A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



IRON-FOUNDRIES, SHIPBUILDING AND 

 RAILWAY WORKS 



In 1772 Wyrardisbury mill was tenanted by 

 Jukes Colson, who worked it as an iron mill, but 

 five years later it had been turned into a copper 

 mill by the Gnoll Company. 1 The mill was again 

 sold in 1790, and was tenanted early in the 

 i gth century by George and Thomas Glascott, 

 who were brass-founders. They, however, closed 

 their works in 1820, and the mill has since been 

 converted into a paper-mill. A mill at Horton 

 was also at one time used for iron works, but 

 these were closed early in the igth century. 2 

 In 1831 only eleven men were returned as being 

 employed as iron-founders, 3 either as masters or 

 workmen, but thirty-four were employed at 

 copper mills. In the middle of the i gth cen- 

 tury several foundries were established. The 

 Castle Iron Works were started at Buckingham 

 in 1857, and were owned by a limited liability 

 company, the shareholders being mostly local 

 people, 4 anxious to improve the trade of the 

 town. The foundry was chiefly occupied in 

 making steam-engines of various kinds. Certain 

 road engines were made there which acquired a 

 considerable amount of importance at the time. 

 In 1858 a road locomotive was built for the 

 Marquis of Stafford, which attained to the speed 

 of twelve miles an hour, and a few years later 

 the foundry produced a steam carriage for export 

 to Belgium, which held three passengers as 

 well as the stoker. It averaged ten miles an 

 hour, but on good roads could attain to sixteen, 

 and its inventor, Mr. Thomas Rickett, the 

 manager of the Castle Iron Works, drove it in 

 1860 to Windsor, where it was inspected by 

 Queen Victoria. 6 Various machines for agri- 

 cultural purposes were also made, a locomotive 

 steam cultivator being exhibited at a meeting of 

 the Royal Agricultural Society at Chester in 

 1858. 



Another engineering business, known as the 

 Watling Works, was started at Stony Stratford 

 about the same time as the Castle Iron Works 

 at Buckingham. The position of the little town 

 on the Grand Junction Canal gave it better 

 means of communication, and the business is 

 still carried on at the present day. 6 In 1845 tne 

 late Mr. Edward Hayes started the works for 

 general engineering, but gradually the business 

 has become confined to the building of steam 



1 Gyll, Hist. ofWraysbury, 72. 

 1 Ibid. 198. 



* Pop. Ret. (1831), i, 34. 

 4 Sheahan, Hist, and Topog. of Bucks, 2312. 

 6 lllus. Lond. News, n Feb. 1860, with illustration. 

 6 From information kindly supplied by Mr. Edward 

 Hayes. 



126 



yachts, tugs and launches. These are exported 

 to all parts of the world ' for steamers and 

 machinery of various descriptions have been 

 built for the British Admiralty, Crown Agents 

 for the Colonies, the Board of Works, Trinity 

 House Pilots, the Shah of Persia, the Sultan of 

 Morocco,' besides various foreign governments 

 and well-known shipping lines. ' During the 

 late South African War a little steamer destined 

 to work in connexion with the landing of troops 

 and stores actually steamed from the place she 

 was launched, the Old Stratford Wharf, which 

 is a branch of the Watling Works, along the 

 Grand Junction Canal to the Thames and thence 

 to Delagoa Bay, South Africa.' In Stony Strat- 

 ford it is not an unusual sight ' to see one of 

 these steamers being drawn on large eight-wheel 

 trolleys by a powerful traction engine ' from the 

 Watling Works, where they are built, to the 

 wharf half a mile away, and often followed by 

 its engine and boiler on separate trolleys. In 

 1 86 1 a display was given at the works of a 

 patent steam windlass for which Mr. Hayes had 

 obtained high honours at an exhibition at Leeds, 

 and the firm have since been equally successful 

 at later exhibitions. The steamers originally 

 built for the river-side work of the Metropolitan 

 Fire Brigade came from the Watling Works, 

 and the present Mr. Edward Hayes has taken 

 out numerous patents for improving steamers, 

 one of the most recent being ' for cheapening 

 and facilitating the exportation of small steamers 

 abroad, making it possible to erect steamers at 

 the site of their work and where only unskilled 

 native labour can be obtained.' Other iron and 

 brass-foundries are worked at the present day at 

 Maidenhead, Horton, Chalfont St. Giles, Looseley 

 Row, Chesham, and Walton (Aylesbury). 



At Slough there is also a large firm of manu- 

 facturing ironmongers and engineering contractors 

 whose business was established in i8l5- 7 



The Wolverton works, belonging to the Lon- 

 don and North Western Railway, give employment 

 to a large number of people in the neighbour- 

 hood and date from the earliest days of the 

 railway. 8 When it was opened in 1 838 as the 

 London and Birmingham Railway the works 

 were started for building engines, and were 

 purely locomotive works until 1865. At that 

 time Wolverton Station was of great importance, 

 all trains stopping there, and descriptions of its 

 magnificence figure largely in accounts of the 



' Letter from Messrs. Mark Duffield & Sons, Ltd. 

 High Street, Slough. 



8 Description of the London and North Western 

 Railway Company's Carriage Works at Wolverton, 1 907. 



