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Alldays & Onions

Hi, I am from South Africa. We recently discovered one of our historical items on the farm has the badge of Alldays & Onions on it. I read that they were involved in War work, just curious to find out what items they manufactured, could it be that they manufactured naval mines? Thank you
 
Nadia5 said:
Hi, I am from South Africa. We recently discovered one of our historical items on the farm has the badge of Alldays & Onions on it. I read that they were involved in War work, just curious to find out what items they manufactured, could it be that they manufactured naval mines? Thank you
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hi and welcome...sounds like a nice find....hope someone can give you more info about the company..could i ask what the item was that you found and if you can post a photograph of it that would be great

lyn
 
Astoness said:
hi and welcome...sounds like a nice find....hope someone can give you more info about the company..could i ask what the item was that you found and if you can post a photograph of it that would be great

lyn
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Hi Lyn, thank you

Here is photos of it. Someone on one of my FB groups suggested Naval Mines. Not sure what to think.
 

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crikey nadia it look huge....i can see why you think some sort of mine but like you not sure...is it sealed or does it open up...quite a mystery for us

lyn
 
Very strange. Obviously cannot be a flying saucer (!!) despite its shap. Trouble is they made lots of things. Will be very interested to see if anyone can identify it
 
Astoness said:
crikey nadia it look huge....i can see why you think some sort of mine but like you not sure...is it sealed or does it open up...quite a mystery for us

lyn
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Lol, yes. As far as I know it is empty, but I will ask my husband if we can try to open it up. It is quite a mystery indeed.
 
As one of the oldest companies in Birmingham, I think you can assume that they made nearly every that they could in metal over the years.
 
Interesting conundrum!

What is its size, roughly? Any external connections of any sort? Brackets? I was wondering if it is some sort of pressure vessel, for an unknown purpose. Or an expansion chamber in conjunction with some sort of pressurised system. As it turned up on a farm, some sort of agricultural equipment, or part of it?

Would the history of the Company, or any surviving product list (as already mentioned in this thread) give us any clue?

Chris
 
Morturn said:
I am wondering if its an air vessel off a hydraulic ram pump

en.wikipedia.org

Hydraulic ram - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

I have seen a few with round air vessels like this one
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For anyone interested.
The Wolseley Register on-line shop is now selling a book called "Alldays & Onions Pneumatic Engineering Co. Ltd",, which is a complete history of the company and includes over 80 pages of car production data.
This could be a short run book, as the Register says it only has a limited stock.
PA739
 
PA739 said:
For anyone interested.
The Wolseley Register on-line shop is now selling a book called "Alldays & Onions Pneumatic Engineering Co. Ltd",, which is a complete history of the company and includes over 80 pages of car production data.
This could be a short run book, as the Register says it only has a limited stock.
PA739
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Excellent, I've been looking for a copy of that, and now have one on order. Thanks for the tip off!

I'm doing a one name study of sorts on the Birmingham Alldays, who mostly relate either to my family, or to the Allday bellows-making family, who went on to co-found Alldays & Onions. I can trace the latter family back as far as Peter Allday (~1778-1850) and Phoebe Inghley (~1774-1840), who lived on Coventry Street in 1813, but no further as yet.

Quite a history, their company has.
 
My copy of "Alldays & Onions Pneumatic Engineering Co. Ltd" has now arrived, and features a fine collection of photos and sketches of all manner of interesting engineering contraptions as well as pictures of notable Alldays - nice to be able to put faces to the names of some of these folk I've been researching. I'm afraid from my initial flick through, I can so far shed no light on the mysterious spherical device pictured upthread. I've spotted nothing of that shape among the various pumps, bellows, forges, bikes, cars and vans in the Alldays and Onions product range.

The book has a wealth of information on the history of the company and its forbears in the later Victorian era, but just a few tantalizing details on its origins. For the Allday side of the business, it states the following:
  • "The company Allday & Co., was founded in 1784"
  • In 1876 the company had premises on Branston Street, under the name "William Allday & Son (Established 1780)"
I've located an 1876 advertisement confirming the latter fact (Aris's Birmingham Gazette - Saturday 15 July 1876), but can find no source for the former. Does anyone have any insight into where such information may have been gleaned?
 
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