Victoria Iron Works - William Joyce

 

 

Continuing our walk down Deptford Creek.  We have walked south down Dreadnought Walk from the mouth of the Creek where it joins the Thames and then along Dowells Street past Waitrose.    When you get to the point at which Dowells Street joins, Norway Street you will see, on the other side of Norway Street, the Meridian Estate dating from the 1930s. Had you stood there in the 19^th century you would have seen a factory. Although strictly speaking this site isn’t alongside the Creek it is certainly a Creekside industry and it is near enough to the waterside for its occupants to take advantage of the facilities the Creek offered for water transport.

In the 1820s we would have been looking at a small gas works on that site. We have already seen  the Greenwich gas works of the Phoenix Company where the Creek meets the Thames to the north of where we are now but this predates that and was the first gasworks in Greenwich.

The small gasworks stood on the east side of Norway Street from around 1823 to 1828. Speculators had approached the Greenwich Vestry suggesting they build this gas works and the resulting row escalated into a ‘writ of mandamus’ and the downfall of the ruling group in the vestry. I have written about his saga in some detail in the Greenwich Historical Society’s Journal and elsewhere.

The resulting small gas works was taken over by the Phoenix Gas Company within a year of construction and used by them while the larger riverside works to the north nearby was built. Phoenix seem to have kept only the gasholder in use and by 1828 advertised it to rent - as “a valuable property at Greenwich near the river Ravensbourne with brick buildings and a lofty chimney suitable for an iron foundry or any trade requiring large premises”. Originally and for some time it was leased to Mr Beneke – he was German chemist and I will get to write a lot about him when I get to the Lewisham side of the Creek.

The site of the gas works was eventually sold to William Joyce in 1841.  I wrote a whole article about him in Weekender in February 2019 – but perhaps had better re-cap at bit.

William Joyce was the son of Jeremiah Joyce –who in 1794 had been arrested for treason and incarcerated in the Tower of London on a charge of advocating Parliamentary reform, and who later became a Unitarian minister and the founder of early 19^th century scientific journals.    William undertook an engineering apprenticeship and developed a ‘pendulous’ steam engine from 1834 when he was just 21.  These engines were advertised for sale from 1835.

William spent a ‘large sum’ on ‘improvements’ to the old gas works site when he acquired it and added engineering, plate making and model departments, as well as a foundry and a high chimney.   It was renamed the Greenwich Foundry and at first he manufactured mainly steam engines there.  Some of these engines went to local firms– one, sold around 1843-4, went to Frank Hills for his new  East Greenwich chemical works on the Greenwich Peninsula – I wrote about  him in Weekender quite recently, back in March but there is a lot more to hear about his activities when I get over to the Lewisham side of the Creek. When I get to the Lewisham side there will also be an article on John Bennett Lawes and his revolutionary super-phosphate factory – he also bought a steam engine from Joyce.  Not all Joyce’s engines were sold locally - one went to a corn mill in Gloucester and a replacement crankshaft sent to them led to a change in the law on liability of carriers. Joyce also provided the machinery for a corn mill in Smyrna – and we can assume that there were many other contracts.

By the mid-1840s Joyce was manufacturing engines for river boats.  Steam driven vessels were becoming important means of transport on the Thames and one of the companies ran the Halfpenny Fare steamers.  Joyce supplied the engines for three of these – The Ant, The Bee and The Cricket.  Sadly the Cricket‘s boiler exploded one morning in August 1847 while she was at Adelphi Pier and packed with passengers.  The death toll was never finally agreed but was probably upwards of 30.  At the subsequent enquiry both Joyce and his foreman, Thomas Meacham, gave evidence although there was no question that their equipment was faulty. It turned out that the engineer on the boat had wedged down some of the valves and then gone off without telling anyone what he had done. The Great Exhibition in 1851 gave Joyce a great showplace for his engines which were on display and reported on. One of his engines worked an ice making machine which producing the ices for sale in the Crystal Palace’s restaurant.

By the early 1850s Joyce was building ships and was also using Dreadnought Wharf with a frontage to the Thames in Thames Street to the north - and this article is just looking at his Norway Street works.  However a ship under construction at Dreadnought led to a difficult court case in 1854 ad at the same time Joyce & Co were declared bankrupt and the assets of the yard sold.  The purchaser was Thomas Meacham, Joyce’s site foreman, and he had bought it apparently using money which had been owed to him by Joyce. 

 

They continued to build ships – the iron hulled Victor Emmanuel was built in early 1856. Strangely it is described as beige built by Joyce & Co, ‘for themselves’ - whatever that implies. Later a Lloyd’s assessment apparently says the engine was removed and so she had been converted to a sailing ship.  As a barque she was eventually wrecked off the Isle of Wight ‘due to the obstinacy of the captain’.

 

William Joyce died very suddenly one morning in August 1856; he was only 42 and was buried at Nunhead. Thomas Meacham was the principal mourner and as owner of the site continued the work there.  He renamed it as the ‘Victoria Foundry and worked on new designs.

In 1858 Meacham built the screw steamer Metropolis which included engines of ‘unusual design’. Metropolis was purpose built for use on passages to the Channel Islands and appears to have been successful.   However she sank off the Hermitage Rocks off Jersey in 1861 when she hit the Rouaudiere Rock and was a total loss.

He also built a vessel called ‘The Connector’ in 1858. This was a boat built in three sections, each section itself was an individual boat which could be connected and disconnected in a matter of moments.  She had a 10 hp engine with a single screw and was apparently used ‘for a considerable time’ on the coal trade run between London and north east England.  It was thought the principle could be applied to canal boats ‘with great advantage’.

They also built a lighthouse in 1857. This still stands at Cape Point near Cape Town in South Africa and bears a plague telling of its origins in Greenwich.  Over the years several Greenwich residents who have been in South Africa have sent Greenwich Industrial History Society pictures of the lighthouse and its plaque which tells us it was made in Greenwich. It was commissioned by the Board of Trade and designed by engineer Alexander Gordon, with lights by Deville. The cast iron sections were shipped from Greenwich to Simon’s Town and transferred to a smaller boat in which it was taken to Buffels Bay where a modified gun carriage was used to haul it overland through difficult terrain to a camp from where a bullock-drawn sledge was used for the final leg of the journey. Deliveries of oil and food were only made once every three months, and in 1876 there was great difficulty in getting oil supplies to the lighthouse. It was in use from 1^st May 1860 until it was extinguished during the First World War.  The site is now tourist attraction and museum, https://capepoint.co.za/about/

Thomas Meacham died in 1867 at his home at 1 Circus Street but already, from 1861 the foundry was in the hands of  Joseph Francis Delany and J.Okes.  Delaney had served an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer under Willam Joyce and had stayed with the firm as naval architect and manager of the iron ship-building department.   They built engines for steam-yacht “ Wolverene,” for Lieut.-Col. Brandram which had been built by Stockwell and Lewis in Barking.   Another vessel was the paddle steamer Ladyburn for which thye built the engines in 1866.   She sprang a leak and foundered in the North Sea east of Friesland Netherlands while she was on a voyage from the Duchy of Holstein to London, with over 400 cattle on board.

 

The foundry closed in 1866 ‘due to the commercial crisis of that year’.  Later maps show housing on the site.  And so we move on down Norway Street to Creek Road.