E. H. Bentall and Co
of Heybridge, Maldon, Essex
General
1790 William Bentall, a farmer from Goldhanger builds a plough made of cast iron fixed to a wooden frame
1797 Because of success of the plough, Bentall ceases farming and sets up a foundry, smithy and joinery business and produces 'Goldhanger' ploughs
1805 Company founded by William Bentall builds a factory on land close to the Chelmer and Blackwater canal at Heybridge
1836 William dies and control passes to Edward Hammond Bentall the son of William
1839 The company was re-named as E. H. Bentall and Co
1843 E. H. Bentall introduces the Broad Share Cultivator and in the next eight years they sell 8,000 of them
1851 Award at the 1851 Great Exhibition. See details at 1851 Great Exhibition: Reports of the Juries: Class IX.
1875 Producing a wide range of agricultural and screw cutting machinery
1885 E. H. Bentall dies and the firm is then run by his son Edmund Ernest Bentall
1894 June. Royal Agricultural Society's Show. Grater, or Root Cutting Machine. [1]
1900 E. E. Bentall designs an internal combustion engine to power agricultural machinery
1912 Introduced a 1.5-hp two-stroke engine but it was soon replaced by the Pioneer model. The Pioneer range came in models from 1.5 to 12 hp.
1914 Specialities: Chaff Cutters, Grinding Mills, Cattle Food preparing Machines, Petrol and Oil Engines and Engineers' Bright Steel Nuts, Bolts etc. [2]
1914 The works was employing some six to seven hundred hands with the works covering an area of about fourteen acres
Post WWI Became part of AGE - Agricultural and General Engineers and were the largest company in the group.
1925 Ceased production of the vertical engine
In 1933, E. E. Bentall purchased the ordinary shares of the company from the receivers of Agricultural and General Engineers.
WWII. Production set up for the manufacture of small machine parts for the aircraft for Handley-Page. Also produced complete assemblies such as tail fins and bomb floor for the new Halifax bombers
1946 Public company with Charles Edward Bentall as Chairman
1949 New foundry built. Also they purchased of Tamkin Brothers and Co of Chelmsford
1961 Manufacturers of field implements, barn machinery, self-filling drinking bowls, grain handling and storage plant, galvanised ware, brewery equipment, dairy equipment, coffee and rice plantation machinery. 500 employees. [3]
In 1961 the company was taken over by the Acrow group of companies.
1984 Acrow went into receivership. The business founded nearly 180 years before closed in Heybridge.
Cars
See E. H. Bentall and Co: Cars
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ The Engineer of 29th June 1894 p562
- ↑ 1914 Whitakers Red Book
- ↑ 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
- [1] It's about Maldon