Midland Metal Spinning Co
of Tower Works, Wolverhampton. Telephone: 21673/4/5. Telegraphic Address: "Tower, Wolverhampton"
1919 Company founded. The company was founded by George Cadman, (who was then 65 years old), as a holloware company, in St. Mark's Street.
At some time they moved into the Tower and Fort Works in Pelham Street, presumably when the Clyno Engineering Co vacated them.
Midland Metal Spinners had two important brands: Presto and Tower. (It seems that the Tower brand name came from the name of the works and not the other way round, as Tower Works were so called in the 19th century).
The Presto brand was used by a subsidiary company, The National Pressure Cooking Co (England) Ltd, which occupied Fort Works; the parent company occupied Tower Works.
The Presto brand mainly made pressure cookers, coffee makers and singing kettles. Tower made every other sort of domestic holloware.
1937 Advert for untarnishable Towercrome Plate.
1937 Listed Exhibitor - British Industries Fair. Domestic Aluminium Hollow-ware. Towercrome Plate. Beautiful, inexpensive, untarnishable Plate, at prices all can afford to pay. (Stand No. A.510)
1950 Acquired by South Western Industrial and Water Corporation Ltd[1]
1950 Private company.
1953 London Aluminium Co and Midland Metal Spinning Co established a joint venture Midland Aerosols Ltd to manufacture and sell in Britain Aerosol products, a new type of pressure container, and provide a packaging service to users such as makers of drug, cosmetic and toiletry products. [2]
1955 South Western Industrial and Water Corporation recognised it was not a horizontal or vertical combine, nor an investment trust. It was thought better than it was split into 2 groups - Midland Aluminium Ltd and Staffordshire Potteries (Holdings) Ltd[3]. Midland Metal Spinning became part of Midland Aluminium
1961 Manufacturers of aluminium holloware, electric kettles, tea pots and other household articles. 1,000 employees. [4]
The company left Wolverhampton and moved to Wombourne.
1974 Parent company Midland Aluminium acquired by Tube Investments (TI)
The company became associated with Russell Hobbs. Other details of their history seem to have been lost.
1986 TI sold Russell Hobbs and Tower Housewares to Polly Peck[5]
1991 When Polly Peck collapsed, Russell Hobbs was sold to Pifco
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] Local History
- 1937 British Industries Fair Advert on outside rear cover.
- 1937 British Industries Fair Page 390