Lilleshall Co
of St. Georges, Oakengates, Shropshire.
Lilleshall Company were mechanical engineers, coal and iron merchants, iron founders and manufacturers, and steel manufacturers. The company was noted for its winding, pumping and blast engines.
Note the distinction of the Lilleshall Iron and Steel Co, iron and steel manufacturer, whose name was sometimes abbreviated to the Lilleshall Company.
1764 Earl Gower formed a company to construct the Donnington Wood Canal on his Lilleshall estate, to exploit its coal, lime and ironstone resources[1].
1785 Large-scale iron-making began with a furnace at Donnington Wood constructed by William Reynolds and Joseph Rathbone on land leased from Earl Gower, on the north side of the Donnington Wood Canal. Gower contributed £2,000 to the enterprise[2].
1802 Company founded, replacing a partnership that had built several blast furnaces, which took over the works. This was the Lilleshall Company, in which the Marquess of Stafford' second son was partner with four local capitalists, John Bishton the elder, James Birch, John Onions, and William Phillips[3]
1807 The Snedshill ironworks, of which at least one furnace was managed by John Horton, was brought into the Lilleshall Company under a new partnership agreement[4].
c1830 Beam engine for the Lilleshall Co of Priors Lee pits; listed as made by St George's Ironworks [5].
1861 Associated with the Donnington Wood furnaces was the nearby Yard, comprising a foundry and small engineering shop. It closed in 1861 when the New Yard engineering works (sometimes called the Phoenix Foundry) opened at St George's, in Wrockwardine Wood township. This marked the development of the Lilleshall Company as a major engineering concern[6]
1862 Built an exhibition railway locomotive and then built a number for their own use and for local collieries. [7]
In the 1860s the company built 8 pairs of blowing engines for blast furnaces, numerous steam hammers and saddle tank railway locomotives. Machines capable of handling the largest castings were installed.[8]
1880 Lilleshall Co became a public company. The company was registered on 31 December. But Aberconway later said "The Company was a private one in which Lord Granville's family had large interests"[9].
1890 Lilleshall Iron Co Ltd was at Shifnal, and at St Georges, Wellington (mechanical engineers). Lilleshall Co Ltd was at St Georges, Wellington; Snedshill, Wellington, and Priors Lee, Shifnal(iron master and manufacturers) and Lilleshall, Newport (iron merchants); and at Snedshill, Wellington (iron founders, steel manufacturers)[10].
1895? Supplied vertical twin-cylinder winding engine for Rockingham Colliery.
1895 Operated as coal merchants at several places in the county and at Dudley.
1898 Horizontal Engine with gear drive for Metropolitan Water Board (Southfleet Station).
1900 Two engines for Borough of West Ham (Abbey Road).
1902 Installed a large compound blowing engine of their own manufacture at their Priors Lee Works. HP steam cylinder 42" dia., HP 70", two air cylinders 95" diameter, all 5 ft stroke. [11]
1908 Advert: Electrical Blowing Gas Engines, Large Powers[12]
1911 Built several large gas engines to work on producer gas[13]. Received a repeat order from William Roberts (Tipton) for a steam blowing engine[14]. Supplied 4 engines for a Mond Gas installation in Japan as part of a power station to supply the electric railways[15]
1912 Supplied pump for Kent Waterworks plant at Dartford[16]
1912 2130 HP Nuremberg-type gas engines for the railway power station, Kamata, near Yokohama.[17]
1923 Two Horizontal Rotative Engines for The West Cheshire Water Board (Prenton Station).
1929 - 1931 Three pumping engines supplied to Langford Pumping Station, Essex (see photo).
1951 Lilleshall Iron and Steel Co nationalised under the Iron and Steel Act; became part of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain[18]
1954 Lilleshall Iron and Steel Co denationalised; sold to Lilleshall Co[19].
1961 Structural and mechanical engineers, manufacturers of rolled steel products, glazed bricks, sanitaryware, Spectra-Glaze and concrete products. 750 employees. [20]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Aristocrats and the Industrial Revolution: The Leveson-Gowers by Judith Watkin
- ↑ Lilleshall: Economic history, in A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 11: Telford (1985), pp. 155-164. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=18111 Date accessed: 28 October 2010
- ↑ 'Lilleshall: Economic history', A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 11: Telford (1985), pp. 155-164 [1]
- ↑ 'Wombridge: Economic history', A History of the County of Shropshire: Volume 11: Telford (1985), pp. 291-296. [2]
- ↑ The Steam Engine in Industry by George Watkins in two volumes. Moorland Publishing. 1978. ISBN 0-903485-65-6
- ↑ The industrial archaeology of Shropshire, by Barrie Stuart Trinder, published by Phillimore, 1996
- ↑ British Steam Locomotive Builders by James W. Lowe. Published in 1975. ISBN 0-905100-816
- ↑ The industrial archaeology of Shropshire, by Barrie Stuart Trinder, published by Phillimore, 1996
- ↑ The Basic Industries of Great Britain by Aberconway: Chapter XX
- ↑ Kelly's Directory of Herefordshire & Shropshire, 1895
- ↑ 'The Engineer' 13th February 1902
- ↑ The Times, 9 December 1908; p.19
- ↑ The Times January 11, 1911
- ↑ The Times, March 8, 1911
- ↑ The Times, March 15, 1911
- ↑ The Times October 30, 1912
- ↑ Engineering 20th September 1912
- ↑ Hansard 19 February 1951
- ↑ The Times, 15 December 1954
- ↑ 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE