Woodward, Gatty Saunt & Co Ltd

[Gwyn]

Hi

First post!

I'm looking for information on this company, which during WW1 was located at the Elgin Works, Heneage Street, Birmingham. I'd especially like information on the firm's history and details of the works.

I am researching tank and tank component production during WW1 and this firm was involved in machining armour plate, but I have little background information about it.

 

[mikejee]

Cannot find the firm listed in Kellys in 1940, 1943, 1944 or 1946 under that name. Possibly it was listed under another name such as a subsidiary

 

[Astoness]

mike they were in business during ww1 not ww2

lyn

 

[mikejee]

Sorry. Swear I was not drunk !. Only thing is I cannot find any reference to them in the 1913, 1915 or 1921 Kellys either

 

[Astoness]

i believe you mike....im not subbed to the newspaper archives at the min but i wonder if there is any reference to them there..
lyn

 

[mikejee]

Yes Lyn they are mentioned. I suspect that that is where Gwyn saw them mentioned, as the cuttings do not help us find their location

 

[mikejee]

I note that the cuttings refer to 1917 and 1918, so possibly the firm only existed in the last years of the war

 

[mikejee]

Looking for Elgin works produces these same adverts, plus many for the Elgin works of Orme evans in wolverhampton

 

[Gwyn]

Thank you all for the efforts put in to your responses. My original information about the firm came from Ministry of Munitions records at The National Archives, and then newspaper searches found the adverts. However Graces Guide don't have them, and I cannot find any further background information about the firm, hence my enquiry here.

 

[mikejee]

There is also a reference in the London Gazette in 1928 to the winding up of Gatty Saunt & Co, though from two other references they would seem (then at least) to have been merchants trading in oats and other things, rather than manufacturers

 

[Gwyn]

Thank you Mike. That's intriguing. If this is the same firm it implies that the name changed between 1918 and 1927. I note you mention a reference describing them as oat merchants, which is so very different from what they were doing I find it hard to believe it's the same business. I notice that the name of the liquidator is W. H. Gatty Saunt, and that someone of that name was in the 1930s MD of the Amalgamated Roadstone Corporation Ltd - a serial businessman perhaps. If so there may be a connection but on balance I don't think it's the same firm as the one I'm looking for.