Image ID: 08474

Nicholson's Iron Foundry

Courtesy of Reg Baker

River Trent
Newark on Trent
England

Taken looking north west from the bridge over the River Trent. For many years Nicholson's iron foundry on Trentside was one of Newark's staple employers. Generations of families passed through its portals, progressing through seven year apprenticeships to become fully qualified engineers, producing iron castings which were exported around the globe, reaching such far flung outposts as Russia and Fiji. Although the factory actually closed as long ago as 1968, the distinctive well-proportioned clock-tower (which once housed the drawing offices, managers' offices and clerks department) has remained intact. as a prominent landmark in the town (it is now a central feature of the Castle Station housing development along Mather Road). Sandwiched between river and rail, the Trentside location of Nicholson's foundry was ideal. A wharf beside the Trent, and sidings onto the Midland Railway's Nottingham to Lincoln line ensured that both the receipt of raw materials and the despatch of finished products was handled effectively and efficiently. Yet the origins of the factory lie some miles distant from Newark at South Carlton near Lincoln. For it was here, in September 1785, that the founder of the firm, Benjamin Nicholson was born. Little can be traced of his early life, but by 1809 he is known to have arrived in Newark and commenced trading as a partner in the firm of Nicholson, Bemrose & Co., retail ironmongers, with premises on the corner of the Market Place. By 1820 he had entered the wholesale iron business with a warehouse on St. Mark's Lane and in 1825 the firm was registered as a private company. In the same year he opened a foundry for the manufacture of cast-iron domestic goods. Nicholson was steadily working his way up the town's social hierarchy and reached his zenith in 1840 when he was elected Mayor, moving into one of the fashionable houses on South Parade. In 1816 Benjamin's wife, Frances, had borne him a son, William Newzam Nicholson, and in 1837 - the year of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne - William (aged 21), joined his father in the ironmongery business. This injection of new blood saw the company branch out beyond the confines of selling into construction, and by the late 1840s Nicholsons had become well known locally as manufacturers of sturdy iron based implements for use in agriculture. By 1851 the firm was of sufficient repute to warrant a stand at Prince Albert's Great Exhibition of all Nations held at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. And despite employing only four men in their factory, the Nicholsons - father and son - exhibited an impressive range of products, including oil cake breakers, barley grinding machines, improved corn-dressing and winnowing machines, a prize cottage cooking stove, a large kitchen range and decorative gas brackets. They were awarded no less than 3 prizes for the quality of their workmanship. Such public recognition necessarily brought the need for expansion, and four years later (in 1855) we find the first references to the embryonic Trent Ironworks, then located on Beastmarket Hill (on the site now occupied by the Ossington Coffee Palace). A year later the company removed to the Trentside location that was to remain their home for the next 90 years. Once established on the new site expansion appears to have been rapid, for by 1862 Nicholsons had added many new pieces of equipment to their range, including hay-making machinery, horse rakes, sack lifts, garden rollers, mowing machines, chaff cutters and turnip pulpers, as well as larger goods such as boilers for steam engines and bone crushers. A note in the 1871 census tells us that William Nicholson (by now the principal proprietor, Benjamin having died in 1866, aged 81) was employing no less than 150 men at the works - a far cry from his father's corner shop in Newark Market Place 60 years earlier. A fascinating insight into the workings of the foundry at this time is given by a report in the Newark Advertiser of 13th September 1882 entitled 'A visit to the Trent Ironworks': 'What impressed us most' concludes the report 'was the number of places to which the productions were distributed. We saw in course of being packed a beautifully designed and finished steam engine and boiler for a steam laundry in Sweden, grinding mills for central Russia, a bone mill for the Fiji Islands, horse and cattle gears and machinery for Buenos Ayres [sic], engines, horse gears, harrows and mills for the Cape, [and] steam engines for Italy, besides commitments for France, Belgium and Germany, steam engines and machinery for various parts of Scotland, large steam engines for the North of Ireland, near Belfast and for the South as far as Waterford, besides numberless horse rakes and root cutters for nearly every part of the United Kingdom and a number of boilers specially designed for fishing smacks.. Among the novelties being introduced by Messrs. Nicholson and Son are root cutters and pulpers, one of them a modification of the well-known Gardner's turnip cutter, with important modifications recently patented by this firm, and also a pulper with a new convex disc, represented as having great advantage over the old design. The manufacture of such ponderous and powerful machines as bone-mills is a comparatively fresh departure for the firm, and we saw 14 to 15 wholly or partly finished'. At the height of their production it was noted that over a two month period they exported machines of various kinds to no less than 37 different countries. 'The works consist of the usual iron foundries, malleable iron, steel and brass foundries, forming, erecting, and finishing shops and stores.. an extensive boilermaking department, offices, etc., the whole being conveniently arranged and well-built and furnished with the most improved modern machinery. The chief manufacturers are steam engines, both fixed and portable, of various styles and types, many of special designs peculiar to the firm.. These and steam boilers of the highest class, are becoming the more important branch of their manufactures. They are also large makers of bone mills and plant connected with the chemical manipulation of bones, so important to the farmers and manufacturers of artificial manures'. 'In the department of agricultural machinery their horse rakes and hay machines are known throughout the civilised world, and the number turned out in a season may be reckoned by the thousand. These give constant employment to a large staff of workmen during the Spring and Summer months, the intervals being filled up by other field implements, such as harrows, cultivators, and horse gears, whilst the Autumn and Winter months are fully occupied by the production of machines for helping the farmer to prepare his cattle food, such as grinding mills.. root cutters and pulpers, oil cake crushers, etc. etc.. In nearly every branch of their manufacture the machines are of original designs'. For William this was a time of stability and contentment. In 1880 he had been returned as MP for Newark, and had purchased a handsome house at No. 12 London Road, where he lived quietly with his wife, Annie, and their two children, Mabel and William. Income from the Trent Ironworks enabled them to live in a fair degree of comfort, owning a horse-drawn carriage and holidaying in Switzerland once a year. The Trent Ironworks continued as a successful business and staple employer in the town right up to the late 1940s. When not engaged in war work, producing many thousands of high explosive shells, their high quality agricultural machinery found a ready market not only amongst local farmers but nationwide too. By the 1950s, however, iron foundries all over the country were facing stiff competition in a diminishing market, and in August 1956 the first 16 men were laid off at Nicholsons. In 1966 the firm merged with Penney & Porter Ltd, machine makers of Lincoln, and in 1967 press reports began to speak of the possibility of more redundancies at the Newark plant. The end finally came in 1968 when the lease of the land on which the Trent Ironworks was built ran out and was not renewed. The Newark factory was closed and production switched to Lincoln.

Date: 01/11/1979

Organisation Reference: NCCE002284

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