Lead merchants, iron founders, engineers, millwrights, copper smiths, refrigerator and boiler makers, of Farringdon Works, Shoe Lane, London.
of Garratt Mills, Wandsworth.
of Millwall.
and later of Union foundry, Derby.[1].
Maker of stationary engines[2], sugar machinery and distilling plant.
1788 Company founded when the premises in Shoe Lane were erected - perhaps by E. and W. Pontifex and Co.
1841 Pontifex (Edmund and William) and Wood were millwrights
1850 Pontifex and Wood were recorded as receiving lead ores at St Katherines Dock[3]
1851 Award at the 1851 Great Exhibition for sugar apparatus, pumps, etc. See details at 1851 Great Exhibition: Reports of the Juries: Class VI.
1856 Patent to Edmund Alfred Pontifex, of Pontifex and Wood of Shoe Lane, chemical manufacturer, for improvement in manufacture of tartaric acid, citric acid and salts[4]
1859 Patent Edmund Alfred Pontifex, of Pontifex and Wood of Shoe Lane, engineers and coppersmiths, on external surface condensers[5]
1865 Contract to supply sugar refinery machinery to the new company International Sugar Refineries Co Ltd[6]
1868 Shipbuilders of Millwall[7]
1876 "Hamper's Patent Fountain" - described as brewers' engineers, millwrights, coppersmiths, ironfounders etc [8]
1880 With other paint manufacturers, petitioned the Board of Trade about legal measures of paint
1885 Had patented an ice-making machine some years before; supplied cold store plant to Great Northern Ice Co Ltd of Great Grimsby[9]
1887 Converted into a limited company
1888 Voluntary liquidation of the company supervised by the court[10]
1889 Cold storage rooms built at Nottingham (see illustration)
1890 All of the Millwall white lead, colour, varnish, sheet lead and lead piping business had been sold to Millwall Lead Co Ltd[11]; the engineering business would continue at Shoe Lane.
1891 Supplied a refrigerator and coolers to Burntisland Oil Co[12]
c.1892 Haslam Foundry and Engineering Co merged with Pontifex and Wood
1895 Locke, Lancaster and W. W. and R. Johnson and Sons acquired the business and factory of the Millwall Lead Co (formerly Pontifex and Wood).
- Note:
Another Pontifex business, Henry Pontifex and Sons, was also in Shoe Lane, having been established in 1796
1862 The partnership of H. D. Pontifex and C. Pontifex, coppersmiths of Shoe Lane, was dissolved[13]
1869 The partnership of H. D. Pontifex, C. Pontifex junior and F. Pontifex, coppersmiths of Shoe Lane, was dissolved[14]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Post Office London Directory, 1882
- ↑ Stationary Steam Engines of Great Britain by George Watkins. Vol 10
- ↑ Daily News, June 19, 1850
- ↑ The London Gazette 28 March 1856
- ↑ The London Gazette, 22 February 1859
- ↑ Daily News, July 28, 1865
- ↑ Manchester Times, February 29, 1868
- ↑ The Engineer 1876/07/14 p32
- ↑ The Standard, July 11, 1885
- ↑ The Times, Nov 05, 1888
- ↑ The Times, Feb 26, 1890
- ↑ The Dundee Courier & Argus, May 25, 1891
- ↑ Daily News, March 19, 1862
- ↑ Liverpool Mercury, June 24, 1869