Thomas Utley and Co
Thomas Utley & Co. was a Foundry and engineering business based in Tuebrook, Liverpool which is remembered for its links with the Titanic.
1854 Thomas Utley was born in North Yorkshire but grew up in Liverpool where his father traded in livestock. He qualified as a naval architect and engineer.
1881 He registered a patent (together with his brother James) for an apparatus to improve ventilation for the ‘transport of cattle on sea going vessels’. Between 1881 and 1886 the the manufacture of these patent ship ventilators was outsourced to A B Fraser & Co. of Bootle.
1886 Having been awarded silver medals at the International Exhibitions at Tynemouth (1882), Falmouth (1883) and a gold medal at the Liverpool International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry in 1886, the company moved to premises in Silverdale Avenue, Tuebrook, Liverpool. Ventilators, ships’ sidelights and windows were made and new patents were taken out both to improve the ventilators and to combine them with the sidelights and windows. In 1891 the Silverdale Avenue Works were extended to accommodate larger orders.
1890 Orders were also regularly contracted out to John Roby, Rainhill including small fixing hardware, larger castings to be finished at Silverdale Avenue, patent ventilators and orders to Utley patterns using Utleys special metal mixture when required. In 1899 when Thomas Utley received an order for lights for the Royal Yacht ‘Victoria and Albert’, 60 of these were made at John Roby, Rainhill at the cost of 12s-8d each and a work book lists the names of the employees engaged in their manufacture. In 1906 Thomas Utley supplied sidelights for the Cunard liners Mauretania and the Lusitania and many orders marked for Cunard were supplied by John Roby, Rainhill to Thomas Utley & Co. In 1911/12 Thomas Utley & Co. worked on the White Star line ships Olympic and Titanic for Harland & Wolff. Thomas Utley was invited to travel on the Titanic but declined.
1927 Thomas Utley died at his home Sefton House, West Derby, Liverpool. His career had included membership of the Royal Society of Arts, the American Institute of Inventors and public service as a Liberal Councillor for West Derby Ward from 1900-1905. The business passed to his eldest son Thomas, also an engineer and naval architect.
1928 The existing arrangement with John Roby Ltd was formalised into an agreement allowing that, subject to mutually agreed prices, all orders for casting work required by Utleys for ships’ lights would be placed with John Roby Ltd and they would be asked to quote for all enquiries received by Utleys for ships’ lights. Thomas Roby (Director of John Roby Ltd) was elected a Director of Thomas Utley & Co Ltd and he received 500 shares in the company on payment of £500.
1930 Cunard placed an order for an Atlantic passenger liner with John Brown & Co. of Clydebank. Thomas Utley & Co. were awarded the contract to supply sidelights and windows but late in 1931 work on this ship (Yard No 534) stopped due to the depression and the project was left in limbo for over 2 years. A small part of the order was outsourced to John Roby Ltd but loss of the largest part left Thomas Utley & Co. on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1932 John Roby Ltd suggested continuing the manufacture of Utley Patent Sidelights at Rainhill.
1934 A new company Thomas Utley (Rainhill) Ltd was set up to make and supply Thomas Utley products. The Directors were the Directors of John Roby Ltd. A workshop at the Rainhill Foundry was set aside and Francis Utley (son of James Utley) transferred from Silverdale Avenue to Rainhill to supervise the transition. He continued to work there until his retirement in 1962. Thomas Utley was appointed as selling agent and worked from offices in Liverpool retaining exclusive rights over the design and sale of side scuttles and windows manufactured by Thomas Utley (Rainhill) Ltd and of other Utley patent products made under licence by John Roby Ltd. He also continued to run his own company: “Shipbuilding and Engineering Supply Company’. He went on to register new patents including one in 1950 for a window called the Tudah Patent Automatic Sliding Window. This window and other Utley designs and products continued to be made under licence in Rainhill. Well known ships resulting from this collaboration include Queen Mary (1934), Ark Royal (1937), Mauretania (1938), and Queen Elizabeth (1939).
1966 The agreement between the two companies was due to expire so they officially merged to form a new company Roby and Utley Ltd - ‘ships’ sidelights and window manufacturers, bell founders and engineers’. The Directors were T Roby, J B Roby, C J M Roby and Thomas Utley. The new company manufactured port lights for the QEII in 1967.
1973 All outstanding orders having been completed, the company ceased trading. The Rainhill site was sold for residential development. Thomas Utley died in 1975 but his youngest son, Thomas, continued in business as Lea & Utley, (renamed T M Utley Offshore Ltd in 1988) supplying oil rigs, manufacturing lamps and bells and providing specialist fittings for ships and super yachts. In 2006 when the Nomadic (the tender for Titanic) returned to Belfast this company made eight new port lights for its refurbishment.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Sources St Helens Archive Service where most of the records relating to the Roby Foundry (from the 1840s onwards) are held (reference RO/Roby Collection) National Museums Liverpool: Maritime Archives B/ROB/1/1-4 Sixty Years of the Liverpool Nautical Research Society 1938-1998 (Thomas Utley 1854-1927 and his Successors by Ken Tinkler.