Wood Brothers
Wood Brothers of Lock Hill Foundry, later moving to Valley Ironworks, Sowerby Bridge, Yorks.
Successors to John Wood and Co (of Sowerby Bridge).
1845 Company established.
Cotton-spinning and engineering company founded at Lock Hill, Sowerby Bridge in 1847 (1845 according to Wood Bros advert). In 1850, John Wood took over the cotton-spinning business, and his brother Richard the engineering business. After a fire in 1880, the company moved to Valley Iron Works.[1]
1877 'Christening a Steam Engine. — Once more have to chronicle the successful mounting of a powerful engine by Messrs. Wood Brothers, Lock Hill Foundry, Sowerby Bridge. The order was received some time ago from Mr. Edward Evans, proprietor of the Aston Brook Flour Mill, and the engine has just been christened by Mr. Evans’s little daughter. The engine is a forty horse power one (nominal), but is guaranteed to two hundred horse power ; it has double cylinders (the high pressure weighing about 2 1/2 tons, and the low pressure five tons), with five feet stroke. The beam weighs over three tons; the fly wheel weighs eighteen tons, and makes (at ordinary speed) forty revolutions per minute.'[2]
1884 Partnership dissolved between Thomas Wood and Nathaniel Wood [3]
1886 Engine for Tottenham Borough (Markfield Road Station)[4]. This is now preserved and periodically runs on steam, and can be seen at Markfield Beam Engine and Museum.
Early 1900s: Made a triple-expansion engine for Rank's flour mill in Hull. It was moved to William Whiteley's mill at Sowerby Bridge. When the mill closed in 1937, the engine was moved to Firth Bros mill at Shepley, Yorkshire, where it drove a 360 kW alternator by ropes. It performed this duty for more than 25 years, when the mill's supplies were taken from the Grid. Cylinders 15", 22" & 34". Corliss valves.[5]
Made a vertical tandem compound engine for a mill in the Craggs Valley near Todmorden. Moved to John Stott and Sons' Der Street Mill in Todmorden in the 1920s, where it ran until the 1950s. HP cylinder 11", LP 22" bore. 280 HP.[6]
1905 Advert. Makers of high-class stationary engines. [7]
The volumes of George Watkins' photographs include eight Wood Bros engines in Yorkshire[8]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ [1] National Archives - Wood Brothers, engineers and millwrights of Valley Iron Works
- ↑ Halifax Courier, 3 November 1877
- ↑ Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, 9 February 1884
- ↑ The Steam Engine in Industry by George Watkins in two volumes. Moorland Publishing. 1978. ISBN 0-903485-65-6
- ↑ 'The Textile Mill Engine' by George Watkins, 1999, Part 2, Plate 38
- ↑ 'The Textile Mill Engine' by George Watkins, 1999, Part 2, Plate 42
- ↑ Mechanical World Year Book 1905. Published by Emmott and Co of Manchester. Advert p46
- ↑ 'Stationary Steam Engines of Great Britain: Volume 1: Yorkshire' by George Watkins: Landmark Publishing Ltd, 2000