E. Page and Co
Edward Page and Co of the Victoria and Bedford Iron Works, Bedford
Short history, condensed from the M.E.R.L. website:
Edward Page was an apprentice with Sanders & Williams.
In about 1850 he set up on his own as a wholesale ironmonger and agricultural implement agent. In 1857 he took over the old Sanders and Williams business from William Williams, and renamed the premises the Victoria Ironworks. For a few years in the 1860s additional premises were held in London, subsequently transferred to Alfred James Bickmore & Co, also brick and tile machine makers. Page died in 1870. In 1882 the firm was sold to the Bedford Iron Works Company, a business already established at Kempston. The new firm continued to trade as E. Page & Co. In the mid-1890s Page & Co. were taken over by Palmer & Smith, though the Page name continued in use. In the 1920s the firm added cream separators to their product range. In 1925 E. Page & Co. were bought by Howards engineers of Bedford. [1]
1860 Article about implements made at the Victoria Iron Works by E Page & Co., 'a firm intimately connected with the house of Page and Cameron (now Messrs Page and Harding of St Albans)'. The article refers to prizes awarded to the company at that year’s meeting at the Highland Agricultural Society in Dumfries. These prizes were for harrows, straw cutters, pipe and tile machines[2]
Advertisement: Horizontal steam engines from 2½ to 30 HP: E Page & Co, Laurence Poultney Place, London, and Victoria Iron Works, Bedford [3]
1864 Advertisement: Chaff cutters, ploughs, harrows, horse hoes, scarifies, horse rakes, oil cake mills, bean mills, turnip cutters, pipe tile and brick machines, steam engines, engineers’ tools, &c [4]
1865 Advertisement: E Page & Co, Victoria Iron Works, Bedford: 'Manufacturers of high pressure condensing and non-condensing steam engines, steam boilers, portable engines, sugar mills, saw mill machinery, self-acting machine tools, brick, pipe and tile-making machinery, clay crushing mills, pugging mills, and every description of agricultural implements and machinery [5]
1874 Page's hand brick and pipe press (see illustration) [6]
1875 Advertisement dated 29th March: 'E. Page & Co., Victoria Iron Works, Bedford, beg to inform their friends and the public generally that the business recently carried on by Henry Cameron, James Woodward Hill and William John Pick, will continue to be conducted by Henry Cameron and James Woodward Hill [7]
1875 Advertisement: E. Page & Co, Victoria Iron Works: established 1750. Makers of Patent drag harrows, seed harrows, cultivators, horse hoes, land rollers, patent pipe tile and brick machinery peat mills, pug mills, &c [8]
1881 Certain premises in Bedford, including Victoria Iron Works and the business, property, and effects of Edward Page & Co., to be sold [9]
1888 E. Page & Co were the contractors for a footbridge over the Great Ouse, Bedford[10]
1895 Advertisement placed by Stafford and Rogers for the sale, starting 6th March 1895, of the whole of the plant and machinery of E Page & Co, Bedford Iron Works, Kempston, near Bedford. Items consisted of three lathes, planing, drilling and planing machines, powerful shearing and punching machine, 20 HP horizontal engine with disc crank, nearly new, by Pollock and MacNab; traction engine, by Garrett & Sons; the whole of the stock-in-trade of brick, pipe and tile making machinery, for steam and hand power; the valuable collection of wood and iron patterns of the implements and machinery manufactured by E. Page and Co for many years; and multiplicity of effects, described in catalogue. There is a separate advert announcing that the goodwill, together with the 'patterns and templets', have been disposed of privately to Messrs Palmer and Smith of 59 High Street, Bedford[11] The inventory looks rather modest in relation to their range of products in earlier times. Presumably they had 'downsized' the scale of production at some point - perhaps by 1881? It will also be noted that they were using a steam engines made by another manufacturer.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ [1] Alan Cox, Edward Page & Company. Unpublished typescript, 2004: MERL website
- ↑ Herts Guardian, Agricultural Journal, and General Advertiser - Tuesday 23rd October 1860
- ↑ Herts Guardian, Agricultural Journal, and General Advertiser - Tuesday 14th August 1860
- ↑ Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette - Friday 2nd September 1864
- ↑ [2]] New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XX, Issue 2058, 22 April 1865
- ↑ 'Engineering' 23rd January 1874
- ↑ Luton Times and Advertiser - Saturday 8th May 1875
- ↑ Luton Times and Advertiser - Saturday 15th May 1875
- ↑ [3] The London Gazette, December 16, 1881
- ↑ [4] Album of photographs of bridge, on Geolocation website
- ↑ Northampton Mercury - Friday 1st March 1895
![[4]](http://www.geolocation.ws/v/W/File:BedSusBridgePlaqueEngineer.JPG/-/en){kind=link}