Elwell-Parker, Limited

Thomas Parker and his family moved to Wolverhampton from Coalbrookdale, in October 1882. Thomas had agreed to go into partnership with Paul Bedford Elwell, to manufacture accumulators at Paul’s premises in Commercial Road, from where he ran the Patent Tip and Horseshoe Company. The Parker family lived in St. Jude's Road and their daughter Jessie Eliza was born there in March 1886.

He was educated at King’s College, London where he obtained a distinction in mathematics, and spent a year at Liège studying coal mining and iron manufacturing. His wife Elizabeth was born in Wolverhampton and in the 1881 census they are recorded as living at "The Cottage", Ryton, Shifnal, Shropshire, with one son, Paul L. Elwell, aged 7 months. 

Paul Bedford Elwell's occupation is listed as 'the manager of a works making nails etc., employing 100 hands'. By 1882 the family had moved to St. Cuthbert's, Albrighton. The Commercial Road Premises was rented from the owner; J. Smallman.

Thomas Parker and his dog. Courtesy of Gail Tudor.

An advert from 1871.

Initially the company had premises on the southern side of the Crown Nail Company in Commercial Road. On 17th April 1882 Elwell purchased part of the large factory that stood on the corner of Walsall Street and Commercial Road, on the other side of the Crown Nail Company's works. Further space at the works was acquired on 24th June.

In the early days Elwell had little knowledge of electricity, and so left that side of the business to Thomas. The new company was housed in a corner of the Commercial Road works and Thomas soon added dynamos to his product range. The electrical department staff consisted of Thomas, one of his sons and a man.

Thomas described his early years at Wolverhampton, in a speech that he gave to the Directors of the Liverpool Overhead Railway, on 7th January, 1893:

As to our work at Wolverhampton, I may tell you that Wolverhampton ten years ago had no thought of being guilty of building dynamos, but there came a circumstance, that circumstance being an individual, myself, who went to Wolverhampton and thought that he could build dynamos. That was October 1882. I took with me my boy and began by employing one man. We first built accumulators and afterwards began to build dynamos. The first one built, I remember it well, it was a waster, I thought, and it lay in the shop after I had tried it. It did not do what I wanted it to do, but there was a difficulty in Lancashire of coating calico printing rollers with nickel, and Mr. Freemantle paid a visit to Wolverhampton to see what we were doing. He was secretary of the Manchester Edison Company, and he was also associated with some of the people who were trying to cover their rollers with nickel. He said they had tried every dynamo, and he came to ask me how to get over the difficulty. I told him there was one there that could do what he wanted, if it didn’t we would take it back. We went to Manchester; at first they could do nothing with it. On following it to Manchester, I saw at once what they required, and in a few hours I coated their rollers with nickel. I received a £40 cheque from Mr. Freemantle, with a testimonial, and that was the first dynamo built in Wolverhampton, the year being 1883. I was encouraged to build one for lighting, this was a success, and got us an order for six. We received from the Manchester Edison Company of that time, £1,000 in advance for building dynamos: this was the beginning of Elwell-Parker, and of dynamo manufacturing at Wolverhampton.

An order was also received for dynamos from the Manchester Edison Company, and they were paid a £1,000 in advance. The rapid success of this part of the business overshadowed horseshoe manufacture, which soon ceased; and in 1884 the company became the Wolverhampton Electric Light, Power, Storage and Engineering Company. This name was soon changed to Elwell-Parker, Limited, after an infusion of fresh capital.

Mr. Parker made the acquaintance of Mr. Charles Moseley of Manchester, through Mr. George Freemantle, who was then the secretary of the Edison Company. Mr. Charles Moseley became chairman of Elwell-Parker, who at the time employed thirty men at the works in Commercial Road. By 1885 the amount of business had increased to such an extent that considerable extensions to the premises were necessary.

The location of Elwell-Parker, Ltd.

Elwell-Parker accumulators were successfully tested at the Bush Hill estate, near Enfield⁴ in 1883. This estate was a property development in which Elwell and several relations had invested heavily. Unfortunately their investment was not a success and they eventually lost a lot of money.

An Elwell-Parker accumulator had also been in use since 1882 at Elwell's home, St. Cuthbert's, Albrighton. In October 1885, Elwell described the effects of a lightning strike that had occurred at the house, to the British Association in a meeting at Aberdeen. From his description it was obvious that both Elwell and Parker had done a first class job with their wiring. He told the Association that he occasionally used one of his telephone cables for the dual purpose of carrying power for lighting and receiving operatic music from the theatre at Wolverhampton, which was a good 10 miles away.

In 1883 Paul Bedford Elwell is listed in Crocker's Directory, as being the Managing Director of the Patent Economic Coal Company, Limited, Commercial Road. He obviously had other business interests than his partnership with Thomas Parker.

Courtesy of Gail Tudor.

The modern type of dynamo was developed by the Belgian electrical engineer, Zénobe-Théophile Gramme, in Paris, in 1869. His D.C. generator used a ring armature, consisting of a coil of wire wound on a ring of iron, which rotated in a two-pole magnetic field. He patented the principle and effectively prevented others from modifying his design until the patent ran out in 1884. When the patent expired, dynamo manufacturers seized the opportunity to produce a more efficient and cheaper machine, and Elwell-Parker led the way.

In 1885 Sir William Preece, speaking before the Royal Society of Arts, said that the revival of the electricity industry in this country was due to the efforts and success of Mr. Parker, and writing in the Royal Society of Arts Journal, he praised Mr. Parker for winning a place for Britain in the fast developing electrical industry. In the same year Thomas was made a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Thomas continued his links with the Coalbrookdale Company. Elwell-Parker Limited didn't have a foundry and so most of their castings were made at Coalbrookdale.

A section of conduit as used at Blackpool.

The system was a great advance on any other electrically powered transport system at the time. It did have some defects however. Often at high tide, it was completely covered in water and sand, when the wind blew in from the sea, and many times it was under several feet of snow. The switchgear became crusted with sodium and chlorine salts and so could be unreliable. 

Blackpool tram number 4.

After the inaugural run, the Mayor of Blackpool and his guests retired to a celebration dinner in honour of the opening of the new tramway. After the meal speeches were given and Thomas Parker said that the future of railways was with electric traction. Electrically powered locomotives were cheaper to run than steam and could travel at 70m.p.h.

Thomas always took a keen interest in electro chemistry and electro-metallurgy. When the Cowles process for the manufacture of aluminium bronze was first introduced, he considered the use of continuous current to be a mistake, and designed an alternating current furnace, which when tried, proved to be a great success. Later this would lead to a revolutionary way of producing phosphorus.

Thomas developed a system of electro-deposition for the refining of copper and the extraction of gold and silver. Elwell-Parker made a notable contribution to the electrical purification of copper, when their dynamos were installed at the Bolton Copper works at Oakamoor, and revolutionised the purifying process.

In 1886, Nautilus, the first electric- powered submarine, was invented by two Englishmen, Andrew Campbell and James Ash. On the surface it was powered by two internal combustion engines, but when submerged it was propelled by two 50h.p. electric motors. They were powered from a 100 cell Electric Power Storage (E.P.S.) battery, which could power the submarine for as long as four hours, before recharging was necessary. The submarine achieved a surface speed of 6 knots, and could cover 80 miles between battery charges. In 1887 the submarine was fitted with an Elwell-Parker E.P.S. battery.

A large Elwell-Parker dynamo.

An alternator with a revolving field and salient poles.

After publishing a translation of Gaston Planté's book "The Storage of Electrical Energy" in 1887, Paul Bedford Elwell left the company. This appears to have been due to the large amount of debt incurred by the failure of his Bush Hill estate investments. He sold his house at Albrighton, and went to Paris to prepare plans for the Paris underground electric railway. Soon afterwards his bad luck continued. His wife Elizabeth, died of typhoid and he left for Australia to become Electrical Engineer to the New South Wales Railway Commissioners. He was responsible for the electrification of the Sydney tramways and died there on 10th September, 1899, aged only 46. He played a leading part in Sydney’s tramway system and its power station at Ultimo. The buildings still exist as part of the Powerhouse Museum.

In 1887 Mr. James Oddie of Ballarat, Australia, came to England to obtain information on electrical knowledge and its developments. He was a wealthy gold miner, who became Ballarat’s first Chairman of the Municipal Council and was greatly impressed with Elwell-Parker and their products. Whilst here he visited Blackpool and his description of the trams was printed in the Ballarat Star, on Friday, 18^th April, 1890. His description is as follows:

I had great pleasure in looking at the esplanade, which is two miles long. It is lit up by nine arc electric lights and an electric tramway system runs from end to end. There are 10 cars on it, each capable of seating 55 or 60 passengers. In the summer season, when Blackpool (a favourite resort) is crowded, 2d is charged for the journey from end to end; in winter, when visitors are scarce, the same ride may be had for 1d.

This line is one of the sweetest things in the empire. There is no jar, and the travelling is perfectly lovely. The motive power in this case is picked up by conductors from an underground conduit. Through my cousin (Mr. John Nixon, who is a member of the council, who put up the lights) I had access to the corporation members and officers and to the managing directors of the Tramway Company.

While there I gave a dinner to the members of the corporation and the tramway directors and officers; the mayor of Manchester, Mr. Alex Siemens (nephew of the late Sir Wm. Siemens), Mr. Thomas Parker (of Messrs. Elwell and Parker), and other electricians were present. The dinner went very well and the proceedings were characterised by enthusiasm. The manager of the gasworks informed me that the electric light was cheaper than gas, and that the latter was either 2s.6d or 2s.9d per 1000ft., certainly not more than 2s.9d. The electric tramway was so successful that in the first year it paid a dividend of 5 percent. The second year it just paid expenses owing to a mishap, the sea getting into the conduit and partly filling it with sand, the Job of removing which was most costly. The third year, when it carried 950,000 passengers (mainly 2d fares), it paid 7 percent. It is hampered by not being allowed to run on Sundays, while busses are; otherwise it would beat all opposition.

The power used is obtained from a double set of machinery, two semi portable engines (worked one at a time), and two Elwell Parker dynamos, all models of beauty and economy, and which work like clockwork. The line is a patent of a Mr. Smith, of Halifax, but its success is mainly due to Mr. Parker.

In 1887 Thomas Parker developed a process for the production of phosphorus, and chlorate of soda, by electricity, which greatly reduced the manufacturing costs. The company also manufactured alternators and supplied their generating equipment to Eastbourne, Melbourne, South America, New Zealand, India, and many other locations throughout the world.

Orders increased, and in 1887 the decision was taken to build a large new works at Bushbury, on the outskirts of the town. Land was acquired in Showell Road, but the project was delayed because of the death of Mr. Charles Moseley, the company’s Chairman, in October 1887.

Thomas Parker and the motor car

Thomas must have been the first motorist in Wolverhampton. He claimed to have had an electrically powered vehicle running as early as 1884 and developed many prototypes during his lifetime. He religiously obeyed the Light Locomotive Act, the red flag law, which was only banished in 1896. It set a speed limit of 4m.p.h. in open country and 2 m.p.h. in towns. The Act required three drivers for each vehicle, two to travel in the vehicle and one to walk ahead carrying a red flag. One of his cars gave over 18 months trouble free service on daily runs to and from Tettenhall, to the E.C.C. works at Bushbury. 

During a talk that he gave to the automobile Club, he described the hilly town of Wolverhampton as being without a single yard of level ground from Tettenhall to the town. He groaned at the "Queen Square gradient", which was a real problem when insufficient batteries limited his progress. One of his cars went to London and was shipped to Paris, but the ship floundered in mid channel and his valuable car was salvaged and brought home. Some of Thomas's vehicles had hydraulic brakes on all four wheels, as well as four-wheel steering. These features are even now being described as revolutionary.

The initial Patent Tip & Horseshoe Company's site on the eastern side of Commercial Road.

The rear of the initial Patent Tip & Horseshoe Company's site facing the canal. The remains of their wharf can be seen on the right.

Birmingham Trams

An order was received  from the Birmingham Tramways Company, for the design and construction of a prototype electric tram, to run on their existing system, which was operated by steam trams. 
The steam trams were noisy and dirty, and a cleaner and quieter alternative was required. The decision was taken to test an electric tram on their system, which would hopefully fulfill all of their requirements and also be more reliable and cheaper to run than the existing trams. 

It was decided that the tram must be self-powered, as overhead wires were considered to be unsightly and a conduit system too expensive to install. A battery-powered prototype was built and successfully tested at Birmingham, on 7^th November, 1888. It was an instant success and Elwell-Parker expected further orders.

Read about the successful trial of Birmingham’s first electric tram

By 1889 the company had 400 employees, and the works operated both day and night. In the same year Thomas Parker became a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers and a rosy future seemed certain for the company.

In 1889 a large syndicate was formed to manufacture electrical equipment of the type already made by Elwell-Parker. The syndicate founded the Electric Construction Corporation, Limited and purchased a number of prominent manufacturing companies to form the new corporation. Thomas Parker was invited to London in 1888, to meet Mr. Balfour, from the Corporation, regarding the purchase of Elwell-Parker, Limited. Terms were agreed and Elwell-Parker, Limited was absorbed into the new concern, as from 30th September, 1888.

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