ECONOMIC HISTORY.
Agriculture.
In 1086
Smethwick had land for two ploughs as against
Harborne with land for only one. (fn. 27) Although Harborne had emerged as the ecclesiastical centre by the
early 13th century, (fn. 28) economically and administratively Smethwick seems to have remained at least
as important even before the 19th century. (fn. 29) Mixed
farming was the main occupation there until the
19th century, though it was often combined with
other pursuits such as nailing and inn-keeping. (fn. 30)
Crops mentioned in probate inventories between
1647 and 1698 were wheat, rye, barley, oats, and
peas; several farmers were also engaged in cattle
and sheep farming. (fn. 31)
There seems to have been a common field called
Fenfield in the north-east of Smethwick. A furlong
of land in Fenfield is mentioned in 1575, but by
then other parts of it were inclosed pastures. (fn. 32)
Common rights in the wastes and woodland of
Smethwick seem to have survived the abandonment
of open-field cultivation. The lords of the manor
were apparently inclosing the waste piecemeal from
at least the 13th century: in 1278 Halesowen abbey
granted a piece of the Smethwick waste to the rectors
of Harborne. (fn. 33) Nevertheless there is some evidence
to suggest that the freeholders' consent was occasionally necessary before inclosure could take place.
In 1631 Christopher Lyddyat recalled that between
thirty and forty years earlier Lord Dudley, on
Lyddyat's petition 'and upon the suit of the freeholders of Smethwick', had granted him a plot of
land on the waste on Smethwick Common as the
site for a cottage. (fn. 34) Lyddyat's property, and therefore also that part of the waste known as Smethwick
Common, probably lay in the north or north-east of
Smethwick. (fn. 35) Parts of the waste were still uninclosed
in the 18th century, but the sparse evidence suggests
that they were small roadside areas. It also seems
likely that by then such areas were at the disposal
of the lord of the manor. 'A shop at the Swan' standing on the waste, apparently on the corner of Holly
Lane and the Birmingham-Dudley road, was leased
out by the lord for 99 years from 1733. (fn. 36) In 1771 the
lord leased a piece of common or waste, c. 1 a. in
extent and taken from Ruck of Stones Lane (now
Lewisham Road), to Luke Pope, a Smethwick
nurseryman, for 99 years; Pope covenanted to keep
the property fenced and to build a house there
worth at least £30. (fn. 37) In 1781 he bought the property
outright. (fn. 38)
Enfranchisement of copyhold land was in progress
by the beginning of the 18th century. In 1702
Charles Lane authorized the payment of £10 10s. to
the lord of Harborne and Smethwick for the enfranchisement of his Smethwick estate, (fn. 39) and in
1709 Thomas Pearsall paid £30 to enfranchise his
French Walls estate. After enfranchisement the
French Walls estate, formerly held for a chief rent
of 3s. a year, suit of court, fine, heriot, and fealty,
was to be held simply for the chief rent and suit
and service once a year when the owner was summoned. (fn. 40) Copyhold land still existed in 1809 when
the lord of Smethwick enfranchised Luke Pope's
property for £75, (fn. 41) but there was none left at the
end of the 19th century. (fn. 42)
There was still extensive agricultural land in the
mid 19th century, but by the early 1880s much of
it was being swallowed up in the development of
the town. Thus housing was then being built over the
Ruck of Stones farm in the north, and the site of the
farm-house became part of the Surrey Works. (fn. 43) The
Shireland area in the south-east was also being developed on farm-land. (fn. 44) The remaining agricultural
land was concentrated on the higher ground in the
south-west, with some also surviving in the north. (fn. 45)
Even where land was not actually built over, urbanization affected farming in other ways. New roads
split farms up. Canals, railways, and buildings often
made agricultural land difficult of access. Crops
were polluted by smoke. (fn. 46) By the early 20th century
even the farm-land in the south-west had shrunk
considerably, and there were more open spaces,
such as parks, playing-fields, and allotments, than
there was agricultural land. West Smethwick Park
in fact had been laid out over farm-land. (fn. 47) The area
added to Smethwick from Oldbury in 1928 was
partly rural, but it was quickly used for housing. (fn. 48)
A patch of farm-land survived in the northern
extremity of the borough off Halford's Lane until
c. 1950 when it was bought by the corporation as the site of Albion School. (fn. 49) Three plots of agricultural land, however, remained in the early 1950s,
one in the south-west and two in the north-west;
one was a small-holding, one supported a small
dairy herd, and the third was used as a hospital
vegetable garden. (fn. 50)
Smethwick once had several tracts of woodland,
consisting mainly of oaks, birches, and beeches. (fn. 51)
The two largest areas of woodland lay in the south
and east of the township. In the south Lightwood,
which lay on either side of the boundary with Harborne township, was held by the lord of the manor
in the mid 16th century when it was also known as
'Yonge Wood'. (fn. 52) The Smethwick portion was acquired by the Lytteltons of Frankley and Hagley
(Worcs.), probably in the later 16th century when
Sir John Lyttelton was steward of the manor and
a trustee of Edward, Lord Dudley (d. 1586); (fn. 53) by
1658 it was owned by Sir Henry Lyttelton, (fn. 54) and it
was still an extensive area of woodland c. 1770. (fn. 55)
The Harborne section was retained by the lord of
the manor. By the early 18th century it was known
as Great Lightwood or Lords Wood, and it was
customary for it to be coppiced; the neighbouring
inhabitants of Smethwick and Harborne, however,
had common rights there. They appear to have
surrendered those rights in 1709 to George Birch
of Harborne, who had recently bought Great Lightwood from the lord of the manor. (fn. 56) Bearwood, the
area immediately to the north of Lightwood, was a
well wooded area during the 18th century. The
Aston family of Aston in Runcorn (Ches.) owned
woods and coppices there by 1712, and in 1792
Henry Hervey Aston sold c. 14 a. of coppices to the
lords of Smethwick manor. (fn. 57) In the east of Smethwick land on both sides of the main road (now Cape
Hill) was once well wooded. 'A little wood' on
either side of the road was mentioned in 1675, and
there was still extensive woodland to the north of
the road a century later. (fn. 58) The memory at least of
its former wooded character was preserved by the
names of the houses which had been built there by
the early 19th century: the Coppice, Smethwick
Grove, and the Woodlands. (fn. 59) To the south of the
main road in the Shireland area there was a coppice
containing 236 oaks and 2 ashes in 1782, (fn. 60) and
woodland survived there as late as the 1850s. (fn. 61)
Until the 19th century there was also woodland
in the Uplands and Broomfield districts and at West
Smethwick. (fn. 62)
Felling was in progress in the later 18th century.
A coppice near the Bear inn at Bearwood was cut in
1765 to create new arable. (fn. 63) In 1769 William Hutton,
the historian of Birmingham, bought 13 a. of land in
Smethwick from the lord of the manor and sold
the timber for half the purchase price of the land. (fn. 64)
By 1842 most of the timber in the Cape Hill area
had evidently disappeared, although the Smethwick
Grove estate still included 4 a. of woodland. (fn. 65) In
the mid 19th century there was extensive felling,
and oaks from the Uplands and Broomfield areas
were sold to railway contractors. (fn. 66)
Luke Pope of Smethwick founded a notable
firm of nurserymen specializing in tulips and later
in North American shrubs and plants. He was successively described as gardener, seedsman, and
nurseryman during the late 18th and early 19th
centuries when he was buying up various small
copyhold estates in Smethwick. By 1771 he had
established nurseries in the north-east of Smethwick near the Ruck of Stones farm, and by the mid
19th century the firm, then known as John Pope &
Sons, also had nurseries in the adjacent parts of
Handsworth and West Bromwich. (fn. 67)
Mills.
Halesowen abbey had a mill at Smethwick
in 1499; it was known as 'Briddismylne' and was
held by Richard Piddock. (fn. 68) It may be identifiable
with the mill which stood on Thimblemill Brook
below the Old Church and which disappeared when
the Birmingham Canal Co. built a reservoir there
c. 1769; in 1778 the company was paying rates on
the Old Pool and Mill Croft. (fn. 69) That mill may itself
be identifiable with the walk-mill which stood in the
area in the mid 17th century. (fn. 70)
By 1659 there was a mill on Hockley Brook where
it formed the Smethwick-Handsworth boundary.
The mill may at that time have stood on the Handsworth side of the boundary, but a map of 1831-2
shows a mill on the Smethwick side. In 1659 the
mill belonged to a Mr. Lane, probably Charles
Lane of Smethwick Hall; a blade-mill had then
been newly erected beside Lane's old corn-mill.
At the beginning of the 18th century the mill was
part of the Smethwick estate sold by John Willes to
Henry Carver. (fn. 71) It was apparently not in use in
1733, (fn. 72) but in the 1720s and 1750s it was shown on
maps as the Pig Mill. (fn. 73) The name, which was in
use apparently in the mid 17th century and probably
by the late 16th century, (fn. 74) suggests that the mill had been used as an ironworks. In the 1760s and the
early 19th century it seems to have been worked as
a forge. Between 1821 and 1826 John Whitehead
bought the mill with a farm called Pig Mill farm
from A. S. Lillingston. It was probably dismantled
in the early 1830s. (fn. 75)
The mill which gave Thimblemill Brook its
name stood on the brook near what is now the junction of Thimblemill Road and Norman Road, in
the part of Oldbury that was acquired by Smethwick in 1928. (fn. 76) It probably began as a corn-mill
and was later converted to thimble-making. It was
known as the Thimble Mill by 1775. By 1837,
however, it was being used by W. W. Blyth for the
cutting of files by machinery, a pioneer venture that
resulted from the patent taken out in 1833 by William Shilton of Birmingham. William Summerton
moved to the Thimble Mill from Oldbury mill in
1845 and used it as a corn-mill. He remained there
about nine years and then moved to a new mill
which he had built in Bearwood nearly opposite the
Bear inn. The Thimble Mill was still standing in
the late 1880s, and the pool survives as part of a
recreation and sports ground for the employees of
Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds.
William Croxall, a miller, bought land in what is
now Windmill Lane in 1803 and built a windmill
there. (fn. 77) His son Samuel had succeeded him by 1818
and was still working the windmill in 1838. By 1851
it was in the hands of Joseph and Frederick Lees. It
continued as a corn-mill until the 1860s; it then
went out of use, except for a few months c. 1873
when it was used to grind spice. When the site
became part of the Windmill Brewery, built in 1886,
the machinery was dismantled and the tower became a storehouse. It was demolished in 1949.
In 1949 an old man recalled the existence of a
second windmill opposite the toll-house at the junction of Windmill Lane and Cape Hill. It may perhaps
have been the mill in 'Cape Road' that occurs in
1836. (fn. 78)
The metal trades.
It was the cutting of the
Birmingham Canal in 1768-9 that eventually
brought manufacturing industry to Smethwick; the
firms which from the late 18th century set up works
along its banks were concerned mainly with metalworking, which has ever since played a predominant role in the town's economy. The primary
production of metals from ores has never been of
any significance, but many forms of engineering
have flourished. In the early 1870s Smethwick and
Dudley Port, 'with a thousand swarming hives of
metallurgical industries . . . too numerous to mention', were contrasted with other Black Country
towns which specialized in one or two specific types
of metalware. (fn. 79) Such variety remains.
Nailers were working at Smethwick c. 1600 (fn. 80) and
are found regularly, though not in great numbers, in
the later 17th century and throughout the 18th
century. (fn. 81) As late as 1850 it was stated that the
population included many nailers, 'working in their
own houses', (fn. 82) but by then nailing was declining
as a domestic industry. In 1851 only 37 people described themselves as nailers, and of those at least
12 were factory hands producing cut- or cast-nails. (fn. 83)
Men and women who did not consider themselves
nailers by trade may, however, have turned to nailing from time to time to supplement the family's
income. (fn. 84) From the later 17th century other metalworkers appear. Samuel Jervase (d. 1675) worked as
a whitesmith, but his probate inventory does not
reveal what he made; another whitesmith, William
Smith (d. 1687), made malt mills and, apparently,
bellows, sending them as far as London. George
Birch (d. 1698) was a yeoman whose will and probate inventory show that he possessed 'shop tools'
to the value of £16 and that he was owed money by
a Birmingham gunsmith. He may have been an early
supplier of components to the Birmingham gun
trade; he may also have been the George Birch who
was described in 1691 as a nailer. (fn. 85) Smethwick was
certainly connected with the gun trade, though
apparently in a small way. A gunsmith, John Freeth,
was at work there by 1706, and another, William
Smith, occurs in 1729. (fn. 86) The first engineering works
to be established after the cutting of the Birmingham Canal was probably the Whately family's gunbarrel factory, established by c. 1800. (fn. 87)
The first works of any kind, however, was the
brasshouse from which Brasshouse Lane takes its
name. It had been established near the canal by
1790 on a site occupied in 1972 by part of the works
of the District Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. (fn. 88) Shares in
Smethwick Brass Works were on sale in 1792 and
1795; in 1834 the proprietor was the Smethwick
Brass Co., manufacturer of ingot brass. (fn. 89) The company was probably formed, like the Birmingham
Metal Co. of 1781, by Birmingham brass users
anxious to break the virtual monopoly of supply
held by the Cheadle and Bristol brasshouses; (fn. 90) it is
perhaps to be identified with the 'Brass Company' which paid rates on a house at Bearwood Hill in
1778. (fn. 91) Its later history is obscure, but it had apparently gone out of business by 1842, when the
District Iron and Steel Co. held its former premises.
The building was still standing in the 1860s. (fn. 92)
In 1795 Boulton, Watt & Sons, faced with difficulties in obtaining the components for their engines,
decided to manufacture them themselves. (fn. 93) James
Watt bought 18½ a. by the canal at Merry Hill, about
a mile from the firm's Soho Manufactory in Handsworth; in 1796 the firm opened Soho Foundry there
'for the purpose of casting everything relating to
our steam engines'. (fn. 94) Watt owned the land until
1801 but otherwise took no part in the new enterprise, its development being the work of Matthew
Boulton's son M. R. Boulton and James Watt the
younger. The site was carefully chosen, and the
buildings were meticulously planned with the requirements of the various processes in mind. In
1799-1800 they comprised foundry stoves and furnaces, a boring mill, turning-, fitting-, carpenters',
smiths', and pattern shops, a boiling-house, a magazine, a shed for sand, a drying-kiln, and 13 workers'
houses. (fn. 95) Stebbing Shaw noted the extensive use of
steam-power for 'whatever tends to abridge human
labour and obtain accuracy' and was struck by 'the
extraordinary regularity and neatness which pervades the whole'. (fn. 96) In 1800 the firm became Boulton, Watt & Co., with M. R. Boulton and James
Watt the younger as the leading partners. In 1816
the latter bought the French Walls mill and in 1820
leased it to Henry Downing, lending him the money
necessary to convert it into an ironworks. Downing
went bankrupt in 1829. Watt then leased the property to the Bordesley Steel Co., which was still
running it in the mid 1830s, but he evidently appreciated the potential advantages to his firm of
an ironworks under his direct control. He took the
French Walls Works into his own hands and ran it
in conjunction with the Foundry, though as a
separate concern, until old age forced him to give
it up in 1842. The French Walls provided the
Foundry with boiler plates and uses (semi-finished
forgings for engines) as well as turning out merchant
iron and steel. Scrap from the Foundry was returned
to the French Walls for reworking. (fn. 97)
On the younger Watt's death in 1848 the Soho
Manufactory and the mint which Matthew Boulton
had established there were closed, and the firm,
thenceforth known as James Watt & Co., carried
on work only at Soho Foundry. By the 1860s the
Foundry covered 10 a. and besides a variety of
steam-engines its output included boilers, mill
gearing, sugar mills, and machinery for pneumatic
railways and sewage works. Perhaps the most notable product after the younger Watt's death was the
4-cylinder engine which powered the screw of
Brunel's Great Eastern, launched in 1858. (fn. 98) In 1860
a former interest of the firm was revived when a
mint was opened at the Foundry, and much of the
country's new bronze coinage introduced in 1860
was struck by James Watt & Co. and the Birmingham firm of Ralph Heaton & Sons. In 1866 there
were eleven screw coinage presses at the Foundry
mint and the firm was striking copper and bronze
coins, presumably for foreign governments since
it appears to have done no work for the Royal Mint
after 1863. (fn. 99)
Several firms engaged in engineering and metalworking were established in the town in the mid
19th century. The most important in the 1840s and
early 1850s was Bramah, Fox & Co., later Fox,
Henderson & Co., of the London Works in Cranford Street. The firm was established in 1839 by
Charles Fox, an engineer who had acted as one of
Robert Stephenson's principal assistants during the
construction of the London and Birmingham Railway, and John Joseph Bramah, one of a notable
family of engineers and iron-founders. (fn. 1) The partners acquired 5 a. of the Moilliets' Smethwick
Grove estate and in 1840 began the erection of their
works. (fn. 2) It was apparently in operation by 1841. (fn. 3)
Fox, although initially the junior partner, was probably from the first its leading figure; it was he who
designed the works and supervised its construction. (fn. 4)
By 1845 Bramah had retired from the business, Fox
had been joined by John Henderson, a Scottish
engineer, and the firm had become Fox, Henderson
& Co. (fn. 5) Fox's experience as a railway engineer led
him to invent various improvements to railway
permanent way, and his firm was the first to produce
a virtually complete range of railway plant and
stock. There was, however, much other business:
products c. 1850 included wrought-iron pipes,
steam-engines, boilers, gasometers, and tanks for
ships. (fn. 6) Fox, Henderson & Co. became one of the most celebrated firms of civil engineers in the
country as a result of its work for Joseph Paxton's
Crystal Palace. Fox produced the working drawings
for Paxton, who also made a major addition to his
original plan at Henderson's suggestion. The firm
was the contractor for erecting the palace and made
most of its iron work. Fox supervised the construction of the building and was knighted in 1851 for
his contribution towards the Exhibition. He and
Henderson were also the contractors for the removal of the palace to Sydenham. (fn. 7) Fox and Henderson's experience with William (later Sir William)
Siemens, inventor of the regenerative furnace, was
less satisfactory. In 1848 Siemens, then a young man,
interested the partners in one of his early inventions,
a regenerative steam-engine and condenser. The
firm employed him and bought patent rights in the
invention, and for some five years attempts were
made to build engines to Siemens's specifications.
None was successful. Siemens himself profited
greatly from his years at the London Works; Fox
and Henderson, however, began to recoup their losses
only when he persuaded them to interest themselves
in the electric-telegraph equipment patented by his
brother Werner, thereby helping them to win large
telegraph contracts. (fn. 8)
In 1850 the London Works was described as 'the
finest and most compact range of [industrial] buildings in South Staffordshire'. It had been expanded
to form a hollow square, in the centre of which
stood the boiler-house with its two 75 h.p. engines.
The smiths' shop contained 70 forges and was
stated to be the largest in the world. The firm was
then producing about 300 tons of castings a week
and usually had between 800 and 1,200 men
working at Smethwick. At the height of its success
it was the town's principal employer of labour, and
when it failed in 1856 some 2,000 people were
thrown out of work. (fn. 9) The crash apparently came
because it could not obtain payment for one of its
numerous foreign contracts. Its creditors attempted to keep the works going but were unsuccessful. (fn. 10)
The French Walls Works was bought in 1842
by G. F. Muntz, notable as the inventor of the alloy
of copper and zinc which came to be known as
Muntz metal. (fn. 11) He moved to Smethwick because
the demand for his product was outstripping the
capacity of his works in Birmingham. The 4½-acre
French Walls site soon became inadequate for his
needs, and c. 1850 a further 6½ a. were acquired
to the west, divided from the original site by the
Birmingham, Wolverhampton & Stour Valley Railway, authorized in 1846 and completed in 1852. A
new works was built there and a private bridge over
the railway linked the 'Old Side Works' and the
'New Side Works'. After Muntz's death in 1857 the
business was carried on for several years by his
eldest son, G. F. Muntz the younger, who in 1864
sold it to the newly formed Muntz's Metal Co. Ltd.
Tube-making was apparently brought to the
town by George Selby, a lawyer and a partner in a
tube-manufacturing concern, the Birmingham
Patent Iron and Brass Tube Co., established in
1842. In 1846 he bought Smethwick Grove and
some adjoining land and shortly afterwards erected
a tube-works near the house for the company. It
lay in the angle between the present London Street
and Grove Lane and had a frontage on the Cape
arm of the Birmingham Canal to the east. (fn. 12) The
works was in production by 1851. The company was
still in operation on the same site in the 1880s, when
it was making lap-welded iron and steel boiler tubes,
solid-drawn brass and copper tubes, tubes and fittings for gas, steam, and water purposes, and brass
and copper sheets. The company probably ceased
operations in the late 1880s, and by 1903 the works
had become part of the St. George's Works of
Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds. (fn. 13)
The tube-making firm of Richard Evered & Son
(since 1874 Evered & Co. Ltd.) came to Smethwick
in 1866. (fn. 14) It had been established in London in 1809
and had acquired a factory at Birmingham in 1860.
When a third and larger works was needed, the firm
took a three-storey factory in Smethwick known as
the Manchester Works, which stood between
Lewisham Road and the old Birmingham Canal on
part of the former Ruck of Stones estate. The
building was adapted and renamed the Surrey
Works. Many types of brass tubes and fittings were
produced, but brass bedsteads became the speciality.
In 1885 the firm added more workshops for bedstead manufacture. A cot department was added in
1894. In 1908 Evereds were making gas, water, and
electric fittings, brass and copper tubes, and 'general
brass-foundry of every description' as well as cots
and bedsteads. (fn. 15) Between the two World Wars the
firm concentrated all its production at Smethwick
and the Surrey Works was considerably extended.
In the late 1960s the firm made non-ferrous tubes
and strips, gas and water fittings, builders' hardware, plastic mouldings, and plumbers' brassfoundry. There were c. 1,000 employees. (fn. 16)
Several other firms in Smethwick were engaged in the metal-bedstead trade, which had become a
speciality of manufacturers in the Birmingham area
by the 1840s. In 1869 two companies, Thomas and
James Middleton of the Victoria Iron Foundry in
Rolfe Street and Solomon Cross & Co. of High
Street, specialized in iron bedsteads. By the mid
1900s at least four firms, including Evereds, were
making them. (fn. 17) In the early 1920s three firms were
manufacturing bedsteads, and Evereds were still
producing them after the Second World War. (fn. 18) A
number of other firms contributed to the trade by
supplying components and material. Items such as
tubes, angles, and brass mounts were generally
bought by bedstead firms from specialist suppliers
such as the District Iron and Steel Co., which until
c. 1930 made tubes for bedsteads and was still a
prominent supplier of light angles for the bedstead
trade in the late 1960s. Earlier another Smethwick
manufacturer, H. S. Richards, had made black
enamel for bedsteads. (fn. 19)
Railway engineering continued to play an important part in the industrial life of the town after the
collapse of Fox, Henderson & Co. A number of firms
produced components for locomotives, rolling-stock,
and permanent way. In 1869, for example, the output of the Birmingham Patent Iron and Brass
Tube Co. of London Street included tubes for
locomotive boilers; T. F. Griffiths, Son & Co. of the
Midland Nut and Bolt Works, Soho, advertised railway fish and fang bolts; the Patent Rivet Co. of
Rolfe Street made nuts, bolts, screws, rivets, and
pins for railway use; and William Baines & Co. of
Soho made turntables and other railway plant. (fn. 20) An
important supplier of railway ironwork was the firm
established in Rolfe Street in 1870 as Lones, Raybould & Vernon. By 1872 it had become Lones,
Vernon & Holden, and by 1876 it had opened its
Sandwell Works on the Birmingham Canal off
Lewisham Road, to which all its business had been
transferred by 1880. Its speciality was axles. (fn. 21) It
was taken over by John Brockhouse & Co. Ltd. of
West Bromwich in 1919 and at the end of the Second
World War was producing annually some 60,000
buffers and other carriage and wagon ironwork. It
ceased production in 1958. (fn. 22)
The Birmingham Wagon Co. Ltd., which came to
Smethwick in 1864 and became one of the most important employers in the town, was, unlike the firms
already mentioned, completely dependent on the
railways. (fn. 23) It had been launched ten years earlier
by a group of Birmingham businessmen who were
the first people to appreciate the potential market
open to a company offering railway wagons for hire
as well as for sale. At first the company had its
wagons built and maintained for it at Saltley, in
Aston (Warws., now Birmingham). The success
of its scheme eventually prompted it to build its
own wagons. A 10-acre site was purchased in
Smethwick on the south side of the Birmingham,
Wolverhampton & Dudley Railway, adjoining the
Handsworth boundary, and in 1864 a small works was
built. The business expanded rapidly. Railway carriages too were made from 1876 and tram-cars from
about the same date; the company therefore changed
its name in 1878 to the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon Co. Ltd. Between the later 1880s
and 1902 the works was extended over the Handsworth boundary; later it filled the area between
the railway, and Middlemore, Mornington, and
Wattville Roads. (fn. 24) By the last decades of the 19th
century the firm had become one of the country's
leading manufacturers of rolling-stock, a position
that it maintained until after the Second World
War. In 1963 the works, which covered 56 a., was
closed. The site was redeveloped as the Middlemore
Industrial Estate, opened in 1966; the parent company became the First National Finance Corporation Ltd. in 1965.
Another substantial concern which moved to the
town in the mid 19th century was the Birmingham
firm of Tangye Bros. & Price, which made hydraulic
presses and jacks. In 1862 it purchased Rabone
Hall and its grounds, which lay on the north side
of the Birmingham Canal. The company demolished
the house and built the Cornwall Works, initially
covering some 3 a. (fn. 25) It was opened in 1864 and
most of the company's production was immediately
transferred there. (fn. 26) The firm became Tangye Bros.
in 1871 and Tangyes Ltd. in 1881. (fn. 27) It retained and
extended its interest in hydraulic engineering, for
which it was always best known, but it later entered
other fields, including the manufacture of steam,
gas, petrol, and oil engines. (fn. 28) The works was
gradually enlarged until by 1950 it covered 20 a. (fn. 29)
In 1966 the firm became a subsidiary of the Central
Wagon Co. Ltd. of Wigan (Lancs.), and in 1969 it
moved to Greet, in Birmingham (formerly in
Yardley, Worcs.). The Cornwall Works was taken
over by the steel-stockholding firm of R. G. Brown
& Co. Ltd., another subsidiary of the Central
Wagon Co. (fn. 30)
During the later 19th century the manufacture of
nuts, bolts, and screws became the town's most important industry and Smethwick emerged as one of the country's leading centres of the trade. The
development was due almost entirely to the work
of two firms, Watkins & Keen and Nettlefold &
Chamberlain, ancestors of the present G.K.N. group
of companies.
In the mid 1850s (fn. 31) Frederick Watkins and Arthur
Keen entered into partnership as nut and bolt manufacturers. Watkins was working for Thomas Astbury
of the Smethwick Foundry in Rolfe Street, a prominent iron-founder and ordnance manufacturer.
He had designed a machine for making nuts and
bolts but lacked the capital to establish himself in
business. Astbury was Keen's father-in-law; he
negotiated the partnership and provided capital and
premises. (fn. 32) The new firm, Watkins & Keen, apparently began business in Astbury's Victoria Works
in Rolfe Street adjoining his Smethwick Foundry. (fn. 33)
By 1860, however, it appears to have been jointly
occupying the London Works with Thomas Astbury
& Co.; (fn. 34) by 1869 it occupied the whole works. (fn. 35) By
the early 1860s Watkins & Keen produced about a
third of the nuts and bolts made in the Midlands,
itself the country's main area of manufacture. The
company's chief competitor was probably Weston &
Grice of West Bromwich, but in 1864 the two companies merged as the Patent Nut and Bolt Co. Ltd.,
the first public company in the industry; its headquarters was at Smethwick, and Keen became its
first chairman. At the same time the company acquired an ironworks at Cwmbran (Mon.) and was
thus able to produce its own iron. In 1900 it amalgamated with a large iron-founding company,
Guest & Co. of the Dowlais Iron Works, Dowlais
(Glam.), to form Guest, Keen & Co. Ltd. (fn. 36)
From 1870 Keen had made attempts to acquire
another Smethwick firm. (fn. 37) In 1854 J. S. Nettlefold,
a Birmingham screw manufacturer, had revolutionized his industry by introducing automated
American machinery. Room was needed to house
this; Nettlefold, joined by his brother-in-law Joseph
Chamberlain, father of the statesman, established
the Heath Street Works in Cranford Street, Smethwick. (fn. 38) The firm (until 1874 Nettlefold & Chamberlain and then Nettlefolds Ltd.) dominated the
market by the mid 1860s. (fn. 39) Among those prominent
in its development was the younger Joseph Chamberlain, who joined it in 1854 and soon afterwards
took charge of the commercial side of the organization. He became a partner in 1869 and remained
with the firm until 1874, when he retired to devote
himself to politics. (fn. 40) The firm had by then begun
to acquire additional premises. In 1869 it bought the
Imperial Mills, which stood on the north side of
Cranford Street, opposite the Heath Street Works.
The mills were converted for the manufacture of
nuts and bolts, and a wire-drawing mill, a bar shop,
and a nail-making shop were built. (fn. 41) In 1880, the
year in which it became a limited company, Nettlefolds took over one of its local rivals, the Birmingham Screw Co., which had set up its St. George's
Works in Grove Lane in 1868. The newly acquired
works was almost as large as the Heath Street Works
and faced it from the opposite bank of the Birmingham Canal. (fn. 42)
Although the firm continued to expand, its profits
fluctuated considerably during the last twenty years
of the 19th century, and in 1902 the merger for
which Arthur Keen had been working took place:
Nettlefolds joined Guest, Keen & Co. to form Guest,
Keen & Nettlefolds Ltd. By the outbreak of the
First World War the new company produced over
half the screws and about a quarter of the nuts and
bolts made in the country. (fn. 43) The amalgamation
made the firm the largest employer in the town. (fn. 44)
In the late 1960s the headquarters of Guest, Keen
& Nettlefolds Ltd., by then an investment company,
adjoined the Heath Street Works, a 50-acre complex
run by G.K.N. Screws and Fasteners Ltd. and
employing some 4,500 people. G.K.N. had several
other subsidiaries in Smethwick. G.K.N. Distributors Ltd. had its headquarters at the London Works,
while G.K.N. Group Services Ltd. was in Cranford Street, G.K.N. Reinforcements Ltd. in Alma
Street, and G.K.N. Fasteners Corrosion Laboratory in Abberley Street. (fn. 45) Smethwick Drop Forgings Ltd. of Rolfe Street, acquired by G.K.N. in
1963, was run as a subsidiary of G.K.N. Forgings
Ltd. (fn. 46)
Since the 1890s much of Smethwick's industry
has changed to adapt to new needs and developments, and a few prominent names have disappeared. The most notable name to be lost was that
of James Watt & Co. of Soho Foundry. By the
1890s the few remaining partners in the firm were
old, and they decided to sell the business. It was
bought in 1895 by W. & T. Avery Ltd., a Birmingham firm which made weighing-machinery. Watt's
steam-engine business was gradually discontinued and Averys converted the works to their own manufacture. An extensive building programme was also
begun. By 1914 Averys had more than doubled the
size of the works, and between the two World Wars
there was extensive redevelopment. In the late
1960s W. & T. Avery Ltd. was the largest manufacturer of weighing, counting, measuring, and testing machines in the world; its products ranged from
shop scales to weighbridges. The Foundry was also
the headquarters of Averys Ltd., a holding company
of which W. & T. Avery Ltd. was a subsidiary. (fn. 47)
Muntz's has also disappeared. In 1921 the firm
was taken over by a Birmingham non-ferrous metal
company which in its turn became part of Imperial
Chemical Industries Ltd. in 1928. The manufacture of non-ferrous metals at the French Walls
Works ceased in 1932. In 1950 I.C.I.'s Paints
Division occupied the 'New Side Works'. The 'Old
Side Works' had been sold to a firm of tube manufacturers, George Burn Ltd. (fn. 48)
George Burn Ltd. was one of several tube-making
firms which had come to the town since the 1880s.
In 1889 the newly formed Credenda Seamless Tube
Co. Ltd. bought the Bridge Street factory of the
former Birmingham Plate Glass Co. and converted
it into a tube mill, the Credenda Works. The
business was bought in 1896 by a Birmingham firm,
the Star Tube Co., which in 1897 became part of
the combine known as Weldless Tubes Ltd. (later
Tubes Ltd.). The works was closed in 1906. (fn. 49) Allen
Everitt & Sons Ltd., a firm which specialized in the
manufacture of condenser tubes, moved in stages
from Birmingham to the Kingston Works in Bridge
Street between the early 1890s and 1902. It was
acquired in 1929 by I.C.I. and remained in business
until 1958. Another I.C.I. subsidiary, Yorkshire
Imperial Metals Ltd., was then formed to take in
the Yorkshire Copper Works Ltd. of Leeds and
the plate, tube, and fittings interests of I.C.I.; it
was making non-ferrous tubes, fittings, and plates
at the Kingston Works (renamed the Allen Everitt
Works) in 1971. (fn. 50) The Smethwick Tube Co. was
set up in Rolfe Street in 1920 and became part of
George Burn Ltd., a Birmingham tube-making
concern, in 1921. During the twenties and thirties
Burns acquired a number of other premises in
Rolfe Street, including the soap works of William
Cliff & Sons, and replaced them by tube mills.
Finally in 1937 the firm opened the City Tube and
Conduit Mills in Rabone Lane on the site of
Muntz's 'Old Side Works'. It became Burns's
headquarters and main works; the Birmingham
works was sold and the company concentrated all
its activities in Smethwick. It remained there until
1971, when it moved to Shirley (Warws.). (fn. 51)
In 1908 the Birmingham firm of J. A. Phillips &
Co. Ltd., manufacturer of bicycles and bicycle
components, bought the Credenda Works and gave
up its Birmingham premises. In 1949 the firm, by
then a subsidiary of Tube Investments Ltd., employed some 2,000 people at the greatly enlarged
Credenda Works, producing and distributing
bicycle components. It was still at the works in
1971. (fn. 52) Another cycle firm, the Coventry-Eagle
Cycle and Motor Co. Ltd., moved from Coventry
to the Grove Lane Works in Wills Street in 1959
and remained in business in the town until 1968,
when it moved to Barton-upon-Humber (Lincs.). (fn. 53)
Smethwick has had only one motor-car manufacturer, the short-lived Crescent Motors Ltd.,
maker of Crescent cars and cycle-cars; it moved
from Walsall shortly before the First World War
and ceased production in 1914 or 1915. (fn. 54) The
town's contribution to the motor industry has been
rather as a supplier of components. From c. 1900
Muntz's produced aluminium gear- and crank-cases
and cover plates; William Mills Ltd., a Sunderland
firm which moved to Grove Street in 1903, made
iron and aluminium castings there for the motor
industry. (fn. 55) In the 1920s the firm now known as
Smethwick Drop Forgings Ltd., established in 1912
by A. Harper, Sons & Bean Ltd. of Dudley, made
forgings for the Bean car. (fn. 56) Three Smethwick members of the large Smethwick-based foundry group,
Birmid Qualcast Ltd., formed in 1967, have been
substantial manufacturers of components. All have
their works in Dartmouth Road. The Midland
Motor Cylinder Co. Ltd. was set up in 1914 in
Fawdry Street, where it made air-cooled cylinders
for motor bicycles. It moved to Rolfe Street in 1916
and to its present site shortly after the First World
War. In the late 1960s it specialized in the manufacture of grey-iron camshafts, cylinder blocks and
heads, and brake drums. The Birmingham Aluminium Casting (1903) Co. Ltd. moved to Dartmouth Road from Birmingham at about the same
date as Midland Motor Cylinder. In 1927 its 7-acre
factory was described as one of the largest of its
kind in Europe and the 2,000 workers were almost
entirely engaged in the manufacture of castings for
the motor-vehicle industry. In the late 1960s it
produced pistons, gear-boxes, cylinder blocks, and
steering-boxes. Dartmouth Auto Castings Ltd.,
which established its first foundry in 1933, was in
the late 1960s using one of its two Smethwick
foundries to make camshafts. (fn. 57) Another firm producing components for the motor industry in the late
1960s was the United Spring Co. Ltd., incorporated
in 1932 to acquire a spring-making firm founded in
1912; it made springs for the motor-car, aircraft, and
other industries at its Hawthorn Works in Oldbury
Road. (fn. 58)
In 1904 Henry Hope & Sons Ltd., a Birmingham
firm which specialized in making metal windows,
roof glazing, and central heating, purchased some
land at the corner of Dartmouth Road and Halford's Lane, upon which it built its Halford Works
in 1905. (fn. 59) The works was gradually extended, and
in 1919 all business was transferred to Smethwick.
By the late 1950s the factory covered 10 a. In 1965
the firm merged with Crittall Manufacturing Co.
Ltd. of Braintree (Essex), another firm which made
metal windows, doors, and casements, to form
Crittall-Hope Ltd. Braintree became the new company's headquarters and the Halford Works its
Smethwick Division.
Coal-Mining.
Although the Thick Coal underlies
Smethwick, the district is situated beyond the fault
which formed the eastern limit of early working in
the South Staffordshire coalfield. (fn. 60) There was no
mining in Smethwick until the 1870s, and it remained confined to a single colliery in the extreme
north of the borough. During the previous halfcentury, however, there had been hopes of reaching
coal in Smethwick, (fn. 61) and in fact the first boring east
of the boundary fault is said to have been made at
Smethwick on land belonging to James Horton; it
reached 563 feet without finding coal or ironstone. (fn. 62)
In 1870 the Sandwell Park Colliery Co. was
formed and sank a shaft east of Roebuck Lane on
land belonging to Lord Dartmouth close to the
junction of the Birmingham-Wolverhampton railway and the Stourbridge Extension line. The Thick
Coal was reached in 1874 at a depth of 1,254 feet,
and the news caused great excitement in Smethwick,
West Bromwich, and Handsworth. (fn. 63) A second shaft
was sunk in 1874-6; a third, begun in 1882, reached
the coal at 1,263 feet in 1883. (fn. 64) The undertaking,
later hailed as having 'put new life into the almost
exhausted coalfield', (fn. 65) was the high point in the
career of Henry Johnson, the mining engineer
(1823-85). It was through his exertions that the
company was launched, and the directors appointed
him engineer and secretary. To make the sinking
he used dynamite, then still in a pioneer stage for
industrial purposes. (fn. 66) In 1896 483 men were employed below ground at the colliery and 162 above. (fn. 67)
The workings were mainly towards Handsworth,
and none extended under the Birmingham Canal. (fn. 68)
Production ceased in 1914, the company having by
then opened a new colliery in West Bromwich to
tap the area to the north of the first workings. (fn. 69)
Glass.
The history of the glass industry in Smethwick is largely that of Chance Brothers. (fn. 70) Glassmaking was introduced by Thomas Shutt, who
began building a works on part of Blakeley Hall
farm beside the Birmingham Canal west of Spon
Lane apparently in 1814 and started making crown
window-glass there apparently in 1815. Shutt
worked in partnership, (fn. 71) and from 1816 until his
death in 1822 the business was carried on as the
British Crown Glass Co. The works was sold in
1822 by Joseph Stock and Thomas and Philip
Palmer, two of the original partners, to Robert
Lucas Chance. (fn. 72) From 1828 Chance was in partnership with John Hartley, and in 1832 Chance's
brother William also became a partner. The firm,
however, continued to operate as the British Crown
Glass Co. On John Hartley's death in 1833 his sons
James and John became partners, and the firm was
renamed Chances & Hartleys. When the Hartleys
left the partnership in 1836 the firm became
Chance Brothers & Co.
On acquiring the works R. L. Chance immediately
built a second glass-house and in 1828 a third. His
most notable achievement was the introduction into
England of the regular manufacture of sheet glass as
an alternative to crown-glass. He began its production in 1832 with the aid of French and Belgian
workers. (fn. 73) Chance's sheet glass was used for Joseph
Paxton's Crystal Palace in 1851, the firm having
already supplied glass for Paxton's experiments in
glass building at Chatsworth (Derb.). (fn. 74) The site
was enlarged in 1844 and schools were built on part
of the new land, primarily for the children of employees. (fn. 75) By 1845 there were six glass-houses, four of them producing sheet, and to make room for a
seventh it was decided to move the acid works (fn. 76) to
Oldbury, in Halesowen (Worcs.), where the firm
had had a chemical works since 1835. In 1851 the
factory, with c. 1,200 employees, was said to be
the largest crown and sheet glass-works in England. (fn. 77)
Five new glass-houses were built in the earlier
1850s. From the 1850s the making of lighthouse
glass was developed under the direction of James
Timmins Chance (later Sir James Chance, Bt.). An
80-foot brick tower was built where the lights could
be tested, and from 1859 land was bought for the
extension of the lighthouse works, notably in 1867
when the site of the lighthouse erecting room was
acquired. The firm produced not only the optical
apparatus but also such lighthouse components
as burners, lanterns, cast-iron towers, and revolving
carriages and their clockwork. In 1898 a substantial
government contract initiated a period of expansion
and the rebuilding of the lighthouse works. In 1889
Chance Brothers & Co. became a private limited
company. In 1935 the company issued preference
shares and changed its style to Chance Brothers
Ltd. (fn. 78) Pilkington Brothers of St. Helens (Lancs.)
acquired a large interest in 1936 and in 1955 took
over the company. In 1971 the Spon Lane works,
occupying a 64-a. site, was producing rolled plate
(including figured glass), tubing for fluorescent
and incandescent lighting, microscope glass and
slides, protective glass for welders, and decorative
glass tableware. Among the older buildings which
then survived were a house, then used as offices and
apparently built by R. L. Chance in 1822, and a sevenstoreyed building of 1847.
Chances also became involved with the Birmingham Plate Glass Co., which was formed in 1836
and built a works in Bridge Street. (fn. 79) An attempted
merger with Chances & Hartleys that year was unsuccessful. The works was producing crown and
sheet as well as plate by the mid 1840s and by 1867
had six glass-houses. There were further attempts
at mergers with or sales to Chance Brothers in
1845, 1846, and 1867, but it was only in 1873 that
Chances bought the works. Production was stopped
in 1874 because of the poor quality of the glass and
the difficulty of selling it. Operations began again
in 1875 but ceased finally in 1877. As during the
closure of 1874-5, business was then limited to the
purchase and resale of glass made elsewhere. James
Chance acquired the interests of the other members
of his family and in 1889 sold the works to the
Credenda Seamless Tube Co. Ltd.
Chance Brothers developed the production of
coloured glass from the later 1830s (fn. 80) but gave up
making stained glass in 1867. Several of the principal artists then set up on their own. (fn. 81) Samuel Evans
started in a small way at West Smethwick and then
built a works in Oldbury Road, in part of which
Evans & Co. Ltd. still produced decorative glass
until 1971. (fn. 82) Thomas William Camm started making
stained glass in Brewery Street before moving to
larger premises, presumably the purpose-built
studios still standing on the corner of High Street
and Regent Street; with two breaks he continued to
work in Smethwick until his death in 1912, and the
business was then carried on by his daughter and
two sons. The works was closed c. 1963. (fn. 83) Camm's
three brothers, who had originally been associated
with him, returned to Smethwick from Birmingham in 1893, and started a business in High Street
as Camm Brothers; as Camm & Co. the business
produced stained-glass windows and other decorative glass until c. 1966. (fn. 84)
Chemicals.
In 1818 Thomas Adkins and John
Nock owned 'an extensive soap work' on the north
bank of the Birmingham Canal at Merry Hill. Soon
afterwards the partners were joined by a Mr. Boyle,
the inventor of a new method of bleaching soap.
Boyle had been the works manager of Blair &
Stephenson of Tipton, the country's leading producer of red lead; the new firm of Adkins, Nock &
Boyle took advantage of his experience and began to
make red lead as well as soap. (fn. 85) About 1836 the firm
became Thomas Adkins & Co. (fn. 86) During the late
1830s or early 1840s the Tipton concern for which
Boyle had worked was wound up, and for several
years Adkins & Co. was the country's main supplier of red lead. (fn. 87) By the mid 1860s the principal
makers of the best-quality red lead were Midland
manufacturers and Adkins & Co. was one of the
three leading firms in the area. (fn. 88) It also retained a
prominent place among local soap-makers. (fn. 89) That
side of the business appears to have been subsequently run down, and by the later 1880s the firm
was concentrating on the manufacture of red lead. (fn. 90)
After the death of G. C. Adkins, Thomas's son, in
1887 the business was bought by the Birmingham firm of Henry Wiggin & Co. Ltd., one of the most
important in the nickel industry. Wiggins continued
make red lead but used part of the site to build a
cupola and reverberatory furnaces for smelting
nickel and cobalt ores. In 1892 Dr. Ludwig Mond,
with the co-operation of the firm, built on another
part of the site the experimental plant at which he
produced the first carbonyl-refined nickel made on
an industrial scale. (fn. 91) In 1896 Wiggins began to make
tin oxide at Smethwick. It was the first time it had
been manufactured in Great Britain, and the plant
had to be imported from Germany, previously the
sole source of supply; it was also manned at first by
German workers. Production continued until 1931.
Shortly after the First World War Wiggins was
taken over by the Mond Nickel Co. Ltd., which was
in turn taken over in 1929 by the International
Nickel Co. of Canada Ltd. (fn. 92)
A soap factory was established in Rolfe Street in
1845 by a Mr. Johnson. (fn. 93) The business passed
through several hands in its early years. By 1866,
when it was owned by J. P. Harvey, it was one of
the leading soap firms in the Birmingham area. Its
specialities were 'curd', a very hard soap extensively
used in laundries and in blanket and carpet mills,
and 'grey mottled', a household soap. The firm,
which in 1887 became William Cliff & Sons, was one
of the few small provincial concerns to remain independent of the great soap combines which were
formed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and
it remained a family business until it closed after
the First World War. The works was sold to George
Burn Ltd., which in 1931 demolished it to make way
for a tube mill.
From its early days Chances made alkali for
glass manufacture, as well as the glass itself, at
Spon Lane. Bought sulphate of soda was at first
used, but in 1834 the firm built its own vitriol
chamber and salt-cake furnaces as part of the works.
They continued in operation until 1845, when the
whole of the chemical manufacturing side of the
business was transferred to the chemical works
which the firm had established at Oldbury in
Halesowen (Worcs.) in 1835. (fn. 94)
H. S. Richards, an oil and colour merchant and
an importer and refiner of oil and tallow, was
manufacturing tannate of soda (used to remove
scale from boilers), locomotive and colliery greases,
lubricating oils, paints, varnishes, and liquid
enamels at his Brook Street works by the 1880s. Alterations in the pattern of local industry led to
changes in the firm's range of products: thus when
the demand for black stoving enamels for iron bedsteads began to decline there was a growing market
for similar enamels for use on vehicle chassis and
springs. In the early 1970s H. S. Richards Ltd. was
making paints, varnishes, japans, and enamels for
industrial uses. (fn. 95)
Brewing.
By 1834 there was a brewery on the
corner of High Street and Brewery Street where
the Midland Bank now stands. It was run by
Thomas Robinson. In 1841 he was licensee of the
Old Talbot near by on the corner of Trinity Street
and apparently still occupied the brewery. By 1851
he had been succeeded at the Old Talbot by Sarah
Robinson, evidently his widow; she was also a
brewer, but it is not clear whether she brewed on
the premises or continued at the near-by brewery.
Her son Thomas too was a brewer in the 1850s. (fn. 96)
Old Smethwick Brewery in Oldbury Road a little
to the south of the Swan inn existed by the early
1840s when it was run by Joseph Morris. (fn. 97)
There were several brewers in Smethwick by
1851, (fn. 98) but the expansion of the industry dates
from 1861 when Henry Mitchell (1837-1914) took
over the Crown inn in Oldbury Road from his
father. (fn. 99) Until then beer brewed at the Crown had
been intended for consumption on the premises,
but Henry proceeded to build up a wider retail
trade. In 1866 he built the Crown Brewery on an
adjoining site and by 1872 was trading as Henry
Mitchell & Co. In 1878 he bought a 14-acre site
on the south side of Cape Hill and began to build
a new Crown Brewery there; brewing started in
1879. In 1888 he took a partner, H. G. Bainbridge,
and in the same year the firm became a private
limited company. In 1898 the business was amalgamated with that of William Butler of the Crown
Brewery, Broad Street, Birmingham, and the new
firm was styled Mitchells & Butlers Ltd.; Butler
himself had been licensee of the London Works
Tavern in Smethwick from 1866 to 1876. Because
of the large area available at Cape Hill and the good
supply of water from artesian wells the Birmingham
business was moved there, and the brewery was renamed the Cape Hill Brewery. The site was enlarged to 60 a. in 1900 and to 90 a. in 1914. The No.
/?/ brewery built in 1912 more than doubled the size
of the plant. A high red-brick wall dominates the
lower end of Cape Hill; an ornamental gateway
was demolished in 1974. Since 1967 Mitchells &
Butlers Ltd. has been a marketing company within
Bass Charrington Ltd.
In 1913 Mitchells & Butlers bought the Windmill
Brewery which had been founded by Edward
Cheshire. He had acquired several public houses
and found his brewing facilities inadequate. He therefore began building a brewery near the windmill
in Windmill Lane in 1886, and brewing started there
at the end of 1887. The business became a private
limited company in 1896. Having been acquired by
Mitchells & Butlers, the brewery was closed in
1914, and Cape Hill remains the only brewery in
Smethwick. (fn. 1)
Other Industries.
In 1850 the Lambeth firm of
Henry Doulton & Co., which made drain-pipes and
conduits, built a pipe-works at Smethwick. (fn. 2) It
stood on the north bank of the Birmingham Canal
and was approached from Brasshouse Lane by what
is now Pottery Road. The firm (from 1854 Doulton
& Co. and from 1899 Doulton & Co. Ltd.) probably opened the works because an official report on
the sanitary condition of Birmingham published in
1849 stressed the need for improved drainage
there. (fn. 3) Doultons, which already had a pipe-works
at Rowley Regis, was thus offered the prospect of an
enlarged market for its products. The works remained in operation until 1913, when transport
costs led to its closure. It was used again intermittently during the First World War but was
finally closed in 1919.
In 1898 the Birmingham Tile and Pottery Works,
a small potworks later known as the Ruskin Pottery,
was established in Oldbury Road, West Smethwick,
by William Howson Taylor (1876-1935) and his
father, Edward Richard Taylor (d. 1912). They
produced fine art pottery, which was first called
Taylor ware; from 1904, the year in which they
won their first international award, it was known
as Ruskin pottery. The works closed in 1935,
shortly before Howson Taylor's death. There is a
representative collection of Ruskin pottery, presented by Howson Taylor, at the public library in
High Street. (fn. 4)
Among several firms making soft drinks in the
town the oldest is T. Mason & Sons Ltd. (fn. 5) The
business was started by Titus Mason, who in 1895
arranged for his soft drinks to be sold at an offlicence in Cape Hill. The specially designed factory
in Grantham Road is one of the largest units of its
kind in England.
In 1972 British Pens Ltd., of the Pedigree Works,
Bearwood Road, was the only British firm still extensively engaged in the manufacture of steel pennibs. (fn. 6) A Birmingham firm, William Mitchell (Pens)
Ltd., built the Pedigree Works in 1909 (fn. 7) and transferred its business there. In 1920 Mitchells amalgamated with Hinks, Wells & Co., a Birmingham
pen-making firm, to form British Pens Ltd. Despite
the decline of the steel pen after the Second World
War the firm survived, acquiring the pen interests
of other firms in the Birmingham area in the 1960s.
By 1972 its pen production, almost wholly limited
to the manufacture of lithographic, mapping, and
lettering pens, was concentrated at the Bearwood
Road factory, where presswork parts for machinery
in steel and non-ferrous metals were also made.