Eliza Street Ironworks
of Belfast
1850 Thomas A. Barnes and Co established the Belfast Ironworks in Eliza Street but this was not successful due to the cost of shipping coal to Ireland. Afterwards this became the property of the Belfast Iron Company.
1853 The principal in the works is Thomas M. Gladstone.[1]
1854 Mr. Hickson of the Eliza Street Iron Works [2]
1855 For sale. 'EXTENSIVE SALE OF STEAM-ENGINES, BOILERS, MACHINERY, STOCK IN TRADE. LARGE SLATED SHED, WEIGH-BRIDGE, OFFICE FURNITURE, &c. To be Sold by AUCTION, the ELIZA-STREET IRON WORKS, Belfast, without reserve, on WEDNESDAY, 7th November, 1855, and following days, at Eleven o’clock— ALL THE VALUABLE AND COSTLY MACHINERY and Stock in Trade, consisting of FOUR STEAM-ENGINES AND BOILERS; Paddled Bar Mill and Squeezer; Plate and Angle Iron Mills Tilt Hammer; Roll Taming Lathe; Shears; Drilling and Screwing Machines; large Wooden Cranes; great quantity of Cast Metal Rolls; Malleable Iron Plates and Bars; Cast Metal Plates; Scrap Iron and Metal; Brass; Metal Pump, with Gearing and Piping; a large and expensive SLATED SHED, 140 feet by 80, on 26 Cast Iron Columns, 15 feet high, suitable for Railway Station or Public Market; Fire and Common Bricks Platform Weigh-Bridge Office Furniture; Turret Clock; Smiths' Tools, and various other Utensils in Trade.'[3]
A secondary enterprise located on Queen's Island, the building of ships, prospered; the proprietors of this yard were Robert Hickson and Co until 1858.