First of all I wish to thank Richard Davenhill, Chairman of Hinton, Perry & Davenhill, owners of present day Ketley Brick & Dreadnought Tiles Company for the information received about his company which has filled in many blanks. Also Justin Hughes for information received about his family's ownership of the land the first Ketley brickworks was built on.
So I start with Justin's information & his ancestor William Hughes who in the 1840's was a brickmaker in Kingswinford. William's family had purchased several plots of land just outside Kingswinford from the Corbyns Hall Estate in 1799 & one plot of land was to become the location of the first Ketley brickworks around 1875. Justin tells me there are strong indications the Hughes family had named their Estate, Ketley with William Hughes living at Ketley House & having his brick yard next to the house (as recorded on the 1840 Tithe map of the Kingwindford area). I have coloured Ketley House & it's adjoining brick yard land red on the 1900 OS map below.
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1900.
Photo by Ceri Owens.
The Sheffield Telegraph dated 5th of January 1875 records the Ketley Brick & Tile Co. had been registered with a capital of £4,000 in £5 shares. With it not stating Kingswinford I am assuming it was the Ketley works as shown on the 1900 OS map above which I have coloured yellow. Green Lane (green) was later re-named Ketley Road. There was another brickworks in Ketley, Shropshire, but as far as I can find this Shropshire works was only known as the Ketley brick works not company, therefore this Ketley Brick & Tile Co. must be the Kingswinford one.
Info on who had established the Ketley Brick Co in 1875 is a bit of a mystery at the moment, however Kelly's 1880 edition records the Ketley Brick Co. at Kingswinford with William Wood as Manager. It was from a combination of two adverts dated 1882 & 1884, then a London Gazette notice dated 1890 for Ketley that I found the owners of the company. One of them Reuben Cull was living at Standish House in 1881 which he was renting & was just across the road from the works, so this consortium may have formed the Ketley Brick Co. in 1875. I have coloured Standish House purple on the map above.
Building News - Friday 29 September 1882
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The owners of the Ketley Brick Co. in 1882 were Thomas Hassall Adcock (d.1886), Anne Adcock (wife) both of Bedford, Willam Hassall & John Hassall of Woodville, Derbys, Reuben Cull of Barnet, London. Now T.H. Adcock & John Hassall were Trustees (from 1871) in the firm John Knowles & Co. fire brick manufacturers in Woodville with John Knowles dying in 1869. Reuben Cull was Knowles' London Sales Agent & after 20 years of service in December 1882 he retired from Knowles' to concentrate on the running of the Ketley Brick Co. The 1884 advert below records Reuben Cull as Managing & Resident Partner.
Building News - Friday 18 January 1884
Image © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photo by Nigel Furniss.
A H C was the Trade Mark of the Ketley Brick Co. & represents it's owners Adcock, Hassall & Cull.
Kelly's 1888 edition now records the company as the Ketley Blue Brick Co. Kingswinford which was still owned by the partnership of Adcock, Hassall, Hassall & Cull. I next found in the London Gazette that Reuben Cull left the Adcock, Hassall, Hassall partnership on the 31st of December 1889.
It then appears Adcock, Hassall & Hassall then sold the Ketley Brick Co. & it's works to Charles Skelding, William Timmins Skelding, Mr. Jordan & Mr. Webster in early 1890. The Commercial Gazette dated 15th September 1890 reveals that on the 30th of June 1890 the Ketley Brick Company Limited had been formed & was to be run by this new consortium. Also incorporated into this new Limited company was the Skelding Brothers Nagersfield brickworks which would then trade under the Ketley name.
Kelly's 1892 edition records William Timmins Skelding as Manager of the Ketley Brick Co. Ltd. I have coloured the Nagersfield Brick Works red on the 1900 OS map below, which was situated on the road between Wordsley & Brierley Hill at Buckpool.
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1900.
Kelly's 1908 edition now reads Ketley Brick Co. Ltd., Kingswinford, W.T. Skelding, Managing Director. So it appears William was now running the company.
These next three bricks will have been made at Ketley's Nagersfield Works with B.B. Brand & BBB standing for Blue Brick Brand.
Photo by Peter Prest, courtesy of Brocross Old Bricks website.
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1914.
At a date unknown William's son William Edward (Ted) Skelding (b.1910) joined him at Ketley's, learning all the aspects of the business. William Timmins Skelding died in June 1934 & his son William Edward (Ted) Skelding took over the running of Ketley. Kelly's directories continue to list the Ketley Brick Co. with works at Bromley & Nagersfield up to it's 1940 edition.
I then found by January 1941 Ketley had sold their Nagersfield brickworks to the Brierley Hill Brick Co. who were advertising in January 1941 newspapers that they could supply Staffs blue bricks, brown & blue brindles, red wire-cut & pressed bricks from their Nagersfield Brickworks. The 1943 Ministry of War Directory records the Brierley Hill Brick Co.'s works was closed & under the care of the Ministry. This usually meant armaments were being stored at the works. A 10th of May 1947 newspaper notice announces the Nagersfield Brickworks, Buckpool had been decommissioned by the Admiralty & was to be made ready to be sold by the Brierley Hill Brick Co. on the 19th of May. The works appears not to have been sold & was closed for good.
I now return to the Ketley Brick Co. Ltd & they continued to produced red & Staffordshire blue bricks at their Bromley Lane works until their business, but not their brickworks was purchased in 1964 by local Pensnett firm, Hinton, Perry & Davenhill Ltd. roof tile manufacturers. I have coloured their tile works purple on the 1937 OS map below which was situated on Dreadnought Road (yellow). In this 1964 take over H, P & D (formed in 1902) purchased the Ketley name, the business & it's tax losses, but not it's Bromley brickworks site which was sold by it's owner W. E. Skelding (Ted) for the purpose of building houses. Several key employees transferred to H, P & D's Dreadnought tile works on Dreadnought Road, Pensnett & Ted Skelding took up the position of running the new company's sales department, a job he did until the mid 1980's. It was after this 1964 take over that H, P & D traded as Ketley Brick & Dreadnought Tiles. Up to Ted Skelding closing his Bromley Lane brickworks Ted was still operating coal fired down-draft kilns & although H, P & D still had some of these kilns they had built two 18 chamber gas fired kilns which Richard Davenhill tells me could easily handle the extra capacity of Ketley's brick production.
As you can see from the 1937 map above the works now occupied the whole site & Richard Davenhill tells me H. P. & D. had purchased Ketley Clay Quarry in 1930. The 1948 map below shows it occupied the site of the original Ketley Brick Co's works on Green Lane which was now called Ketley Road. H. P. & D. extended Ketley Quarry north right up to Dudley Road & the quarry was fully exhausted of it's clay when it closed in 2019. With the expansion of the quarry right up to Dudley Road the remaining outbuildings of the once Ketley House (previously demolished) were also demolished. Clay is now brought in from other sources to the Dreadnought works.
© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1948.
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