Joseph Stubbs
Manufacturers of textile machinery, of Mill Street Works, Ancoats, Manchester, and Louisa Street, Openshaw (iron foundry).
1870 Company founded by Joseph Stubbs, Senior
1879 Listed and advertising in Slater's Directory of Manchester & Salford, 1879 (Part 2) as makers of textile machinery (reels and presses and machines for winding and gassing). Address: Store Street. The 'Streets' listing in the directory shows that the works was on the northern side of Store Street, east of the MS&LR grain stores. It therefore seems probable that Stubbs occupied the former iron foundry of James Lillie. At some point the site was cleared and a GCR warehouse built in its place.
1891 Makers of Special Machinery for the cotton industry. [1]
1905 William Thomas Stubbs, Joseph Herington Stubbs, Robert Oliver Stubbs, Machine Makers and Iron Founders, trading together in copartnership, at Millstreet Works, Ancoats, in the city of Manchester, under the style or firm of "Joseph Stubbs," applied for the winding-up of Goodfellow Engineering Co[2]
1910 Public company.
1911 Slater's Manchester, Salford & Suburban Directory shows that they had established an iron foundry at Louisa Street, Openshaw, located between Orrell Street and Sexa Street. The 1908 Openshaw O.S. map shows that the main building of the foundry was approx 150 ft by 300 ft on a plot of land extending from Louisa Street to the Stockport Branch of the Ashton-under-Lyne Canal.
1914 Textile machine makers and iron founders. Specialities: winding, doubling, gassing, reeling and bundling machinery for cotton yarns; special high-class castings, mainly small repetition castings. Employees 750. [3]
1917 Advert. Ancoats works; Machinery for doublers. Openshaw works; Iron castings. [4]
1927 See Aberconway for information on the company and its history.
1929 Listed Exhibitor - British Industries Fair. Manufacturers of Marine Motors (petrol). Stand Nos. A.17 and A.20) [5]
1929 Patent - Improvements in or relating to winding frames for textile threads.
1934 Patent - Improvements in or relating to clearers for textile yarns.
1961 Iron founders and textile machinists. [6]
Mill Street Works and its Environs
- 1889 Goad's Insurance Plans Map 215 dated 1928 shows the factory's layout and its close proximity to other factories, houses, and Ancoats Hospital. In fact the hospital and Stubbs' works seem to have been interconnected. The south eastern side of the factory was bounded by the towpath of the Manchester & Ashton-under-Lyne Canal. This side of the works, 100 yards long, contained the smithy, tool room, machine shop and the machine & erecting shop, and faced the cardboard box & printing works of Stevenson & Sons (formerly Victoria Mills). Stubbs' factory also included a showroom and grinding shop, but no foundry (they were then making castings at their Openshaw foundry). Immediately north east of Stubbs’ works was the Manchester Oil and Tallow Refining Co., and then the foundry of Sykes and Harrison. Emphasising the diversity of the area, the north western side of the works faced terraced houses and St Judes’ Church, next to which was a fondant factory and, behind that, a glass works with its two 125 ft tall brick cones
- The Manchester City Council Images Collection includes a photograph showing a view of Stubbs’ works in 1960 [7] [8]
- The character of the area has changed dramatically, but part of the hospital and derelict parts of Stubbs' works were still standing in 2010 (see photo). We can identify some of the remaining parts of the works, from the Goad Plan, as the machine & erecting shop, tool room and water tower.
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ 1891 Worrall's Cotton Spinners Directory
- ↑ London Gazette 6 April 1906
- ↑ 1914 Whitakers Red Book
- ↑ 1917 Worrall's Yorkshire Textile Directory Advert p
- ↑ 1929 British Industries Fair Page 161
- ↑ 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
- ↑ [1] Manchester City Council Images Collection photograph ref m53855
- ↑ [2] Manchester City Council Images Collection 'Search' page