General Metalware and Holloware

The Eagle Edge Tool Company Eagle Works, Monmore Green

What we have about this company comes from its appearance in the Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire Illustrated, of 1898.  The article is prolix even by the standards of that publication, and gives very little specific information about such matters as when the company was founded and who were its owners and managers.  It is also somewhat muddled, as if something has gone wrong in the printing.  However some information appears.

The works are at Monmore Green and cover about three acres, with the Birmingham Canal to the front and the railway line at the rear.  The print of the works also shows a road to the right.  This means the works was, at the least, near the Chillington tool works.  

The products mentioned are "shovels, picks, hammers, plantation hoes, horse shoes, wheelbarrows and all kinds of railway contractors' and mining tools".  The firm seems to have been well established at this time because "for over half a century the firm have been contractors to Her Majesty's Government, and during that period have supplied the chief dockyards with such requisites in this class of tools as are in demand in those departments".  

The article also mentions that "in their general connection are numbered the principal buyers of these goods in the wholesale trade and for shipment to foreign countries".  Clearly the company did not do all its own marketing but relied heavily on the old system of factors or wholesalers.  Nevertheless they have their own trade marks and the article refers to a show and sale room at the works.