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What sort of industry would moulders be employed in?

BordesleyExile

BordesleyExile

master brummie
What sort of industry might moulders be employed in? Would it be iron casters, iron founders, masters & iron works or rolling mills? This is really outside my area of expertise so any help would be appreciated.
In order to build up a picture of where the family might have worked I am researching Oldbury & possibly Darlaston in 1845. Various documents I have give the family addresses as Oldbury & Oldbury Rd, (then Smethwick) which was close to various Spon Lane iron founders. Family were also linked to Darlaston, Staffordshire.
 
Iron casting would be your best starting point. My grandad wad a moulder in West Brom, and he working in a casting shop.
On the other side, I'm a plastic moulder and I work in a similar trade to what he did all those years ago, just in better working conditions!!!:biggrin:
 
Hi Shirley,

Darlaston industries include gun lock manufacture and nut and bolt. Oldbury for railway carriages, edge tools, bricks (which are also from moulds) and tiles. Smethwick for glass and lighthouse fittings. I should think it is very likely that your moulders were making moulds for metal casting. But there are moulders of all sorts of materials. I had a moulder at a holloware factory over Darlaston way, and that was for bowls, jugs etc.

Ann
 
Thank you, Ann & Robert. As moulding & Oldbury / Darlaston are virgin territory in terms of processes & geographical areas this is all very helpfull.
Virusman I am glad that you found work with good conditions.
Shirley
 
Oldbury/Tipton/Smethwick/West Brom were all very heavy casting areas. Much more than brass and copper use moulds, steel and lots of alloys can be used in moulds. Iron was always a fave in the old foundries.
Beans would have been one of the biggest foundies around in the early 1900's, as for earlier years, Oldbury had a few operating from around 1820. I can't find specifics at the moment, but will post again when I find it in my faves.:D

Neil
 
Hello Ann, hope youre OK, when we lived in Burton our next door neighbour was a moulder at Lloyds Foundry in Burton, I think they had
another factory in the Black Country somewhere,It was a well paid job but
hard work, hot and sweaty they used make all gearboxes and back axels
and things all moulded in metal , he told me they tom use special sand in the moulds. bye for now Bernard:cool:
 
I remember when I used to go with Michael (my hubby) in the early 70's. He worked for a company that delivered Co2 which was used amongst other places in foundries. He mainly delivered around the Black Country. I can remember vividly these dark dingy places with white hot metal and sparks flying. I often thought how awful it must have been to work in these places.
 
" I can remember vividly these dark dingy places with white hot metal and sparks flying. I often thought how awful it must have been to work in these places."......Wendy some of them were ..I worked at round oak steel works and it was dismal in some places.. and could be hazardous at times :rolleyes:but I liked working there (apart from shifts ):)
 
hi
going back many years in the black country and staffs in time gone bye
as you have been told it could have been many different materials to mould
in the beging of the days it would more likely to be metal of some discription
and it would have been sand casting moulding then the rolling and extrusion came later then of course then also plastic mouldings and also bakelite moulding
which my father was a bakelite moulder for charles harris of lodgerd hockley
since he was a kiduntil he ws 42 years of age then he died
i also became a moulder in alunminuim for jv murcotts grovenoer rd aston,
mine was aluminuim bench die cast moulding so there is a varity of moulders
best wishes astonian ;;
 
Thank you for your kind input, Virusman, Bernard, Wendy, OtherHalf & Astonian. I am so sorry to hear of your father's untimely death, Astonian. The Drummons link was interesting Virusman, particularly as I do like to have visual imagery. The Drummonds site would suggest, if I have understood correctly, that moulding & casting were the same process. If I have it wrong I am sure someone will correct me.
There are lots of photos of Oldbury Rd on the web & untill I started researching moulding I had not realised quite the extent of the industry in that area.
Some of my family were moulders in 1851, an iron moulder in 1871 and unemployed moulder in 1881.
Does anyone know what the very large employer of moulders would have been in the Watton St / Haines St/ Pleasant St close to Lyttleton in (east) West Bromwich in 1881? I will sort through my maps & post a map of that immediate area. I have looked at the 1876 Kellys for Staffordshire but failed to come up with that information so perhaps I have been carrying out the wrong search.
 
Here is the alan Godfrey map of 1904 ref 68.14 entitled Oldbury & Spon Lane showing the iron foundry bordered by Watton St / Haines St / Pleasant St. Brittania Iron Foundry is also shown. Spon Iron Foundry is also off Watton St.
If anyone knows what the Watton St iron foundry was called I would appreciate that information.
 
One of the bigest in smethwick (just off oldbury road ) was birmid industries, companies owned included qualcast and dartmouth castings. My dad worked at the birmid for about 20 yrs he was a moulder.
regards
ron
 
Hi BordesleyExile.
My father worked in the office of a company called Hoskins & Son in Bordesley, right alongside the railway. They manufactured hospital beds among other things and some of the components were manufactured from cast iron. They did not have a large foundry but I well remember being taken to the factory as a child (I'm talking early 50's) at weekends and watching the chaps re-lining the unit with new fire-bricks.
If anyone remembers the company and has any information on it I would be most grateful.
OldBrummie.
 
Hi.my dad was a non ferous moulder.casting in sand.what a rotten job,i try'd it for a few months.we made castings for the QE ships,and the bbc program the tube.ie the staircase.
 
I worked for a company supplying the foundry and steelmills industries, here and in the USA. It didn't matter how filthy and dangerous a foundry or a steelworks was, or how poorly-paid the jobs were, when that molten metal began to flow a strange change came over the men - there is something basic and primeval about molten metal. You could see in their eyes the effect it had on them - and on me, too. My most vivid memory, which will stay with me forever, is watching the tapping of an ancient reverbatory steel furnace at US Steel in Cleveland, Ohio - the place was a total maelstrom of noise, but everyone - and I mean everyone - just stopped and stared as that trickle of hot steel began to run...and run...and run. A Dante's Inferno scene only in the history-books, now.

Hi OtherHalf,

you mentioned Round Oak Steel Works. My dad was a furnace electrician with Birlec-Efco Ltd, and he helped install what I think at the time were the largest furnaces in Europe at Round Oak. He took me there one Saturday and I had to stuff my hands in my ears when the juice began to flow - the noise was immense. I believe those furnaces operated for less than a couple of years before they were dismantled and sent to India. He also took me up into the Clent Hills one night in the 1950's, and we sat in the car and watched the glow and jets of flame from the many Black Country furnaces operating at the time. I'd give anything to get back into the foundry industry, even though I've only got less than 2 years until I retire - mucky and dangerous it may have been, but hot metal gets me right here!

Sorry if I've waxed slightly too lyrical....

Big Gee
 
Having worked with Big Gee in England ,I agree with all his comments.I have worked in foundry and steelworks all my working life in Aus and the Uk and find them fascinating places.My husband also worked at Round Oak Steelworks till 1973 which as also gone now.I believe they also had the first continuous casting machine in the UK
 
Hi Bordesley Exile.

Thanks for the link. I have no recollection of any connection between Key & Hoskins and Hoskins & Son but certainly, pre early 50's there may well have been a connection.

Old Brummie
 
Hi Polly Kettle.
I'm being kept busy today. When I joined the site I didn't quite know what I was letting myself in for.
Now I see you're researching "Kettle" - naturally.
I worked as an apprentice at Wilmot Breeden and the man in charge of apprentice training was a Harry Kettle. Is he one of yours?
Old Brummie.
 
All this started with the reference to castings and moulders and here we are with a Prime Minister. I'll explain. Having re-discovered Hoskins & Sewell and a reference to Key & Hoskins I decided to try to see if they were linked to Hoskins & Son. - No success but I did find something I had completely forgotten. Lord Mayor Joseph Chamberlain had a son, Neville, who as well as also being L.M. of Brum, went on to become Prime Minister. He had a Half Brother/Cousin named Austen Chamberlain who was Civil Lord of The Admiralty. Neville's wife, Austen and his Sisters were the owners of "Hoskins & Son", manufacturers and suppliers of "Chain Beds" to The Admiralty. This was a bit of a crisis at the time of the Parliamentary Elections in September 1900. (Shades of current shinanegins?)
Having found all this on "The Net" reminded me that I met, on a number of occasions, Frank Chamberlain, Austen or Neville's son and my Dad's Boss, when he owned Hoskins.
And here is another bit of "Trivia" for you. Frank Chamberlain had relatives linked to the early exploration of Australia. I can't recall whether it was Frank's or his wife's family but one of them was directly related to either Burke or Wills who endeavoured to discover a route from Adelaide to what is now Darwin across the centre of Australia. Burke and Wills both perished in the attempt. Frank Chamberlain visited Australia not long after I arrived here though I was not able to meet up at that time.
OldBrummie.

As a p.s. Hoskins & Sewell beds were supplied to the "Titanic".
 
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Hiya Polly Kettle!

Thanks for your kind comment. I remember you well. I also remember the absolute balls-ache (excuse my French) of trying to develope a coating for continuous casting....remember Alan Dent from those distant days???

Round Oak Steelworks is now Merry Hill Shopping Centre (more or less). About a year before he died I took my old man on a trip down several Black Country Memory Lanes, and his comment about Round Oak was that "he'd never have believed that where HIS furnaces once stood they're now flogging cut-price bloody T-shirts to *******s!" He got it right.

Big Gee
 
G,Day Big Gee,I do remember Alan Dent,I started at FOSECO when I was 18 in 1968 from Duddeston Manor School.If you remember our Lab was right at the bottom of the building(Ingot Treatment Division)down a very narrow steep set of stairs into what was once the air raid shelter.I only lived just across the road but I came to work in my 'modern " clothes and changed in to my work gear.Not long after I started I came down the stairs one morning in my black leathermini skirt,black leather boots and black leather midi coat,Alan Dent was at the bottom of the stairs ,he threw himself on the floor and shouted "whip me, whip me and trample allover me".I decided then and there working with with men I,d better learn to give as good as I get,and I do.ps I,m still in touch with Mike Humm in Canada and Martin Wardell.Frank Lawrence died a few years back but I still keep in touch with his wife in Great Barr.
 
Sorry Old Brummie I forgot to reply to you on the last post.I don,t think Harry Kettle is one of mine but I,m still trying to find all my Dads cousins,so could be.I have a couple of my dads job references,ones dated 15/11/1946 from Cyclo Gear Co ltd,and the other is from Newton and Co dated 15 oct 1952 from then on he was at Joseph Lucas,till his death at Joseph Lucas Shaftsmoor Lane in 1966.Ring any bells .Regards Polly
 
Hi Polly.
I can throw no light on Harry Kettle other than to say he was a big man who was well respected. I was at Wilmot's from about July 1958 to July 1963 and Harry Kettle was still there when I left. I did not have a huge amount of personal contact and learnt next to nothing about him out-side of work.
Lots of luck with the research. It can get very frustrating.
OldBrummie.
 
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