the firm in 1865, probably due to
ill-health. His share of the capital went to his
brother Thomas, and John Silvester, who carried on
as equal partners.
John Bache had married Mary Ann Horseley and they lived at Handsworth. She died in
1876. They had two children, John, who died young
and Mary Letitia who died in 1951. As a 13 year-old
orphan, she went to live with the family at
Springfields.
In the 1860s, another young family member, Thomas
Philip Bache started at the firm. He was the son of
Henry Bache, a cousin of the Salters and collected
rents on the Salter's properties. In 1877 when
George Salter, the eldest of Thomas Salter's family,
came of age, the whole works went on an outing to
Sutton Park, where they were entertained to dinner
and tea, and duly celebrated the occasion. This was
repeated four years later when the younger brother,
Tom Salter, also became twenty-one.
In 1881, new Articles of Partnership were drawn up
and the controlling partners were Thomas Bache Salter,
the Trustees of John Silvester's estate, Thomas
Philip Bache, George Salter and John Henry Birch, a
school friend of George. In 1884, Salter's had
registered their trade mark, the Staffordshire knot,
and for a while the West Bromwich Albion football
team carried this on their jerseys. |
Thomas Bache Salter suffered from ill health. He
struggled with rheumatism and gout, bronchial
trouble and liver disorders. He died from a heart
attack on January 30th, 1887, at the age of 57. He
left his share of the business to his sons, George
and Thomas Henry Salter.
George had already gained a lot of experience at
the company. He introduced new methods to secure new
customers, and find new openings for Salter's goods.
New products included "Penny-in-the-Slot", or
coin-fed automatic machines. In 1885 the firm had
acquired Bullock's Foundry in Spon Lane, where grey
iron castings were made, and the manufacture of
these continued, both for general sale and for
their own use. Salters even cast the casing for the
clock in Dartmouth Square, West Bromwich.
Spon Lane foundry in 1898.
Another view of Spon Lane
Foundry.
The firm
began to produce mincing machines, slicing machines,
potato-chip machines, lemon squeezers,
horse-radish scrapers, and various sized hooks for
supporting gas-pipes, etc. They still produced every
sort of balance, including domestic balances, pocket
balances, letter balances, postal balances, counter
platform balances, and brass and enamel dials. Sad
irons were shipped all over the world and every sort
of spring was made, from door springs, to hinge
springs, along with testing machines, gauges,
washers, letter clips, hat hooks, tinplates,
roasting jacks, and anything which might be required
by the engineering or hardware trade.
A Salter spring balance.
In 1893, another member of the Bache family,
Ernest William Bache, the second son of William
Bache, the Solicitor, joined the firm. He had spent
his school holidays working there and enjoyed it so
much that he decided to become an engineer. On
leaving school he did an engineering course at Mason
College, Birmingham (later Birmingham University)
before starting work at Salters. He worked in each
of the departments and gained great knowledge of the
work and the workers. He was well liked by everyone
and became known as "Bill Bache". In later years he
would become Managing Director.
In 1895 the firm began to produce the first
typewriters made in the UK. They were designed by
James Samuel Foley, an American mechanical engineer
and John Henry Birch. The first model was the Salter
5. George Salter became a JP. for West Bromwich in
1888, an Alderman, and several times Mayor. He was
deeply concerned with the education of his
workpeople, and was a member of the School Board. He
was interested in the Y.M.C.A., the
Conservative Association, and was a Freemason.
The improved Salter 5
typewriter.
The firm soon began to produce an improved
version of the Salter 5 typewriter, which like its
predecessor had a curved qwerty keyboard. This was followed
in 1900 by the Salter 6, which had a straight 3-row
qwerty keyboard. It remained in production until 1907 when
it was replaced by the Salter 7.
A Salter 7 typewriter.
Around
1906, the Salter family moved from "Springfields" to "Prestwood", a large
country house near Stourbridge, which was rented
from the Foleys. They had a number of fields and an
area of woodland. In 1906 Thomas Philip Bache retired from the
firm, and a new agreement was drawn up between
George and Tom Salter and J. H. Birch. By this time E.
W. (Bill) Bache had become works manager in the spring
department, and oversaw the production of
typewriters. He made a number of changes to the
design, which resulted in the introduction of the
Salter 10 in 1908, which was the last in the series
of downstrike Salter typewriters.
A Salter 10 typewriter.
At the outbreak of the First World War,
production of products for the home market ceased
and the firm had to rely on government contracts, as
part of the war effort. Salters began to produce machine-gun
parts, a small tester for assembling and dismantling
the Lewis gun, and what was then the largest spring
in the world, which was a part for Russian heavy guns.
Other products included luminous oil and air
pressure dial gauges for aircraft, darts for
aircraft, sea mines and tanks.
Many male members of staff joined the armed
forces and so there was a large increase in the
number of women workers at the factory, where there
were day and night shifts, every day including
Sundays, and shifts for volunteers from other
professions, who gave up their Sunday leisure so
that factory hands might have an occasional day off.
|
E. W. (Bill)
Bache. |
In 1916 the firm became a private limited company.
The first directors were George Salter, who was also
Chairman and Managing Director, J. H. Birch and E.
W. (Bill) Bache.
In 1916 Mr. T. Sperring, who was
later in charge of the London office, joined the
Board, and in 1917 George Salter died at the age of
61. E. W. (Bill) Bache was now Chairman and
Managing Director. The other directors being J. H.
Birch, T. Sperring, and C. S. Bache, who was the
fourth son of the late William Bache of Churchill
House, West Bromwich.
He was also a solicitor and a
member of his father's firm of Wuilliam Bache & Sons. He
took over George Salter's role as a West Bromwich
alderman and was on the Town Council for 35 years.
He later received the Freedom of the Borough.
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C. S. Bache in 1913, when
he was mayor of West Bromwich.
Another family member, Captain J. E. K. Bache,
who had been severely wounded in the war, joined the
firm, becoming a director in 1918. A year later Mr.
J. H. Birch retired, and Sir Harris Spencer replaced
him as a director. He was also a director of the
Birmingham Railway and Carriage Works, Chairman of
John Brockhouse & Company Limited and Managing
Director of the Globe Tube Works, Wednesbury, which
had been founded by his uncle.
By this time the number of employees had risen to
1,150, but times were hard due to the post-war
recession which lasted for many years. New customers
for springs were car manufacturers including Rolls
Royce and Morris. Salters also started to
manufacture a new roller bearing, made of hardened
steel in spiral form, giving free and even
lubrication and flexibility.
In 1924 the ‘British Empire’ typewriter was
launched, in the hope of regaining the company's
dominance in the typewriter market. A new typewriter shop was built,
featuring the latest production techniques.
The Salter family's old home, Springfields, at
the top of Roebuck Lane, became the firm's
recreational centre and club house. There were rest rooms, changing
rooms, a refreshment room, a library, card rooms, a
table-tennis room, a shooting range, and a billiards room.
In
the grounds were cricket, football, and netball
pitches, a bowling green, three grass courts and two
hard tennis courts, with pavilions and dressing
rooms for each section.
The recreational centre was officially opened in
May 1928 by Miss Mary Salter and George and Tom
Salter's married sister, Mrs. Florence Elsworth. In March, 1929, the
Duke of York visited the
works, and went on to Springfields, where a
number of employees who had been with the firm for over 50
years were presented to him. In 1931 the Prince of
Wales, later Edward VIII, visited the factory.
The frontage on the south
side of High Street.
Also in 1931, Captain J. E. K. Bache died, as did
Sir Harris Spencer, in 1934. They were replaced by
two new directors, Eric Bache, a Solicitor and
Thomas William Bache, the eldest son of E. W. (Bill)
Bache.
|
cast-iron
kitchen scales. |
Luckily the firm managed to keep going during the
1930s recession thanks to the growth in the car and
aircraft industries, where there was a great
demand for springs. In 1936 typewriter production
ended and the typewriter was sold to a new West
Bromwich company, British Typewriters Limited.
Salters exhibited at several trade fairs in the
1930s, both in the UK and as far afield as Toronto,
Leipsig, and Utrecht.
At the time, Salter products
included balances and weighing
machines for all uses, testing
machines, for cement, foundry sand
and cotton, etc. A self-indicating rain gauge, a crane
safety-load indicator, precision springs, the
flexible spiral roller bearing, and pressure gauges.
Also agricultural machinery, including a milk-recorder,
which registered the quantity by weight, a bacon-pig weigher, an egg-grader and a poultry weigher.
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The company prospered, so much so that another
factory was built in 1936, on the opposite side of
High Street, known as North Building 'A'. It had
five storeys and was 80 ft. high. It was the highest building in the
town. The building was opened in August, 1936, by
Miss Mary Salter and her cousin Mrs. Florence Elsworth (sister of the late George and Tom Salter),
the last direct descendants of the Salter family.
The official opening of
North Works in August, 1936.
A second almost identical building, called
North Building 'B', was completed in 1940.
The "A" building was used for balance assembly
and a warehouse, while the "B" building was used
for the tool department, the experimental
department, and despatch. In the same year the
foundry was rebuilt. In 1948, the office and
die-shop were added, and baths were built in
1957. The main machine shop was updated in 1947
and in 1953 a factory extension was built at
Spring Road, Smethwick.
North Works in the late
1950s.
The location of North and
South Works.
At the outbreak of war in 1939, Salters were
again dependant on government contracts for
munitions etc. The factory worked day and night, seven
days a week and once again a team of volunteers from
other occupations, gave-up their Sunday leisure to
lend a hand. There were orders for around 750
million springs, for aircraft, tanks, guns, etc., as
well as shells, bombs, and grenades. The spring
balance was used for the weighing of shells in
ordnance factories, the weighing of rations in army
kitchens and ships' galleys, weighing stores in all
the services, and the weighing of agricultural
produce. Machines were supplied for testing rifles,
machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, torpedoes etc. and
roller bearings went into tanks, armoured cars, and
bulldozers. The gauge department received countless
orders from the Admiralty for gauges that tested the air tank used by parachutists,
and also in boats, and for testing tubes for
rockets, and bomb winches.
The firm had its own air raid precautions
section, organised by Thomas William Bache.
Right from the onset of war, Salters had a
fire-fighting unit, and small bands of
fire-watchers were on duty every night, well
before it became compulsory. In one air-raid in
November of 1940, the foundry in Spon Lane was
badly damaged, fortunately without casualties.
It wasn't as serious as it could have been
because that part of the works was already
scheduled for rebuilding.
Bomb damage at the Spon
Lane foundry.
The war put a considerable
strain on some of the older men. The Managing
Director, E. W. Bache, who hadn't had a holiday since
before the war, was often at the works seven days a
week, as well as being up at night for raids. It
took its toll, so much so that in August, 1943, he
suffered a stroke, and died in November that year.
He had been active among
industrialists in Birmingham and was involved with
many organisations and on many committees. He also
read lessons at
Holy Trinity Church and helped other family members
with bible classes. Both of his younger sons worked
at Salter's. Robert Salter Bache entered the
firm in 1928, and became a Director in 1940, and
John Kenneth Bache started at the works in 1937,
after taking a course in Engineering at Birmingham
University.
Kitchen scales.
In 1944, C. S. Bache became
Chairman and Managing Director of the firm. He was
also Chairman of British Typewriters Limited,
Vice-President of the National Union of
Manufacturers and a member of its Administrative
Council. He had been a member of West Bromwich Town Council since 1907, and
an alderman since 1917. In 1941 he was granted the
Freedom of the Borough for his services to the town.
He was also Chairman of the Education Committee and
the Town Planning Committee. In 1946 he was
succeeded as Managing Director by his son R. P. S.
Bache.
An advert from the mid
1950s.
|
Bathroom
scales. |
In November, 1945, the firm
celebrated the end of the war by a Gala evening held
at the Town Hall, which was attended by about 2,500
employees and their wives. In 1946, T. W. Bache resigned
his Directorship and left the firm, after purchasing the Pressure Gauge Department, which he
then ran as a
separate business. In the same year, John Kenneth
Bache became a Director. In 1952 two additional
Directors were appointed: Mr. P. P. C. Drabble and
Mr. N. R. Reaney.
On the death of Mr. C. S.
Bache, in 1956, his brother Eric Bache, succeeded him as Chairman of the Board.
R. P. S. Bache remains as Managing Director, and in
1957 was President of the BirIningham Chamber of
Commerce. In 1958 Mr. David Bramley
was appointed as a director. He was
also Head of the Department of
Industrial Administration at the
College of Technology, in Birmingham. |
In 1972, the company was purchased by Staveley
Industries Plc and split into separate
subsidiaries, including housewares and
industrial. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Staveley acquired more
businesses world-wide and formed a new 'weighing
group' including the Weigh-Tronix company of
America. In 1998, after a management buy-out, it became Weigh-Tronix
Corporation, with Salter Housewares as part of
it.
In 2002, the management team at Salter Housewares
Limited, bought the company from the group and
two years later it was sold to the US-based HoMedics
company, leaders in 'personal wellness'
products. The company closed the historic factory in West Bromwich and
moved production to
China. The site was then sold for redevelopment.
In 2013, the
factory North Building was demolished to make way
for the Eastern Gateway
project.
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