Rowley Regis, Cradley, Netherton, Halesowen & Old Hill Brickworks

In this post I cover the brickmakers who operated in Rowley Regis, Cradley, Netherton, Halesowen & Old Hill.

With already writing about Cakemore & Doulton from this area, I have added the links to these posts below.  

https://uknamedbricks.blogspot.com/2017/09/cakemore-brickworks-rowley-regis.html

https://uknamedbricks.blogspot.com/2016/08/doulton-co.html

Samuel Partridge

Partridge, Guest & Raybould

Partridge & Guest

Samuel Partridge is listed in White's 1851 edition as brickmaking in Old Hill, Rowley Regis. I next found Joseph Guest, a Master Brick Maker in the 1851 census, Marshall Fredrick Raybould, brickmaker & John Tranter, brickmaker joined Samuel at his Powke Lane brickworks sometime around 1854/55, trading as Samuel Partridge & Company. I have calculated the 1854/55 date from the length of time I know M.F. Raybould was brickmaking for. The London Gazette records John Tranter left the partnership on the 23rd of September 1856 & S. Partridge, J. Guest & M.F. Raybould would continue to operate the Powke Lane brickworks under the style of S. Partridge & Co. I have coloured the Powke Lane brickworks green on the 1881 OS map below. Although Partridge did not own Pearson's Colliery next door it appears he obtained his coal from this colliery with there being a tramway running from the colliery up to his kilns.  

© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1881.

By April 1858 S. Partridge & Co. were now trading as Partridge, Guest & Raybould, with this new company name coming from an article in the Staffordshire Advertiser dated 10th of April 1858 which reported on the size of common bricks which were to be made to a standard size of 9 ins x 4 1/4 ins x 3 ins. This notice listed 42 brickmakers who all worked within a 12 mile radius of Birmingham & had agreed to this standard size. I am assuming this standard size of common brick was eventually taken up by all brick makers in the country.

Kelly's 1860 edition is the first directory listing of Partridge, Guest & Raybould (red & blue), Old Hill, Rowley Regis & this entry is repeated in Kelly's 1872 edition. 

The London Gazette records Samuel Partridge, Joseph Guest & Marshall Fredrick Raybould, brick & tile makers, Powke Lane, Old Hill had dissolved their partnership by mutual consent & the works would then continue under the style of Partridge & Guest. M.F. Raybould had left the partnership to concentrate on running his works in Harborne, Birmingham which he had taken over in 1872/3 from John Sadler. Kelly's 1876 edition is the first listing of Partridge & Guest at Old Hill. 

Photo by Colin Wooldridge.

In the 1871 census Joseph Guest, a Brick Master & a widow aged 61 & is recorded as living on Moor Lane, Rowley Regis as the Head of the family together with his daughter Sarah Smart & her husband Stephen Smart, a Stationary Engine Driver & their three children.

Joseph Guest died on the 6th February 1882 & son-in-law  Stephen Smart, a Colliery Engineer in the 1881 census then went into partnership with Samuel Partridge, trading as Partridge & Guest, Brick Manufacturers. Stephen Smart is recorded as a Brick Manufacturer in the 1891 census.

The London Gazette records on the 31st of January 1892 the partnership of Samuel Partridge & Stephen Smart was dissolved by mutual consent. All debts due to & by the said firm will be discharged & paid by the said Stephen Smart. This London Gazette article does not say the firm would carry on under the sole control of Stephen Smart, but with Kelly's 1896 entry still recording Partridge & Guest it appears Stephen Smart did continue to run the Powke Lane brickworks as Partridge & Guest. I then found Samuel Partridge died on the 23rd of December 1892. A search of the census has revealed non of Samuel's sons took up brick making, hence the company of Partridge & Guest being turned over to Stephen Smart in February 1892 & this is backed up with the 1901 census recording Stephen Smart as a Brick Manufacturer & Employer.  

Now on to Stephen Smart's sons who worked for him at the Powke Lane brickworks, some longer than others. At least two of his sons were at the brickworks in the 1880's. Frederick William Arthur Smart b.1870 in the 1891 & 1901 census is recorded as a Stationary Engine Driver at a brickworks. Edgar Smart b.1869 is recorded as a Brickworks Manager in the 1901 census. With finding these two brothers were to later run the company, I write more about them later. Eldest son Joseph Edward Smart b.1867 was a Brick Setter in the 1891 census, then Brickworks Foreman in 1901 census, but sadly died in 1908. Horace Smart b.1873 is recorded as a Stationary Engine Driver in the 1911 census, but had gone to work at a Flour Mill by the 1921 census. Freeth Smart b.1876 is recorded as a Stationary Engine Driver at a Brickyard in the 1901 census, then Assistant Manager at a Brickworks in the 1911 census, however by the 1921 census Freeth was a Winding Engineer at a colliery owned by the Earl of Dudley.

P & G stamp mark on a coping brick photographed by Elizabeth Thomson.

Stephen Smart died in September 1910 aged 71. Information from the 1911 census reveals it was Frederick Smart who took control of Partridge & Guest with him being recorded as a Brick Manufacturer. Brother Edgar in the 1911 census is only recorded as a Clerk at a brickworks when previously he had been recorded as a Brickworks Manager under his father, however we find things were to change later. Then it appears brother Freeth played a part in the running of the company with him being recorded as an Assistant Manager in the 1911 census. I then found by the 1921 census Freeth had left Partridge & Guest & had become a Winding Engineer at a colliery. In the 1921 census Edgar is now recorded as a Brick Manufacturer, Employer same as Frederick in the 1921 census, so Frederick & Edgar had gone into equal partnership in the running of Partridge & Guest, however this partnership did not last long as the London Gazette records the partnership of Frederick Smart & Edgar Smart trading as Partridge & Guest, Brick Manufacturers, Powke Lane, Old Hill had been dissolved by mutual consent on the 31st of May 1923 & the said company would then be solely run by Frederick Smart.  

The Birmingham Daily Post dated 8th October 1924 reports that a new company called Partridge & Guest Limited with a Capital of £10,000 in £1 shares had been formed to acquire the business of brick & tile manufacturers carried on by F.W.A. Smart at Powke Lane, Old Hill. It appears from this notice it was a company formed by Frederick Smart & brothers Alfred Hill Bassano & Charles Walter Bassano, however I am not sure what position Fredrick Smart held within the company with the 1939 Register only recording him as a Manager of a Brickworks aged 70. I did find from a 1934 newspaper profile article on Alfred Bassano which stated he was a Director of Partridge & Guest Limited. Another find in a 1938 newspaper article records Mr. S. Ganner, Works Manager was representing Partridge & Guest at a funeral. I then found Samuel Ganner left P & G in 1939 taking up a similar job at Barnett & Beddows. A May 1939 job advert by P & G requiring a youth in the office is the last newspaper reference found for the company.      

Charles Bassano had died in 1933 & Charles Bassano died in 1946, then on the 5th of March 1947 Fredrick Smart died, so I am assuming other people were involved in the running Partridge & Guest Ltd. A notice in the London Gazette reports Partridge & Guest Limited had been placed into Voluntary Liquidation by it's Members (no names given) & on the 2nd of May 1947 at a special meeting the Company's accounts were to be laid before it's Members, after which the Liquidator would wind-up the company.

As a footnote, the notice reporting on the Probate of Fredrick Smart's Estate records he left £1519 17s 1d to his son Harold Smart, a brick maker. So that poses the question was Harold working at the Powke Lane works. In the 1939 Register Harold was recorded as a Brickworks Engineer living on Shenstone Valley Road, Halesowen. If Harold was working at Powke Lane brickworks which was not to far from his home, I doubt very much if he was involved in the running of the company after his father's death. So who was running the company remains a mystery. 

More Brickworks will be added when time allows. 

Doulton & Co.

This post came about from Kris contacting me asking for info on bricks made by Doulton & Co. Much has been written about Doulton's salt-glazed pipes, bottles, jars & chinaware etc, but very little about the making of their bricks. So with some information previously found & with digging a little deeper into the web, I have now been able to put this post together.

I first start with a little bit of background information on how Doulton & Co. began. If you wish to read a more detailed account of the company I have pasted six links at the end of the post.

John Doulton established the beginnings of the Doulton empire in 1815 when together with his life savings of £100 pounds he became a partner in a pottery owned by Martha Jones & John Watts situated on Vauxhall Walk, London & this partnership operated under the style of Jones, Watts & Doulton producing stoneware, stoneware bottles & salt glazed sewer pipes. Mrs Jones left the company in 1820 & the company continued as Doulton & Watts. 1826 sees the move to High Street, Lambeth & by 1834 the company was employing 12 men & operating 2 kilns per week. There is as yet no reference to the company making bricks in the information found for Lambeth, but the option of them doing so cannot be ruled out. 

An air-brick made at Lambeth can be seen at this link.
https://www.brocross.com Bricks Doulton, Lambeth

Added 8.4.21. With Laura Thew sending her Lambeth brick image to the Old Bricks website it now confirms bricks were made at Lambeth.

 Photo by Laura Thew reproduced courtesy of the Old Bricks website.

Five of John's six sons join him at the works, with his eldest John junior & second son Henry being the main players in the running of the Company at a later date. Henry joins as an apprentice in 1835 & it was to be Henry who would be the driving force at a later date in taking the company forward in producing artistic pottery, commemorative & ornamental table ware as well as being the head of the company.

In 1846 & while still having some connection in helping to run his father's company Doulton & Watts, Henry sees the potential in exploiting the extra need to produce salt-glazed sanitary pipes & wares to replace London's crumbling sewers & in doing so forms his own company on land which was to become Albert Embankment to produce these salt-glazed wares.

Further expansion by Doulton & Watts under the guidance of Henry Doulton saw the opening of new works in Rowley Regis in 1849, St. Helens run by his elder brother John junior also in 1849 & Smethwick in 1850 to produce salt-glazed pipes & associated wares. Industrial stoneware & ceramics & terracotta tiles were also made at Rowley Regis. The Smethwick works only ever produced salt glazed pipes & from a web article the Brasshouse Lane (now Pottery Lane) works was on the north bank of the Birmingham Canal & closed in 1919, but I have a trade directory entry still listing this works in 1921. 

Back to 1853 & John Watts retires from D & W & the company changed it's name to Doulton & Co. At some unknown point in time the three business of Doulton & Watts (Lambeth, Rowley Regis & Smethwick works), John Doulton junior's St. Helens works & Henry Doulton's Albert Embankment pipeworks all came together & trade as one company, Doulton & Co. Ltd.

It is now that we find in trade directories starting in 1872 that blue bricks are recorded as being made in Rowley Regis. A 1876 advert records Staffordshire blue bricks are for sale from the St. Helens works & then in a 1895 trade directory entry for the St. Helens works it lists that red / blue / ornamental & glazed bricks plus tiles are made, again I believe the blue bricks were being made at Rowley Regis because the type of clay needed to make blue bricks is chiefly found in the West Midlands. I have to note that bricks may have been made at Rowley Regis & St. Helens before the dates found, if so the new dates will be added to the post at a later date.

Seven examples of blue bricks made at the Rowley Regis works near Dudley. The Doulton one may have been made during the time when John senior was running the company & the H. Doulton ones when Henry was in charge. 

Photo taken at the Bursledon Brick Museum. 

Photo by Frank Lawson.

Photo taken at the Black Country Living Museum. 

Photo by Michael Mounter.

Trade directory entries in the brick & tile makers section for the Rowley Regis works all record blue in brackets for blue bricks, but there are various names used for the name of the works & there was a company name change in 1908. 
So theses are listings :-
Kelly's 1872 & 76 - Henry Doulton & Co. Knowle Pottery, Rowley Regis & at Smethwick (pipes). 
Kelly's 1880 edition has the addition of - & Birmingham & chief office Lambeth Pottery, London SE.
Kelly's 1884 to 1904 editions - Henry Doulton & Co. Birmingham Pottery, Rowley Regis & at Smethwick & Birmingham, chief office, Lambeth Pottery, London SE.
Kelly's 1908 - Doulton & Co. Ltd, Birmingham Pottery, Rowley Regis & Granville Wharf, Granville Street, Birmingham, chief office, Royal Doulton Pottery, London SE.
Kelly's 1912 - Doulton & Co. Ltd, Rowley Regis Pottery, Springfield, Dudley; Granville Wharf, Granville Street & Paradise Street, Birmingham; chief office, Royal Doulton Pottery, London SE.
Kelly's 1916 - Doulton & Co. Ltd, Rowley Regis Pottery, Springfield Pottery, Dudley & Granville Street, Birmingham; chief office, Royal Doulton Pottery, London SE.
Kelly's 1921 -  Doulton & Co. Ltd, Springfield, Dudley & Smethwick & Granville Wharf, Granville Street, Birmingham; chief office, Royal Doulton Pottery, London SE.

There are no more trade directory entries in the Brick & Tile Makers section after 1921 for the company. 

So the names of Knowle Pottery, Birmingham Pottery, Rowley Regis Pottery & Springfield Pottery have been used to describe this vast works complex. As you will see from the several maps that I have used below, the 1881 map shows that there were originally two brick works on this site, one was at the side of Springfield Colliery & the other one was next to the pipe works & this part of the site is shown as the Birmingham Pottery. From the 1901 map it only shows one brickworks in operation. From different web articles the consensus on the name of the works where blue bricks & terracotta tiles were made is Springfield Brick & Tile Works. The different departments on this vast site made use of the Dudley No.2 Canal to bring clay in & transport their finished produces out with the Company having it's own wharfs. Although these maps show many clay pits, clay was also brought in to the works by barge using the canal from the Company's own clay pits near Saltwells Wood, Netherton to produce sanitary ware in 1906. The canal continued to be used via the Lappel Tunnel by the company until 1917 when stretches of the canal became unnavigable. The canal was finally abandoned in 1953, but today it is in the process of slowly being restored.

I have used the following 4 maps to show how the works changed between 1881 & 1938 & the maps show the various names for the works. I have to note that the areas which I have coloured yellow may not be exact to the land owned by the Company & have been coloured only to indicate the size of this vast works complex.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1881.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1901.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1914.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1938.

Doulton's Rowley Regis Works had closed by 1979 & today this vast site is a mixture of housing & industrial units.

I now move on to the St. Helens works & my first reference in 1853 comes from Grace's Guide which records John Doulton junior as setting up the Liverpool Pottery at St. Helens on Boundary Road, producing earthenware & with offices at 70 Soho Street, Liverpool.
1867 sees John junior together his brothers Henry & John Duneau Doulton purchase lands in Windle, Lancs. from David Gamble. Then further lands where purchased in 1874 & 1879 in St. Helens. The acquisition of these lands I believe was to supplement the works with clay as this works was in a built up area & the site could not be expanded. I then take it that the clay was then delivered to the works via the railway with the company having it's own railway siding. See maps below. The advantage of the works location being in an built up area was it's workers would have lived close by.

Photo by Frank Lawson.

Photo by Frank Lawson.

My first trade directory entry for John junior, trading as John Doulton, Brothers & Co. is in Worrall's 1871 edition, but it is not for bricks, but it is for glazed stoneware pipes & terracotta chimney pots at the Liverpool Pottery with offices/depot now at 100 Soho Street & a wharf at Canal Bank.

Then my next reference comes in the form of an advert dated 1876 shown below again from Worrall's directory & it advertises Staffordshire blue bricks made at the company's Rowley Regis Works.

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/John_Doulton,_Brothers_and_Co

My first listing of bricks being made at St. Helens is recorded in Slater's 1883 edition as Doulton & Co., branch offices & depot, 100 Soho Street - Red pressed & moulded bricks for shipment from Liverpool, Garston or Widnes. Then in an entry on another page under Brick Manufacturers - Blue, is Doulton & Co. depot 100 Soho Street, Liverpool, works Rowley Regis, Staffordshire. Thus backing up my theory that the Rowley Regis works made blue & red bricks & the St. Helens works only produced red bricks.

In the Brick Manufacturers section of Slater's 1895 edition it lists Doulton & Co. (pressed, plain, ornamental red & blue : glazed bricks, tiles & c. Boundary Road Brickworks, St Helens. (previously recorded as The Liverpool Pottery in the advert). Again the blue brick reference I believe is that they could supply blue bricks from the St. Helens works which had been made at Rowley Regis. Then in an entry on another page in Slater's 1895 edition, Doulton & Co are listed as brick, glazed stoneware, sanitary pipe & c. manufacturers, Canal Bank west & Boundary Road, St. Helens.  

A red brick variation photographed at Cawarden Reclamation, Rugeley.

The brick above was found on Crosby beach & like the rest of the bricks which can be seen on this beach are well worn by the tide coming in & out.

Two maps dated 1900 & 1925 showing the location of the Boundary Road brickworks in St. Helens. The 1925 map actually records the brick & pipe works as Liverpool Pottery same as the 1876 advert. As previously written, with the location of the works being in a built up area, I believe the clay was brought in by railway wagons right into the works via it's own railway siding.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1900.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1925.

The year the St. Helens works closed is unknown, but could have been in 1969 when Doulton's sold it's pipe interests to Hepworth Pipe, but it may have been earlier. If I do find out, I will update the post.


Sir Henry Doulton's Surrey home, built in 1885 with bricks & terra cotta made at the Lambeth works.
https://www.jamesfortune.co.uk/woolpit-school/


Updated 15.2.20 & 8.10.20.
Chris Tilney has just found these two Victoria Park examples & "Love London" has sent me a link to a London Insurance map dated 1891 which shows the location of Doulton's Lime & Fire Clay Goods Works which was situated between the Hertford Union Canal & Wennington Road, Victoria Park. Then I have added the 1893 OS map showing the works (coloured yellow) closer up.

https://britishlibrary.georeferencer.com/maps/984b515d-f419-546a-bad5-d0b3b49bc8b9/  

Photos by Chris Tilney.

© Crown Copyright. Reproduced with permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1893.

Links to more information about the many sides of the Doulton empire (except it's bricks).

http://www.potteryhistories.com/doultonhistory.html

http://www.daltondatabank.org/Chronicles/Royal_Doulton.htm

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Henry_Doulton

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Doulton_and_Co

http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Doulton_and_Watts

Photos of Doulton's Lambeth Works & showroom.
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/london/150.html


I wish to thank the following people for the use of their information & maps in bringing this story of the Doulton Company to the web.

Grace's Guide. 

Black Country Bugle.

Wikipedia 

Vauxhall Society

Dalton Databank

National Library of Scotland & Ordnance Survey - maps.