Gimson and Co of Vulcan Works, Vulcan Street, Leicester.
1842 Company founded at Welford Road by the brothers Josiah Gimson and Benjamin Gimson who worked previously at Cort's foundry
Early products were braid machinery for the elastic web trade and they also advertised as brassfounders, millwrights and manufacturers of boot and shoe making machinery
1847 The business as millwrights of Josiah Gimson and Benjamin Gimson of Welford Road is reported as having failed [1]
1861 Employing 35 men and 50 boys [2]
1871 Employing 100 men and 44 boys [3]
In 1878 new works were built at Humberstone Road, Leicester, close to the Midland Railway. The building was designed by John Breedon Everard and is one of the earliest examples of the integration of iron foundry and engineering.
1881 Employing 270 men and one boy [4]
1880 A pair of Single-Cylinder Rotative beam Engines for South Staffordshire Waterworks (Hopwas Pumping Station). These engines are both preserved - one at Snibston Discovery Museum the other at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum
1885 Four engines for Burton-on-Trent Council for sewage pumping at Claymills Victorian Pumping Station.
1887 Gimsons were awarded the contract for the supply and erection of the four beam engines, complete with eight boilers and associated machinery, at the Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester built in 1891.
1891 Four beam engines pumping sewage at Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester
1892 Advert. [5]
1895 Steam engine at Snibston Discovery Museum (see photo). Worked at Chilprufe Manufacturing Co until 1967
1896 Private company. The company was registered on 4 September, to acquire the business of mechanical engineers of the firm of the same name. [6] Directors were Josiah Mentor Gimson, Arthur James Gimson, Sydney Ansell Gimson and Josiah Gimson.
1905-08 Produced the Atkey-Gimson commercial vehicles with A. R. Atkey and Co.[7]
1914 Engineers. Specialities: passenger and goods lifts, boot and shoe machinery and all classes of general engineering. Employees 700. [8]
1931 Presumably sold Gimson Shoe Machinery Co to British United Shoe Machinery Co[9]
1937 General engineers and ironfounders. [10]
1949 Gimson and Co (Leicester) Ltd.
1961 General engineers and ironfounders, producing bottling machinery, conveyors, electric goods and passenger lifts. 450 employees. [11]
1986 Moved to Beaumont Leys, Leicester
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The Leicester Chronicle: or, Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser, Saturday, November 13, 1847
- ↑ 1861 Census
- ↑ 1871 Census
- ↑ 1881 census
- ↑ Wright's Directory of Leicestershire, 1892
- ↑ The Stock Exchange Year Book 1908
- ↑ Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles. Edited by G. N. Georgano
- ↑ 1914 Whitakers Red Book
- ↑ The Times, Apr 13, 1932
- ↑ 1937 The Aeroplane Directory of the Aviation and Allied Industries
- ↑ 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
- The Steam Engine in Industry by George Watkins in two volumes. Moorland Publishing. 1978. ISBN 0-903485-65-6
- Stationary Steam Engines of Great Britain by George Watkins. Vol 10