Patent Shaft Steel Works Ltd, Brunswick, Monway and Old Park Works, Wednesbury
- Ref No: BS-PS
- Repository: Sandwell Community History and Archives Service
- Date: 1800 - 1980
- Creator: Patent Shaft Steel Works
- Description: Minute books, accounts and other records of the Patent Shaft company, particularly photographs of its products and works, and records of its associate/subsidiary, the Willingsworth Iron Co. Ltd.
- Admin History: The Patent Shaft and Axletree Company was created c.1838 by a partnership formed to work the 1834 axle patent of James Hardy. Hardy was a non-conformist minister of religion, later an Anglican Clerk, who withdrew from the business in 1840.
The firm was based in a small ironworks in Wednesbury, taking over the Victoria Ironworks in 1852, having expanded into the railway fields. In 1854 it was bought by Thomas Walker, who had been a clerk under Hardy, then manager and a partner. The company was incorporated in February 1864, with its registered office at Brunswick Works. The general manager was Richard Williams, who had been employed since 1844. Directors included representatives of the Metropolitan Railway Carriage and Wagon Co Ltd and the Gloucester Wagon Co Ltd.
In 1889 the company re-registered to enable financial reconstruction following embezzlement by a company accountant. More financial difficulties followed when Thomas Eades Walker, who had succeeded his late father as chairman in 1888, had to retire in 1892 due to his own pending bankruptcy. However, the company's fortunes revivied under the influence of John Pierce Lacy (1839-1906) and F Dudley Docker (1862-1944).
By 1900 the works occupied 475 acres and employed around 4000 workers. There was another takeover in July 1902 by Docker's new conglomerate, the Metropolitan Amalgamated Railway Carriage and Wagon Co Ltd. The company now operated from three sites in Wednesbury: the Brunswick Works, Monway Works, and Old Park Works. Brunswick was the site of the wheel works and Monway manufactured boilers and structural steel. In the 1900s the Old Park site made Livesey-Gould pressed steel underframes and during the First World War also made tanks. Brunswick wheel works and Monway tyre works closed in 1920, and Old Park was sold outright to Metropolitan-Cammell in 1949.
Bridges built included Blackfriars Bridge, which was taken on with the takeover of Lloyds, Foster and Co and opened in 1869, Stourport built in 1870, and the world's first all-steel bridge over the Ganges at Benares in 1885. Bridge building had largely ceased by the outbreak of the Second World War and axel making stopped in 1949.
Betweeen 1951 and 1956 the company was nationalised and in 1959 was renamed Patent Shaft Steel Works Ltd. At this time the company was owned 75% by Cammell, Laird and 25% by Metropolitan-Cammell. By 1968 Cammell, Laird owned the entire firm. The company closed in June 1980. - Extent: 8 boxes and 70 volumes
- Level: Fonds
- Tags:
- For more information contact: Sandwell Archives
- Catalogue
