Greenwood and Batley

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London 1891

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London 1891

Greenwood and Batley of Albion Works, Armley Road, Leeds were a large engineering manufacturer with a wide range of products, including armaments, electrical engineering, printing.

• 1856 Thomas Greenwood and John Batley first set up their business in 1856, both having previously worked at Fairburn’s Wellington Foundry in Leeds. Their first premises, the Albion Foundry, was taken over from Thomas W. Lord. The foundry was located on East Street by the River Aire (Aire & Calder Navigation), however this quickly became too small for their needs.

• 1859 They constructed the Albion Works

• 1863 Based at Albion Works

• 1876 Members of the Iron and Steel Institute visited their machine and tool making works

• 1878 Built a tramway locomotive for Brussels tramways

• 1885 The company branched out into Flour and Oil Milling Machinery as a result of the acquisition of the business of Joseph Whitham of the Perseverance Iron Works, Kirkstall Road, Leeds.

• 1888 Public company.

• 1888 The works covered eleven acres and employed around 1,600 men

• 1888 May. The 'Leeds' dynamo with 100 volts at 180 amps for electric lighting

• 1889 'Immense' concrete boring machine for Creusot Works

• 1890 A rail connection with the Great Northern Railway was installed to bring in raw materials and to deliver finished products.

• 1894 An early innovation was the installation of their own electricity generating station, completed in 1894. This allowed machine tools to be electrically driven rather than the traditional common shafts driven by steam. This development was to prove profitable in other ways, as the company was able to provide similar generator stations for both public supplies and industrial applications e.g. tramways, as one of its range of products.

• 1894 Royal Agricultural Show. Exhibitor of the 'Excel' pneumatic hammer.

• 1896 A further acquisition saw Greenwood and Batley take over Smith, Beacock and Tannett, Victoria Foundry, Water Lane, Leeds. This company were the successors to the Murray Round Foundry and were principally involved in the manufacture of Machine Tools.

• 1905 Advert for machine tools, oil mill machinery, dynamos and motors

• 1919 Advert for Shapers

• 1961 General engineers and tool and machine makers.

• 1960s The company became part of the Fairbairn-Lawson Group in the late 1960’s, however trading conditions were not favourable and in April 1980 the receivers were called in and 480 employees made redundant. The company was bought by Hunslet Holdings for £1.65M who continued to use the Greenbat name for their battery locomotives.

• By 1984 the work had been transferred to Jack Lane and the Albion Works were mothballed.

• In 1987 the site was sold and the works demolished

• Greenwood and Batley rapidly became a giant of a company, manufacturing an incredible range of products. Their primary business was military equipment both in terms of machinery to make armaments and the production of components such as bullets and shell cases. They also produced some of the first tanks in the First World War.

• By the turn of the century Greenwood and Batley offered the following products:-

• • Machine Tool Department: every description of General and Special machine tolls for Railway, Marine and General Engineers, including Hydraulic and other Forging and Stamping Machinery, Lathes, Punching, Shearing, Planing, Milling, Shaping, Drilling and Boring Machines. Bolt, Nut and Screw Machinery. Testing Machines for strength of Material. Wood Working Machinery.
  • Special Plants & Machinery for making Armour Plates, Ordnance, Gun Mountings and Ammunition: also for Small Arms Cartridges, Gunpowder, &c., and every description of War Material. Rolling Mills for Metal Coining, Presses and Minting Machinery.
  • Oil Mill Machinery Department: The “Albion,” “Leeds, “ and Anglo-American systems for Extraction of every kind of Vegetable Oil including Machinery for Preparing and Decorticating Seeds, Nuts &c. Presses for making Cattle Feeding Cakes, Seed and Grain Elevators and Warehousing machinery. Oil Refineries. Cotton and other Baling Presses.
  • Textile Machinery Department: Improved Patented Machines for Preparing and Spinning Waste Silk, China Grass, Rhea, Ramie, and other fibres. Whyte’s patent Cop Winding Machine.
  • Engineering Department: Frickart’s Improved Corliss Steam Engines, single compound and triple expansion of the largest powers, for driving Factories, Mills, Electrical Installations, &c. Sole Manufacturers of The Brayton Patent Oil Engine.
  • Electrical Department: all kinds of Dynamos and Motors for Lighting or Transmission of Power. Speciality: Motors for electrically driven Machine Tools &c. De Laval’s Patent Steam Turbine Motors, Turbine Dynamos, Turbine Pumps and Fans (for Great Britain and Colonies, China and Japan).
  • Ordnance Department: Manufacturers of all kinds of Military Small Arms Ammunition. Self-propelling Torpedoes (Whiteheads’s) for the Navy, and Horse Shoes for the British Government.
  • Printing and Sewing Machine Department: Patent Platen Printing Machines. Patent Boot Sewing Machines. Cloth Cutting Machines. Patent Boot Sewing Machines. Cloth Cutting Machines for Wholesale Clothiers, &c.

• Locomotive Building: In 1876 the company built an experimental compressed air tramcar. The vehicle was supplied by a 100 cubic foot reservoir filled at 1000psi. The outcome of this work is not known but lack of evidence would indicate it was not a success. Similarly, in 1878 a Loftus Perkins tramway locomotive built. This was fed by a water tube boiler nominally rated at 500psi. Again there is no evidence of its success.

• 1896 Leeds Corporation placed an order for 25 electric tramcars in 1896, and the vehicles entered service in 1897, however this work was not repeated.

• 1901. Listed as Railway Plant Contractors of Albion Works, Leeds

• 1920 September. Exhibited at the Machine Tool and Engineering Exhibition at Olympia with 20 kW turbo-generator suitable for lighting ships. Also showed an electric truck to carry 2 tons.

• 1927 Greenwood and Batley’s first successful venture into locomotive building occurred in July 1927 when five 4hp battery-electric narrow gauge locomotives were completed for Edmund Nuttall’s Mersey Tunnel contract. These locomotives proved very reliable and a total of 31 G&B locomotives were used on the Mersey Tunnel construction. Other work developed rapidly. In 1928, Flameproof locomotive were built for the Royal Navy and in 1929 the first export order was for seven, pantograph fitted locomotives for the Chinese Engineering and Mining Co Ltd.

• 1930 The first standard gauge locomotive was built for Luton Power Station. This was a 15hp design and was capable of hauling one hundred tons at 4 mph on the level. This locomotive is preserved at the Armley Mills Industrial Museum, Leeds. A standard gauge passenger-carrying vehicle was constructed in 1933 for use by the Royal Navy at Gosport. This locomotive used two 10hp motors and could run at 20mph up a 1 in 137 gradient. Other products for which they were well known was coke car locomotive for Gas Works and Coking Plants.

• 1960 Advert for electric mining locomotives

• In their short period of production, Greenwood & Batley built 1,367 electric locomotives which were exported around the world. This company deserves much better recognition for its achievements.

• 1988 Ceased trading after joining the Hunslet Group

• Engines. Exhibit at Armley Mill Museum

Sources of Information

• [1] Wikipedia
• The Engineer of 15th August 1876 p180
• The Engineer of 25th May 1888 p430
• The Engineer of 10th May 1889 p396
• The Engineer of 6th July 1894 p16
• The Engineer of 10th September 1920 p244
• White's Directory of Sheffield and Rotherham, 1901 p979
• British Steam Locomotive Builders by James W. Lowe. Published in 1975. ISBN 0-905100-816
• Mining Year Book 1960. Published by Walter E. Skinner. Advert p357
• Mechanical World Year Book 1905. Published by Emmott and Co of Manchester. Advert p377
• Mechanical World Year Book 1919. Published by Emmott and Co of Manchester. Advert p71
• Post Office London Trades Directory, 1891
• 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE