Other Industries

Iron and Steel

The earliest references to iron mining in the area are from 1315 but there are no records of iron smelting until the 16^th century. Much of the local ore would have been exported to other towns until the later part of the 18^th century when the growth of local industry provided a new market. Early iron making used large amounts of charcoal, and so much of the local woodland would have disappeared in the process. The locally found iron ore would have been heated with a large amount of charcoal in a bloomery, consisting of a hearth of stones, covered by a dome of clay. A constant blast of air would be applied using bellows, and a spongy, metallic bloom of iron would be the result. The bloom would then be reheated and worked down with a large hammer to remove some of the impurities (slag and clinker), to make the iron hard enough for forging. The end product would then be wrought into bars or rods for the production of horseshoes, nails or tools.

There were two types of hearth at the forge, the finery and the chafery. Both would have burned charcoal and been fed with air from bellows. In the smaller finery the lump of iron was re-melted to produce a bloom; a lump of iron with slag.

The chafery would have held several bars at a time, all in various stages of production.

In 1675 Frederick de Blewstone from Germany constructed an experimental furnace in the town, in an attempt to smelt iron using coal, traditional charcoal being in short supply. Unfortunately the attempt failed because of contamination from the sulphurous gasses emitted by the coal.

By 1785 there were 4 forges in the town:

Adams’s Forge opened in Camp Hill Lane around 1760 in the middle of the Seven Years War. The business sold special quality iron to the government, made from specially selected scrap. As the forge was situated on the south side of the town, well away from any natural watercourse, the hammers were powered by a horse gin. This was superseded by one of the earliest Watt steam engines in the area, and supplied with water from a large reservoir extending from Camp Hill Lane to Camp Street, possibly from a spring. Unfortunately unhealthy gases arose from the water and so in 1869 the company moved to Ridgeacre, West Bromwich.

Sparrow’s Forge was run by Mr. Edwards in partnership with Edward Elwell, who later ran Wednesbury Forge. It was situated next to Forge Pool and Forge Pool Colliery, just off Sparrow’s Forge Road, now called Park Lane. The forge was initially powered by a horse gin, and later used water from the adjacent Forge Pool, which flowed into Willenhall Brook. By 1851 it became Heath Works, owned by Addison Russell, and sometime before 1900 the works closed, and the buildings were demolished.

The most common method of producing wrought iron from pig iron in the 19th century was puddling, invented by Henry Cort in 1784.

A section through a puddling furnace.

Puddlers at work.

The first coke furnace in the town was at Hallens’ Ironworks, which stood by the canal on part of the site later occupied by the Patent Shaft Steelworks. The following description of the works is from Aris’s Gazette of 6^th January, 1800:

A capital set of ironworks, consisting of a blast furnace, foundry, boring mill, forges, slitting and rolling mills, pattern and smiths shops, warehouses, six workmen’s houses and every suitable convenience for carrying on a very extensive trade, advantageously situated on the banks of the Birmingham Canal at Wednesbury: the whole comprising of about two and a half acres of freehold land with valuable mines of coal, ironstone and clay under the same; together with all the machinery, implements and tools now on the premises.

By 1830 there were only two furnaces in the town that were used for iron smelting, which is surprising considering that large amounts of iron ore were mined locally. The first was Matthews and Company who ran Broadwaters Furnaces. They had 2 furnaces which produced 6,368 tons of pig iron in 1830. The second was Lloyds and Fosters at Old Park Iron Works. In 1823 they had one furnace which produced 2,600 tons of pig iron in 1823, and in 1830 there were two furnaces producing 5,280 tons of pig iron.

Tapping a puddling furnace.

Also in the 1840s Adams & Richards of Bridge Street were producing coach springs.

White’s directory of Staffordshire from 1851 lists the following iron and steel companies in Wednesbury:

Others included Gospel Oak Ironworks owned by Philip Williams & Sons, Brunswick Iron Works, owned by Henry Pitt, and Bull's Bridge Ironworks owned by Molineux & Company.

Most of the early iron and steel works closed as a result of the depression of 1875 to 1886 after which the main players were the Old Park Works, the Patent Shaft, and F.H. Lloyd at James Bridge Steel Works.

Wednesbury had many foundries including:

By the 1850s Wednesbury had secured a monopoly of the new iron tube trade and had become the largest local supplier of iron to the railways.

Wednesbury Forge

Wednesbury Forge was leased by Edward Elwell in 1817 and purchased by him in 1831. His father, William Elwell, an ironfounder at Walsall became Mayor of the town in 1778 and 1787. Edward trained as a surgeon and served with the Royal Artillery from 1807 to 1811. After returning to Walsall and practicing there for a while he set himself up as a maker of edge tools at Sparrow’s Forge in Wednesbury.

Elwell's Pool and Forge.

An advert from 1949.

A railway accident at Elwell's Pool in 1859.

Edward Elwell never recovered from the death of his son and became a sad and morose man. He helped to establish St. James’ Church and a school for the children of his workmen. After his death Alfred Elwell, a grandson, took over the running of the business, and on his death in 1902 it became a private limited company. Around 1930 Edward Elwell Limited and the Chillington Tool Company of Wolverhampton combined and formed a holding company; Edge Tool Industries Limited.

Other Companies and Products

Henry Hope & Sons Limited. Windows

An advert from the early 1960s,

The company started in 1818 in Birmingham and started to produce metal casements in 1819. In between 1845 and 1857 they made all of the windows for the Houses of Parliament, and by 1900 their main product was metal windows.

In 1904 the company purchased some land at the corner of Dartmouth Road and Halford's Lane, Smethwick and in 1905 built the Halford Works. In 1919 the whole business was transferred there, and by the late 1950s the factory covered around 10 acres.

The company acquired a 37 acre, old coal mining site in Wednesbury in 1938 and built a new works there which included a hot dip galvanising plant. The plant included a 120 ton bath of zinc at a temperature of 852 degrees Fahrenheit.

The company had a large export market and in 1965 merged with another metal window manufacturer, the Crittall Manufacturing Company Limited of Braintree to form Crittall-Hope Limited. Braintree then became the new company's headquarters.

The hot dip galvanising tank.

Quilliam Limited. Jute Bag Manufacturers

An advert from the early 1960s.

They produced new and reconditioned sacks for all types of small metal components, steel strip and wire, nuts, bolts, nails, washers, rivets, stampings, castings, and chains.

The factory survived until the early 1960s when it was destroyed in a disastrous fire.

   
Hickinbottoms. Bakers

Hickinbottoms were well known as a successful bread maker producing excellent products. The company was founded in 1893 at the Electric Bakery in Stafford Street and closed in 1992.

The area around Stafford Street was always filled with the delicious smell of freshly baked bread.

It was supplied to many shops in the area, and even locally delivered, door-to-door.

The company's service was second to none.

   
The Steel Nut & Joseph Hampton Limited. Fastenings, Steel Bars, Tools

Two views of the Steel Department.