Thomas Joseph Perry (1824-1885)
1824 November 9th. Born the son of Thomas Perry and his wife Mary Keeling
1863 Thomas J. Perry, Highfields Engine Works, Bilston.[1] - presumably Thomas Perry and Son
1881 Living at Wergs Hall, Tettenhall: Thomas Joseph Perry (age 56 born Bilston), Iron Founder, Engineer, Bedstead and Safe Maker, Employing 250 Operatives. With his two spinster sisters; Jane Margaret Perry (age 59 born Bilston) and Helen Perry (age 59 born Bilston). Also his spinster cousin April Gertrude Keeling (age 19 born Brewood). Six servants.[2]
1885 March 29th. Died.
1885 Obituary [3]
THOMAS J. PERRY was born at Bilston on 9th November 1824, and died on 29th March 1885, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was the only surviving partner of the firm of Messrs. Thomas Perry and Son, ironfounders and engineers, Highfields Works, Bilston, having on the death of his father become sole proprietor of the works.
Taking great interest in the development of the iron and steel trades, he was much engaged in making and perfecting machinery employed in the various operations and experiments connected with the Danks process. In the manufacture of blowing and pumping engines he was largely occupied, and supplied the greater part of the blowing engines for the Barrow Works. He paid special attention to improving the quality and strength of foundry castings used in the construction of all iron and steel rolling machinery, particularly chilled rolls for rolling iron and steel plates and other purposes, for which his rolls were held in very high. esteem.
He was the first who adopted a perfectly unique method of testing the absolute strength of all pig iron while in the pig, however rough the form or variable the size or quality. The pig itself is broken at 3 feet bearing in a hydraulic press, the actual load being recorded by a self-registering pressure-gauge; the transverse sectional area at the fracture is measured in square inches by taking a rubbing from it; and the strength is reduced by calculation to the common standard of a bar one inch square similarly broken at 3 feet bearing. A uniformly accurate comparison is thus obtained between all varieties of pig, instead of depending on the rough conjecture obtained by breaking with a blow of a hammer or throwing on a breaker.
He was chairman of the South Staffordshire Ironfounders' Association from its commencement, and a county magistrate; and had been a Member of the Institution from 1863.
1885 Obituary [4]