Arkinstall Bros , Galvanizers

[mikejee]

It should be noted that there was another Arkinstall Bros in Great Hampton St, silver and silver plate manufacturers.
The business was started by David & Francis Arkinstall, sons of a retail brewer , John Arkinstall, in Cross St, West Bromwich. Francis was about 12 years older than David. Both worked as Roll turners in an iron mill, but the older Francis became a master galvanizer and about 1879 joined with his brother to form a galvanizing business, Arkinstall Bros, at 16 Milk St in premises that previously had been the business of Benjamin Parkes, wire fender maker. By the time of the 1882 Kellys directory they seem to have expanded to include no 17 Milk St also. The works would seem to be area in red on the mid 1880s map below, though it is possible that the works also included some adjoining areas in addition.


They were advertising in Kellys in 1882 as below. Apparently Waterloos were a brand of cast iron toilet cisterns much used at that time. I wish I could go back a check if in my childhood house had the label Waterloo cast into it.



From the late 1880s they also occupied premises at 38 Coventry St. Numbers 38,39,40 had previously been the home of The Priory Brass Co, and it is not clear how much of the premises were occupied. The Priory Brass factory is shown in red on this mid 1880s map



Around the late 1890s the firm strongly promoted an early fuel saving measure, "The Cinder sifter and Dustbin" aimed to ensure no waste of potential cinders from the fire;



The firm relinquished the Milk St site around 1907 and work was concentrated on the Coventry St one.

In 1920 Arkinstall Bros. was made into a limited company , and at the same time a new company Keep's Construction Ltd, wholly owned by the two brothers, was formed to take over the tank and iron plate business of Keep & Co in Barn St. The firm gave up the Coventry St site in 2007, and concentrated all work on the Barn Road site

Here are photos, presumably from around the 1920s of work inside the Coventry Road factory




and lorries in that period and later outside .



and here is the Coventry St entrance at about the end of the firm's occupation of the site




The Coventry St factory is still (or was in 2020) still there, unoccupied, looking rather the worse for ware

 

[A Sparks]

That's very interesting about the Waterloo toilet cistern - is that where the word loo - meaning toilet comes from?!

 

[mikejee]

That is one explanation. See:

What do you call a portable toilet?

There are many references to portable toilet but what do you cfall a portable toilet? Tell us yours today.

tardishire.co.uk

Loo Origin: Why is it called a Loo?

www.saywhydoi.com

 

[Astoness]

thanks mike that is very interesting info with some nice photos as well

lyn

 

[Godber]

Hello mikejee, I’m very surprised to see this thread and it’s prompted me to register here. I used to work at Keep’s Construction in the late ‘80s to mid ‘90s and occasionally had to do some repair work at Arkinstall’s. Keep‘s was a steel fabricators as you mentioned, never a very big operation and the business was moved to Booth Street (Handsworth/Smethwick?) in ’94 if I remember correctly. This was done because Arkinstall’s wanted to transfer their hot-dip galvanising operation to the Barn Street building which was better suited to it and was generally in much better condition than their Coventry Street site.
I left Keep‘s in ‘95 and later learned it had closed within a few months of me going. I was sad to hear it, my pals lost their jobs and an old company had died. I’ve some…interesting memories of the place should you want me to share them.

Cheers.

 

[mikejee]

Godber. Thank you for that information. The forum exists to try and preserve information about Birmingham. I am sure any other memories would be of interest.

 

[Godber]

mikeje, thanks for the reply. As I mentioned, in my time there it was a small operation but in its earlier years I have reason to believe it was somewhat larger in terms of staff. If I remember correctly, when I started work there was a manager, estimator and secretary who worked in the ”Office” which was a two or three story Victorian building standing on Barn Street, this was later demolished when Arkinstall’s moved in. Behind that and across a yard stood (and still does) the workshop. This contained various machines necessary for steel plate and sheet fabrication, i.e. overhead gantry crane, rollers, croppers, radial arm drills, band saws, pillar drills, welding and flame cutting equipment etc. For most of the time I was there only four men worked on the shop floor, the foreman, myself and two others though others came and went. The work produced was tanks, pressure vessels, pipe work, ductwork, structural steelwork etc.
The equipment we used there was ancient, but perhaps that’s testimony to its quality, I don’t know. While drilling a multitude of holes in some 1 1/2” plate one day, I looked inside the control panel (marked “The Igranic Electric Company” I seem to recall) to see written on a label “THIS MACHINE LAST SERVCED ON: April 1927”, some 60+ years previous. The welding sets were the old oil filled AC type and were at least 50 years old even then. Interestingly, the change from riveting to welding was clearly evident. The hearth for heating rivets stood in one corner and thousands of rivets were piled up by it, along with tongs, dollys etc where they had been left by the last user. It was as if one day in the past the decision was made and riveting was dropped overnight.
Toilet and wash facilities were rudimentary in the extreme. A long trough on one wall served for washing at the end of the day and the toilets were in a small extension on the side of the building. This was one brick thick, had a corrugated plastic roof and was unheated. In fact the whole place was extremely cold in the winter. Unfortunately, the sole water supply for the workshop came via a plastic pipe from the office affixed to a wall in the yard. This meant that in severe cold weather A. the water froze in the pipe and we had no supply to the workshop or toilets and B. the water froze in the toilet bowls. This made visiting the lavatory an arduous task. You had to carry a bucket across the freezing, sometimes snow covered yard to the office opposite, go into the store room below, down some steps into a pitch black cellar and fill said bucket from a standpipe there. Then carry the bucket of water back up the steps, out of the storeroom and across the yard and back inside and over to the toilets. Using whatever implement was at hand you would smash through the ice in the toilet bowl, sit down and insult the porcelain, then attempt to flush away the waste with your bucket of water. Needless to say, the job didn’t come with a company car, either.
It was on one of these water collecting journeys that a workmate made a discovery in the old storeroom. While poking around he discovered some old catalogues that the company had produced many years before. These contained illustrations of various pieces of work manufactured by the company, with photographs of them loaded onto horse drawn carts and featuring captions such as “This tank was completed within three days” etc. I don’t remember any dates being attached but given the clothes of the men shown (mustachioed foreman in cow gown and hat, workers in caps as I recall) I’d guess perhaps the 1920s, maybe even earlier. Anyway, it seemed the company employed more people back then. Also, several pairs of unused clogs were found, with a leather upper, wooden sole and shod with what can only be described as small horse shoes on the bottom. These puzzled us initially, but the answer was obvious. In the days before welding was used, standing on accidentally dropped white hot rivets while wearing leather soled boots would be extremely painful. Presumably the clogs prevented injury.
Anyway, I’ve gone on enough now, cheers.

 

[hewittbj39]

Hi all. This is a letter from Arkinstalls to my grandfathers brother Thomas regiment about his conduct while on loan to them during the first world war. To me he is a right character but to them he must have been a liability the only excuse I can find is that my grandfather James died of wounds in 1915 so perhaps it was some kind of reaction.
sorry about the quality of the print. Regards Acklam19.

 

[Godber]

I’d imagine that the ongoing War caused many people to have a “Live for Today” attitude. Can’t say I blame them.

 

[Godber]

I’ve managed to find the picture I mentioned. This is Barn Street, Keeps Construction was situated behind the terraced houses and across an open yard. The bare brick houses had gone by the time I worked there, but the rendered building on the extreme left remained and served as the office. The building further down down the street with the two dormer windows in the roof is now know as the Barn Street Diner, but I believe (from reading other posts on here) when this photo was taken it was The Beehive Pub.

 

[Astoness]

I’ve managed to find the picture I mentioned. This is Barn Street, Keeps Construction was situated behind the terraced houses and across an open yard. The bare brick houses had gone by the time I worked there, but the rendered building on the extreme left remained and served as the office. The building further down down the street with the two dormer windows in the roof is now know as the Barn Street Diner, but I believe (from reading other posts on here) when this photo was taken it was The Beehive Pub.

thats a great photo

 

[Godber]

I think so too, Astoness. Strange to think the old tools and equipment I used there may also have been used by some of those chaps years before. But then it’s been 28 years since I left Keeps…time is flying by.

 

[Astoness]

I think so too, Astoness. Strange to think the old tools and equipment I used there may also have been used by some of those chaps years before. But then it’s been 28 years since I left Keeps…time is flying by.

yes godber you most likely did but thank goodness they didnt use the horse and cart back then for transport...

lyn