Stanley Co
1772 Thomas Patten (1720-1806) (presumably this one although it might have been his father) established the Stanley Copper Works at St. Helens, on land 'adjacent to the Gerrard Coal wharf'. Apparently 30 tons per week were cast into brass and copper ingots.
By 1785 the copper works was under the ownership of a new consortium headed by Thomas Williams with Michael Hughes as manager, though Alexander Chorley was responsible for day to day operation. Corley died in 1803 and management of the copper works was taken over by William Morgan.[1]
Thomas Williams ran the Stanley Co as a separate company from the Mona Mine Co to smelt the ore from that mine. The works were near St Helens and also Middle bank works in Swansea.
A subsidiary manufacturing company called the Greenfield Copper and Brass Co was set up in Flintshire. This company took the copper from the Stanley works and reacted it with calamine to make brass. This was then used to make a wide variety of articles.
1785 Stanley Copper Works became the Stanley Smelting Co. The exact location of the copper works is not known, but it was close to the iron slitting mill and may have been situated on the track to Stanley Bank Farm. The source of the copper ore is thought to have been the Parys Mountain in Anglesey. Copper production had ceased by 1815. Note: The iron slitting mill was established in 1773 by a partnership of Alexander Chorley, Thomas Leech, John Postlethwaite and John Rigby, slitting iron from the furnaces at Carr Mill to the north of Stanley Bank.[2]
1787 The Stanley Co. operated the Middle Bank (or Plas Canol) Copper Works in Swansea from 1787 onwards[3].
1790 Copper ore had been mined at Ecton in the Manifold Valley from the mid-18th century. In 1790 Thomas Patten bought a tin-plate factory alongside the river at Oakamoor and developed a large copper works (Cheadle Copper and Brass Co). The Froghall to Uttoxeter canal was built in 1799-1811, linking Oakamoor to the Caldon Canal. The Cheadle Copper Co. thrived in the 19th century, specialising in copper wire. It finally closed in the 1960s.[4]
1802 Pascoe Grenfell was admitted as a shareholder of the Stanley smelting company
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ [1] 'An Archaeological Excavation at Stanley Bank, St Helens, Merseyside'. NGR SJ 538 972 March 2009, by M. Adams
- ↑ [2] Stanley Mill website
- ↑ Morgannwg, Vol. 23 1979 Enterprise and capital for non-ferrous metal smelting in Glamorgan, 1694-1924 [3]
- ↑ [4] Peak District Information - Oakamoor, Staffordshire
- Parys Underground Group [5]