more small firms

 

A few weeks ago I started series of articles which I hope will look at lots of the little small firms which we’ve had in Greenwich and Woolwich. Most of them are too small and their history too uneventful to do a whole article on them.  I explained that when we started Greenwich Industrial History Society an old chap called Ted Barr used to send me the names of what he said were small engineering firms in the borough. I thought perhaps it was about time that I started investigating some of these and last week I took a  number from  Ted’s list and  It turned out that some of them were not as small as all that.

Right.  Next on Ted’s list, and first for this  week is  ‘Cook, Troughton and Simms’. Well, that was hardly a small firm - after all they named a road after one of its main partners. It’s a firm I’ve thought about writing up before - and I would have done so except that the rather expensive book on the firm’s background was sent to me by Royal Mail  -  which is fatal – unable to deliver it.  So I never wrote them up  – but I understand another local historian has considered doing it. Happily John Smith’s History of Charlton devotes four pages to them – this will be a very, very brief summary.

Troughton and Simms were optical instrument makers ‘of world wide repute’. In 1864 they  bought two acres of land on the south side of Woolwich Road west of Charlton Church Lane and erected workshops and transferred their optical equipment manufacture here from Fleet Street.

The origins of the company go back almost 200 years before they  moved here which can be somewhat confusing .  Very very briefly in 1688 there was an instrument maker in Fleet Street  who in 1704 was taken over by mathematical instrument maker who, in  1720, was taken over by the Royal clock maker and made orreries.  In1748 they were  taken over by a  maker of scientific and measuring instruments. - In 1782 they were taken over by a John and Edward Troughton.

Edward Troughton specialised in astronomical instruments. His company merged with that of William  Simms who made instruments for the East India Company. They also merged with Cooke who made telescopes and much else. Eventually in 1864 it was decided to set up a factory in Charlton and astronomical instruments were made for observatories all over the world here. In the 1920s the firm began to do less well and was taken over by Vickers. In 1925 their buildings were sold to Johnson and Phillips.

It is important clearly that we can hear a lot more about Troughton - if for nothing else for work they did for the Royal Observatory. I think Greenwich Industrial History Society would be very interested in anybody who has been studying the company who might be prepared to come and talk to us about them.

And  we should have told Ted, when he was doing his list of small firms,  that a small firm is not one that for 400 years was selling specialist instrumentation  internationally

Next      Ted listed Custance and Thomson, Meadow Court Road, Lee. He said they were long established and ‘all through World War II, they were on repetition machine parts’.  In 2006 they are listed at  Unit 49, New Lydenburg Commercial Estate, SE7 and closed down in 2010. 

 

In Meadow Court Road their building was just round the corner from Lee Road, next to the car repair business and it appears they left in the early 2000s. Their buildings are still shown in even the latest Google Street View although in other use but they received planning consent for demolition a couple of years ago. It is a relatively small set of buildings .

They are described as a ‘precision engineering company but it is unclear exactly what they were doing None of the reports give any details and there don’t seem to be any advertisements,  beyond a few advertising for staff. They seem to have been running for what appears to be 70 or 80 years. ‘Custance’ is apparently a fairly well known name in the Blackheath village area where there have been several distinguished family members. 

J.M.Dangerfield. In his list of small firms Ted gave no details at all about Dangerfield, other than saying they were plant engineers based in Trafalgar Road.  

John Manners Dangerfield was born in 1855 in West Bromwich where his father was manager of a chain works. He seems to have come to Greenwich at some point in the late 19^th century having lived in Reading where he worked as a carpenter and married. In Greenwich he worked at – or maybe set up - the Magdala Works at 514 Woolwich Road in Charlton -roughly opposite where the Troughton Works was. From 1900 he was involved in a number of local charities and various good works organisations – including, for example, a Wesleyan School and much else. Later this included more political bodies like the Woolwich Chamber of Trade. In 1911 was the wedding of his eldest son, Arthur.

There is remarkably little information about the work at the Magdala Works and their advertisements imply that they dealt almost entirely with transport issues and they clearly employed a fair number of men. In the 1920s they advertised ‘All kinds Motor repair work’ and continued to do this for the next 50 or so years. They advertise the use of Acetylene for welding and cutting. They mention a number of garaging facilities including space for large commercial vehicles. For hire were a ‘2 ton lorry, a delivery van and a touring car.‘

John died in 1942 at the age of 87 when he was living in Glenluce Road in Blackheath. He said that he had been retired for some time and I’m assuming that one of his sons had taken over the works. It continued to always be referred to as J.M.Dangerfield.  I do not know when they closed.

DeVille Brothers.  Ted said they were ‘”Sited on the corner of Royal Hill and Gloucester Circus and run by retired Royal Navy 'Tiffies'. They had a well-equipped workshop, and traded as general and motor engineers. During the Second World War  they made parts for PLUTO - valves and control gears.” 

I am told that ‘tiffies’ is slang for Navy ‘artificers’ - but apart from that it’s been very difficult to find anything much out about this works at all. The address on Royal Hill appears in some newspaper reports.

There are other newspaper reports about a William Lawrence Deville but nothing about any brothers. The main reason for the report  was the theft of Mr Deville’s car from the garage at 51 Royal Hill. The car is said to be worth £1000 which - where I come from - in 1946 was very, very  posh, so whatever the Devilles were doing must have been very profitable

E.Dello.  Ted said ”General engineer working from Sun Lane Garage. They had traded from other addresses and did general repetition work – “in the Second World War it was of a munitions nature”. I had not found the smallest reference to a workshop at Sun Lane or indeed any reference at all to anybody called Dello. I have assumed that Dello is a mistake for something else -but I think it’s a very long shot that it could really be somebody by the name of ‘Dale’. Anyway I found the following story in a Kentish Independent newspaper from 1965-  and I thought even if it isn’t Mr Dello that you might find it interesting.

“AT the top of Sun Lane, Old Dover Road, Blackheath, there stands one of the district’s oldest workshops with many interesting links with the days of hansom cabs, a cycling community ... It provides the working environment for 63-year-old Mr. Edward William Dale, a craftsman-machanic of the old school whose skill at the bench and machine has gained for him a big local reputation as a cycle and motorcar repairer”.

The article explains that Mr. Dale lives in Royal Parade, Blackheath, and has been employed in the shop in Sun Lane practically since his boyhood, working with his son, Michael Raymond, on motor-car and motor-cycle repairs. Surrounded by racks of tools and ‘spare parts, benches and machines, the KI reporter thought “there was an old-world look about the building with its ancient timbers, a lathe and drilling machine which showed evidence of constant use, rather indifferent lighting.” He said that ‘these days’ in 1965 – ‘It is mostly cars and motorcycles.’

Mr. Dale said he bought the business in 1937 from the late Mr. A, F Romboy, for whom he worked as a lad. “Years ago we made our own cycles in the shop and we had many well-known Blackheath residents as customers. There were some good cyclists in the district in those davs.”