Smith and Coventry of Gresley Ironworks, Ordsall Lane, Salford, Manchester, were makers of machine tools and twist drills. They established a second factory in Timperley, Cheshire, and later relocated there.
Early 1850s Mr William Ford Smith went into business for himself at the Bonding Warehouse, Chapel Street, Salford.
A year later he was joined by Mr Arthur Coventry
1859 New works, purpose designed by Mr Ford Smith at Ordsal Lane, Salford
A Smith & Coventry milling machine in the USA was featured in the American magazine 'Machinery' in 1896. The author described it as the 'The earliest machine of the well-known "Knee" type which I have found' and dated it at 'about 1860'. It was still doing fairly heavy work.[1]
1878 Exhibited machine tools at the Paris Exhibition[2]
1885 Gained a Diploma of Honour at the Antwerp Exhibition[3]
1889 May. Paris Exhibition. A large number of machine tools including a hollow mandril lathe. [4]
1894 Antwerp Exhibition. Display of machine tools including a horizontal and vertical drilling machine. [5]
1894 Antwerp Exhibition. Awarded Diploma of Honour for Machinery and Machine Tools. [6]
1900 Bevel Gear Planer. Article and illustration in The Engineer. Also Horizontal boring mill, vertical milling machine, Universal milling machine and a radial drilling machine shown at the 1900 Paris Exhibition. [7]
1911 Robey-Smith Automatic Bevel-gear Planer
1913 Semi-automatic chucking lathe designed by Herbert Austin and made by Smith & Coventry, described and illustrated in the American Machinist[8]
1917 Advert for Novo high-speed twist drills. [9]. These were made at a new factory in the Manchester suburb of Timperley.[10]
1919 Advert for Novo high-speed twist drills. [11]
1920 September. Exhibited at the Machine Tool and Engineering Exhibition at Olympia with a Spiral Bevel Gear Planer and a sensitive drilling machine. [12]
1927 Salford premises advertised for sale due to the firm removing to their works in Timperley, Cheshire[13]
1927 Company voluntarily wound up because of its liabilities; Theodore Coventry was chairman; Gerald Cookman Roberts, of Gresley Iron Works, was appointed liquidator[14]
1929 OLD ESTABLISHED MACHINE TOOL BUSINESS CHANGES HANDS. Messrs. John Hetherington and Sons, Limited have purchased the goodwill, including drawings and patterns so far as relates to machine tools, excepting Vertical and Duplex Key seating Machines of the well-known Machine Tool manufacturing firm, Messrs. Smith and Coventry Limited, which was originally established in Ordsall Lane, Salford in about 1859 and has been carried on lately at Timperley. Messrs. Hetherington intend to run the Smith and Coventry business in conjunction with their existing machine tool manufacture at their Works in Pollard Street, Manchester. Under normal conditions Messrs. Smith and Coventry employed about 300 hands at their works in Salford and as Messrs. Hetheringtons have recently enlarged and modernized their own machine tool works they have every facility and accommodation for dealing with the increased business which will follow as result of their recent acquisition. They are prepared to supply any spare parts - for to duplicate in their entirety machines purchased the past from Messrs. Smith and Coventry [15]
See Also
Sources of Information
- Machine Tools by James Weir French in 2 vols. Published 1911 by Gresham
- ↑ [1] Machinery, April 1896, p.221 (text) and p.229 (illustration)
- ↑ The London Gazette 18 December 1877
- ↑ London Gazette 22 September 1885
- ↑ The Engineer of 3rd May 1889 p365
- ↑ The Engineer of 27th July 1894 p85
- ↑ The Engineer of 2nd November 1894 p387
- ↑ The Engineer of 24th August 1900 p186
- ↑ [2] American Machinist, 4 Sept 1913
- ↑ Mechanical World Year Book 1917. Published by Emmott and Co of Manchester. Advert on rear o/s cover
- ↑ The Engineer 1917/11/30, p 470.
- ↑ Mechanical World Year Book 1919. Published by Emmott and Co of Manchester. Advert on rear o/s cover
- ↑ The Engineer of 3rd September 1920 p233 & p359
- ↑ Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Saturday 13 August 1927
- ↑ The London Gazette 9 August 1927
- ↑ Nottingham Evening Post - Thursday 2nd May 1929