Suffolk Iron Foundry (1920)
Louis Tibbenham established the Suffolk Iron Foundry in Stowmarket to service the local engineering industry with castings.
On a train trip to London, he met Mr Milne (of CS Milne) who was producing oxy-acetylene welding equipment and was told that ‘welding’ was a new process for engineers to join metals and would replace the traditional cast iron structures. Mr Milne wanted some ‘cast iron’ rods, which were duly produced by Sifbronze and proved to be very successful.
Louis Tibbenham investigated this “new” process further and developed a brass rod with the rather attractive additive of a few horseshoe nails. These innovations eventually led to a range of rods and also flux powder, which was initially sold via their sole agent The British Oxygen Co, who’s main interest was the supply of welding gases.
The name Sifbronze was created from the initials of the business (SIF) and it is assumed that ‘bronze’ sounded more upmarket than brass, hence the name Sifbronze. As the process was new to engineers, there was the need to pass on technical assistance and advice; this was done via a small leaflet ‘SIF TIPS’ which was freely circulated in the late 1920’s and mailed to all their customers (Sifbronze were now competing with BOC). Demon blowpipes and gas regulators were added to the range and Frank Tibbenham, the elder son of Louis, took on the responsibility in the business for Sifbronze.
Demand increased dramatically during WWII for the production of munitions and Halifax bombers. Suffolk Iron Foundry was also busy with the production of bomb trolleys and grenades etc.
After the War, the foundry moved into the production of mangles, mincers and lawn mowers, developing the famous Suffolk Punch mower and producing its petrol engine on site.
With the twists and turns of business, Suffolk Iron Foundry of which Sifbronze was a trading division, was purchased by Qualcast, who then formed a large public company Birmid Qualcast, with the acquisition of Birmetals and eventually becoming part of Blue Circle Cement. Then, in the 1980s, Sifbronze was taken private in an MBO led by Paddy Tibbenham, allowing Paddy and his team to concentrate on further developing the Sifbronze product range.
With the advent of TIG and MIG welding processes, the range of consumables was expanded further, especially with the introduction of SIFMIG shaved aluminium wire. Sales were still direct to the welder, but in the 1970’s distribution outlets were being formed and Sifbronze started to change its marketing policy in favour of selling via a network of distributors. There has been continuous development of the product range to meet changing market demands (Hilco electrodes, flux cored wire) and the purchase of Eurobraze added the GasFlux process and specialist products.
In 1975, Atco Mowers lawnmower production moved from the West Midlands to the Stowmarket site of Suffolk Iron Foundry (1920) Ltd
Sources of Information
- [1] WWS Group