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Messrs Branson and Gwyther of Birmingham

Morturn

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Staff member
I am trying to find out any information on Messrs Branson and Gwyther of Birmingham, whom I understand were possibly a construction company or civil engineers.

Thanks
 
I don't know if this is any use - the marriage of Mr Frederick Gwyther


The Lancaster Gazette and General Advertiser, for Lancashire, Westmorland, &c.
(Lancaster, England), Saturday, August 14, 1841
 

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Daily News (London, England), Wednesday, February 25, 1846
 

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From directories (year is year of publication and in very early years might be several years out of date

1841 Branson George, builder, Vauxhall road
1845 Branson & Gwyther, builders & contractors, Belmont row
1849-55 Branson and Gwyther, ,railway contractor & builders, Belmont row
1858-62 Branson & Gwyther, builders & contractors, Belmont row
1867,1868,1872 1873 Firm not listed.
In 1862 George Branson of Branson & Gwyther is listed as living at 27 Harborne Road. Hris still there in 1867 and 1868, but in 1872 it is occupied by joseph William Branson
 
Great stuff, thank you both very much. I suspected that they were involved in building railways.


I also think that they employed or had some other business agreement with J. A. Chatwin The Architect who was a designer of buildings and the most prolific architect involved with the building and modification of churches in Birmingham, England, building or altering many of the parish churches in the city.

Apparently they built Bingley Hall for £6,000 in six weeks in 1850, using steel columns surplus to the construction of Euston railway station.

It was built in the Roman Doric style using red and blue bricks (the Staffordshire blue bricks being diverted from building the Oxford Street viaduct.
 
Correct, their most famous contribution to Brum being the construction of the Digbeth Viaduct from Bordesley Junction to Moor Street.

This clip from “An Account of the Works on the Birmingham Extension of the Birmingham and Oxford Junction Railway” by CHRISTOPHER BAGOT LANE Assoc. Inst. C.E. is available from the Institute of Civil Engineers. (Minutes of the Proceedings, Volume 11, Number 1852, pages 69-82, AN ACCOUNT OF THE WORKS ON THE BIRMINGHAM EXTENSION OF THE BIRMINGHAM AND OXFORD JUNCTION RAILWAY) from:

https://www.icevirtuallibrary.com/

"The Birmingham Extension commences at a point near the Coventry Road, and was intended to terminate, by a junction with the Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Dudley Railway, at Great
Charles Street. From Adderley Street to Park Street, both inclusive, the town is crossed by a viaduct, and the necessity for passing over these streets at a considerable elevation, caused the great
height of its intervening portion. From Moor Street to Monmouth Street, the line passes under the highest of the hills on which the town is built.

This was proposed to be by a tunnel, the greatest portion of which would have been constructed as a covered way, that is, by opening the ground, putting in the brickwork, and again covering up ; and the part of it as yet completed, from Moor Street to High Street, about 142 yards in length, was executed in this manner.


In September, 1846, a tracing and survey of the district of the town through which the railway was intended to pass, was carefully made and shafts were sunk at several places along the line, for the
purpose of ascertaining the nature of the strata, which were found to consist, in the highest ground of red sand, and in the valley, of red and mottled mad, with, in some places, an overlying bed of
gravel. The winter of 1846-7 was occupied in the various preliminaries.


A contract was ultimately entered into with Messrs. Branson and Gwyther, of Birmingham. and the first brick of the viaduct was laid on the 3rd of March, 1847, in the east pier of the arch over Trent Street.
The viaduct consists of fifty-seven openings...."

A copy of the contract and other documents relating to B&G are held at the National Archive under Rail 39/494, 495, 496 & 497 etc.
 
You can add National Archive's RAIL 44/34 to your list for the Birmingham, Dudley and Wolverhampton Railway Number 1 contract which I think covered the section from Great Charles Street to Vyse Street.

There is reference to this section in Adrian Vaughn's "The Intemperate Engineer" in letters to and from I K Brunel and Charles Saunders though I can't recall whether B&G are mentioned in name though IKB was not the line's Engineer.

I believe they were also contracted to construct the Birmingham Reference Library and The Midlands Institute.
 
This is getting very interesting; Sandfields Pumping Station was built by Messrs Branson and Gwyther of Birmingham, the design of the building by Edward Adams was clearly influenced by the pump house building, designed and erected for I K Brunel's ill fated Dartmouth atmospheric railway. Sandfields Exterior.jpgTotnes Atmospheric Pumping Station.jpg
 
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