William Savidge Akerman (b 4/2/1850, Bridgwater, Somerset: d 11/1/1937, Burnham on Sea, Somerset) was the son of John Board's daughter Julia. He joined the company as MD in 1871 and introduced true PC production with the help of Henry Reid. He remained MD until his death. Probate £35,199 (£3.2m).
Edward James Board Akerman (b 27/1/1886, Burnham on Sea, Somerset: d 9/4/1974, Salisbury, Wiltshire) was the son of W S Akerman; he joined Boards in 1910 and took over as MD on the death of his father. Probate £4,931 (£78,000).
George Knox Anderson (b 6/11/1854, Faversham, Kent: d 19/3/1941, Canterbury, Kent). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £144,858 (£10.4m).
Harold Hilton Drew Anderson (b 13/3/1867, Westminster, Middlesex: d 7/12/1947, Folkestone, Kent). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £154,873 (£8.5m).
Herbert William Anderson (b 15/10/1858, Lewisham, Kent: d 8/12/1949, Folkestone, Kent). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £33,784 (£1.60m).
John Andrew Anderson (b 30/12/1828, Greenwich, Kent: d 21/12/1912, Faversham, Kent). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £212,110 (£33m).
William Curling Anderson (b 4/11/1832, Greenwich, Kent: d 25/3/1907, Sydenham, Kent). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £139,397 (£22m).
George Crowley Ashby (b 15/9/1812, Staines, Middlesex: d 14/7/1893, Isleworth, Middlesex) was son of William Ashby, and inherited his father's Roman cement business at Isleworth. To branch out into PC manufacture, he purchased Henry Reid's plant at East Greenwich on 21/10/1867. His son, J D Ashby, inherited the business when he retired in 1887, at which time the Isleworth Roman cement plant was shut down. Probate £2,264 (£380,000).
John Dickie Ashby (b 6/1863, Isleworth, Middlesex: d 29/12/1920, Catford, Kent) was son of G C Ashby, and took over the business on his father's retirement, shutting down the Isleworth Roman cement plant. The declining cement business was liquidated in 1892 and re-formed with added capital from G C Ashby's nephew, consultant engineer Charles Ashby Lean. The business was primarily a builders' merchant, and the increasingly uncompetitive cement plant was used mostly in-house. On his death, his son Bernard George Ashby (b 6/1/1896, Lewisham, Kent: d 19/3/1975, Bromley, Kent) inherited the business, closing the cement plant in 1926. Probate £2,092 (£141,000).
William Ashby (b 5/3/1788, Staines, Middlesex: d 7/1/1850, Isleworth, Middlesex) was son of a Quaker banker. In 1825, he set up William Ashby & Son at Isleworth, where the canal system meets the Thames, originally as bargees. Shortly afterwards he set up a Roman cement plant at Town Wharf, and a city depot at Upper Thames Street. His son, G C Ashby, carried on the business after his death.
James Aspdin (b 23/8/1813, Leeds, WR: d 21/12/1873, Wakefield, WR) was the elder son of Joseph Aspdin. He ran the Ings Road plant until his death. Probate <£30,000 (£4.4m).
Joseph Aspdin (b 1778, Hunslet, WR: d 20/3/1855, Wakefield, WR) was famous for his patent for "Portland Cement" in 1824. See the page on cement, and William Aspdin's biography.
William Aspdin (b 23/9/1815, Leeds, WR: d 11/4/1864, Itzehoe, Schleswig Holstein) was the younger son of Joseph Aspdin. He developed his father's product into Portland Cement as the term is understood today, in the early 1840s. View his detailed biography on a separate page. NP.
William Atkinson (b 1774?, Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham: d 22/5/1839, Cobham, Surrey) was a major Roman Cement manufacturer, but was mainly known as an architect. Beginning as a carpenter, he was taken as a pupil to London by James Wyatt. An amateur geologist and chemist, in 1811 he initiated the production of Roman cement from nodules in the aluminous shales in the Whitby area, at Mulgrave. He had a depot at Belvedere Road, Lambeth, and sold largely in London. In the 1820s, he was also bringing in raw nodules, both from Whitby and from Harwich, and making cement at the Belvedere site. His cement was stocked by William Aspdin at Rotherhithe. He has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography.
Thomas William Bailey (b 9/10/1888, Northfleet, Kent: d 6/3/1930, Rainham, Kent) was the son of a labourer at Bevans, and in 1902 got a job in the lab there. He became analyst and in 1913 was transferred to Tolteca, Mexico, as chemist. He spent 1916-1919 in the Lehigh Valley. He returned to the UK in 1919, and in 1920 he took over from A G Bird as manager of British Standard. Probate £2,104 (£174,000).
Jabez Spencer Balfour (b 4/9/1843, Marylebone, Middlesex: d 23/2/1916, Newport, Monmouthshire) was a company promoter, investment underwriter and con-man, and an associate of H O O'Hagan. O'Hagan discusses his career at length, with a degree of comradely sympathy. After a number of fraudulent projects collapsed, he fled to Argentina, from which he was speedily shanghaid by the Metropolitan Police, and spent 11 years in Parkhurst. He appears here because one of his dodgy deals involved setting up the Medway Portland Cement Co. Ltd, to build and operate Cuxton - a very minor plant promoted with enormous fanfare. NP.
Henry Kelway Gwyer Bamber (b 5/2/1864, Pinner, Middlesex: d 20/9/1924, Gravesend, Kent). His father, Henry K Bamber, was a commercial analytical chemist. Educated at UCL and the Royal School of Mines, he then worked in his father's laboratory. In 1887 he became chemist at Dovercourt, and became chemist at Bevans in 1894. He became manager in 1896. With the formation of APCM in 1900 he was made one of the eleven managing directors. He became closely associated with H O O'Hagan. He was a key contributor to the development of the first British Standard for Portland cement in 1904. He organised the purchase and development of APCM's Bamberton plant in British Columbia. He continued as managing director after the 1919 reorganisation, but was ousted in the boardroom coup of 1924. He chaired the first International Cement Congress in that year. He had an obituary in Engineering (26/9/1924). Probate £72,476 (£5.7m).
Frederick Cadogan Barron (b 23/3/1843, Holborn, Middlesex: d 4/8/1904, Beckenham, Kent) was the son of a city solicitor and trained as a civil engineer, as a pupil of Edward Woods. He was resident engineer for the Shrewsbury & Welshpool Railway 1863, Assistant Engineer on the Central Argentine Railway 1865, Resident Engineer for the Bilbao Iron Ore Co. railway and docks 1871 and returned to Britain in 1880. He entered into partnership with George Burge Jr and in 1882 they built the Falcon plant. He took G B Ruck-Keen as a partner in 1900. He acted as a director until his death, after which Ruck-Keene remained in sole control. Probate £2,830 (£450,000).
Albert Batchelor (b 7/7/1869, Frindsbury, Kent: d 15/1/1960, Penzance, Cornwall). Second son of George Batchelor, became manager of Crown 1900-1907. On leaving, he undertook not to work in the cement industry, but became manager of Martin Earles 1908-1911. In 1912, he established the Rochester plant, and continued to run it until the plant was taken over by Rugby in 1936. Probate £34,865 (£1.06m).
Eric Batchelor (b 23/4/1905, Brighton, E Sussex: d 1/8/1949, Weybridge, Surrey). Son of Arthur Batchelor. 1922-5 BA engineering Cambridge. 1925-8 apprentice Vickers Armstrong, Barrow. 1928-1939 Horace Boot & Partners. 1939 Manager South Ferriby. 1943 Director Eastwoods. Probate £10,202 (£480,000).
George Batchelor (b 6/10/1841, Chatham, Kent: d 16/8/1930, Rochester, Kent). Son of a bricklayer, worked for George Burge at Crown from 1853, and became manager 1876-1900. Developed the Batchelor kiln 1876. Probate £7,487 (£620,000).
James Arthur Batchelor (b 21/6/1874, Frindsbury, Kent: d 29/9/1952, Seaford, E Sussex). Third son of George Batchelor, established a boat building business in Rochester in 1895. In partnership with E A Glover, established Lewes in 1902. Probate £52,714 (£2.2m).
Norman Molyneux Benton (b 29/11/1885, Hednesford, Staffordshire: d 8/6/1968, Cranleigh, Surrey). Son of W E Benton. Joint Chairman of Chinnor 1908-1940, and sole chairman until he retired in 1947. Probate £996,496 (£24m).
William Elijah Benton (b 16/11/1855, Walsall, Staffordshire: d 13/12/1940, Chinnor, Oxfordshire) was a mining engineer. He bought the Springfield Park brickworks in Acton, Middx., and branched out as a lime merchant, setting up a lime plant at Chinnor with five beehive kilns, commencing in 1908. This followed the construction of the Acton-High Wycombe railway in 1903, allowing direct rail communication between the two sites. After WWI, in partnership with his son Norman Molyneux Benton, a cement plant was constructed and started up in 1921. This had the distinction of being the last plant to be commissioned with intermittent kilns, when most existing cement plants were demolishing their static kilns. He remained joint chairman of the company until his death. Probate £196,251 (£16.7m).
Thomas Bevan (b 26/11/1829, City of London: d 1/3/1907, Stone, Kent) was a Quaker associate of Thomas Sturge and entered into partnership with J M Knight and Alfred Sturge to form Knight, Bevan & Sturge, which operated the Bevans plant. Alfred Sturge died in 1859 and Knight resigned in 1876, leaving Bevan in sole control. He stood as Liberal candidate for Gravesend in the 1880 General Election, opposed by Tory John Bazely White III. He won, but Gravesend Borough Council successfully challenged the result on the grounds that he had "offered inducements" by giving a day off on election day to the few of his employees who were enfranchised. His Liberal replacement easily won the ensuing by-election. He stood against White again at the 1885 General election, and lost. He enriched himself by consistently operating his very large but old-fashioned plant, aiming at the export market. He wisely sold out to APCM in 1900 for an inflated value. Probate £383,191 (£63m).
John Wyndham Beynon (b 2/12/1864, Newport, Monmouthshire: d 13/10/1944, Christchurch, Monmouthshire) was the eldest son of Thomas Beynon, coal merchant and chairman of T Beynon & Co., which owned several Monmouthshire collieries. He was educated at Clifton College. His father died in 1892, and he became chairman of the family company, retaining the role until his death. He expanded his interests in South Wales, acquiring the Ferndale colliery company and forming a shipping company for export of coal. He became a director, and later MD of the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron & Coal Co. Ltd. In 1913, he became the chief promoter of Aberthaw, and remained its chairman until his death, when he was succeeded by his nephew, Maynard Jenour. He was made a baronet 1920, for "services to the coal industry". Probate £317,827 (£18.9m).
A G Bird (b , ,: d , , ) engineer and manager at British Standard 1913-1920, after which he worked in Singapore. Probate £ (£).
Bertram Blount (born Blunt 26/2/1867, City of London: d 9/4/1921, Kensington, Middlesex) was a consultant chemist and drafted the first (1904) BSI cement specification. After King's College school, he studied analytical chemistry under C L Bloxam, then in 1886 he became an assistant to W Harry Stanger. From 1889 he and Stanger collaborated with Stokes (to no good effect) on the development of rotary kilns. He later became a partner in the consultancy. In 1898, he and Stanger led the British group viewing US rotary kiln operations, and he advised White's to adopt the obsolescent Hurry & Seaman model. After Stanger's death in 1903, he set up on his own. He provided technical input to the hopeless Collos slag cement project. His participation in the writing of BS12 did not prevent him from stating that ground up slag is a kind of Portland cement. His book describes the technology as it stood around the time of WWI and is authoritative (although not necessarily correct). Literally until his dying day, he maintained that cement should be made by complete liquefaction in a blast furnace. It may safely be said that, in the development of cement technology, none of his contributions were useful, and most were harmful. He was a member of the editorial board of The Engineer, and many of its articles on cement are in his florid and prolix style. He had obituaries in Nature (5/5/1921 p 306) and The Analyst (XLVI #544). Probate £4,818 (£280,000).
Charles Edward Blyth (b 20/12/1870, Stockton, Warwickshire: d 3/6/1940, Leamington Hastings, Warwickshire), third son of T P Blyth, became a director of Nelsons in 1894. He married Alfred Herbert's sister, Fanny, in 1901. He invented the Atritor. He was an active participant in BPCRA and was one of the few outside Blue Circle to benefit from it. Probate £7,634 (£650,000).
George Blackstone Blyth (b 9/4/1868, Hampstead, Middlesex: d 13/7/1950, Butlers Marston, Warwickshire), eldest son of T P Blyth, became a director of Nelsons in 1894. Managing Director 1896-1944. Probate £10,537 (£490,000).
Harold Francis Blyth (b 10/1/1869, Galle, Sri Lanka: d 3/3/1960, Hove, E Sussex), second son of T P Blyth, became a director of Nelsons in 1894. Probate £80,719 (£2.5m).
Thomas Philip Blyth (b 1832, Poplar, Middlesex: d 17/6/1896, Birdingbury, Warwickshire) was a London lime merchant taken into partnership with the Nelsons of Stockton in 1870. Three of his sons (above) became directors of the company in 1894. He was managing director of Nelsons from 1886 until his death. Probate £20,840 (£3.6m).
John Board (b 1802, Bridgwater, Somerset: d 24/1/1861, Bridgwater, Somerset). Founder of John Board & Co. He became notorious in later years for "inventing" a "Portland cement" which was actually a natural hydraulic lime. After his death, his grandson W S Akerman initiated real Portland cement production at the plant with the aid of Henry Reid. Probate <£10,000 (£1.59m).
Horace Louis Petit Boot (b 20/4/1873, Lambeth, Surrey: d 30/3/1943, Cookham, Berkshire) attended City of London School and City & Guilds Institute. After an apprenticeship with Johnson & Philips, Charlton, he became head electrical engineer for Tunbridge Wells. He established Horace Boot & Partners engineering consultancy in 1908. Became consulting engineer to Dreadnought in 1914. Also a consulting engineer to Eastwoods Ltd., he became their vice-chairman and managing director on the company's reorganisation in 1920. Sheriff of the City of London 1940-1. Knighted 1941. Probate £390,947 (£24m).
Arthur William Booth (b 9/4/1861, St Pancras, Middlesex: d 31/12/1933, Cobham, Kent) was son of S B Booth, and was main partner in Booth & Co. after his father's death in 1881. He formed a limited company in 1897, and became an ordinary director of APCM in 1900. Probate £58,438 (£5.3m).
Samuel Barker Booth (b 16/11/1822, Dedham, Essex: d 3/2/1881, Bromley, Kent) was a London solicitor who also farmed in the Medway area. He bought the Borstal Court plant from Jabez Hollick in 1866. After his death in 1881, the business was taken over by a partnership of his sons Arthur and Lancelot and manager W R Craske. Probate <£50,000 (£7.9m).
Robert Brearley (b 24/2/1861, Batley, WR: d 15/1/1929, Menton, Alpes-Maritimes) was a woollen manufacturer in Batley, and brother-in-law of Walter Skelsey. In 1890, he and his elder brother Arthur were made directors of Skelsey's Adamant Cement Co. Ltd formed in that year, presumably to provide funds for development of the Barton site. On the formation of BPCM he became an ordinary director. Probate £19,745 (£1.62m).
Alfred Brooks (b 2/11/1861, Guildford, Surrey: d 17/1/1952, Langdon Hills, Essex). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £5,461 (£220,000).
Edmund Wright Brooks (b 29/9/1834, Melksham, Wiltshire: d 22/6/1928, Grays, Essex). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £106,499 (£8.7m).
Herbert Edmund Brooks (b 8/5/1860, Surbiton, Surrey: d 13/3/1931, Stifford, Essex). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £20,898 (£1.78m).
Howard Brooks (b 8/5/1868, Guildford, Surrey: d 11/6/1948, Wincanton, Somerset). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £281 (£14,400).
William Alden Brown (b 9/1/1865, Weybridge, Surrey: d 8/8/1935, Pluckley, Kent) was a mechanical engineer and manufacturing practitioner with an unusually wide range of experience. After 17 years of Government work installing munitions, he joined APCM in 1903 and worked on the Thamesside rotary kiln installations. During 1908-1910 he was manager of a Californian plant, then 1910-1913 oversaw the rebuild of Burham. He then oversaw the building of Aberthaw before returning to armaments work in 1915. After the war, he teamed up with Henry Pooley in cement manufacturing consultancy, and supervised the construction of a plant in Mozambique. His book dates from WWI, and gives an excellent historical perspective on developments to date. His technical understanding was decidedly modern and was way ahead of that of his contemporaries. Probate £1,215 (£113,000).
James Seaman Buckingham (b 7/1864, Hampstead, Middlesex: d 1/9/1933, Hampstead, Middlesex) inherited his father's dairy business. He became a passive investor and director of Vavasour Earle's London Shoe Co., and subsequently obtained directorships in Martin Earles, then in BPCM. Probate £1,835 (£168,000).
John Coulson Bull (b 11/1828, Bierley, WR: d 29/11/1885, Lillington, Warwickshire) was son of a clergyman and trained as an accountant. He worked for the Oxford & Birmingham Railway from 1847 and GWR from 1855. In 1864 he joined the partnership of Greaves, Kirshaw & Bull and participated in the operation of Harbury for the rest of his life. Probate £40,690 (£6.6m).
George Burge Snr (b 15/8/1795, Clerkenwell, Middlesex: d 2/5/1874, Margate, Kent) was a civil engineering contractor mainly associated with railways and the development of Herne Bay, Kent. During 1827-8, he worked for Thomas Telford in the construction of St Katherines Dock. During 1831-2, he constructed Herne Bay pier in collaboration with Telford, and subsequently invested in development of the resort - he came to be known as "Burge of Herne Bay". After that, most of his work was in railways, both in Britain and abroad, working for John Rennie, but also the Box Tunnel for Brunel.
In 1850 he was approached by I C Johnson to enter partnership to construct the Crown cement plant. The partnership only lasted three years after which Johnson moved to the Cliffe Creek site. Burge put his son in charge, and continued with his railway contracting work. Probate £1,200 (£170,000).
George Burge jr (b 1832, Brixton, Surrey: d 28/9/1911, Herne, Kent) was a cement industry pioneer. He learned cement manufacture from I C Johnson, and was put in charge of the Crown cement plant by his father in 1853. He chose to concentrate on cement manufacture. He designed the Wouldham Court plant in 1853 for Thomas Freen & Co, and after their bankuptcy in 1855, re-instated the plant in 1857, but gave up on it in 1859. He was also involved in converting the Elmley brickworks to PC manufacture, and retained an interest until 1881. He sold the Crown plant to William Tingey in 1868, but collaborated with Tingey to construct new plants in the Medway area, while controlling their raw material supplies. He developed a design for a chamber kiln, probably in collaboration with Johnson, at the Crown site.
During 1874-1888, he built and expanded cement plants virtually on a production line basis. In 1874, in partnership with William Morgan and C R Cheffins, he established the Gillingham plant using his own chamber kiln design. In 1877, he converted the Phoenix plant for cement production. In 1880, he built the Globe plant for J C Gostling, and the Beehive plant, which he ran himself. In 1882, he went into partnership with F C Barron and built the Falcon plant. In 1884, he built the Beaver plant for Slark and Jones, and in 1885, the Bridge plant for T C Hooman & Co. Finally in 1888, he built the Quarry plant as a branch of his Gillingham company.
He gradually divested his interests in cement production, in 1887 selling his share of the Falcon plant to his partner. In 1892, he sold the Beehive plant to William Levett & Co. and the Gillingham company to White's, and retired to Herne Bay. Probate £3,933 (£610,000).
Sydney Waterlow Burley (b 1878, Sittingbourne, Kent: d 18/11/1938, Borden, Kent) was fourth son of Charles Burley (1833-1891), founder (1855) of the family firm of C Burley Ltd, which ran farms, barges, brickworks and later a small cement plant. His father was son of a Sittingbourne tailor, and trained as a shipwright, before setting up as a barge-owner and ploughing his profits into land acquisitions in the area, followed by developing his land for brickmaking. In 1895, the company bought the closed Dolphin cement plant as a small sideline. From 1900 until his death, S W Burley was managing director of the company. The cement plant, despite being obsolete and scarcely profitable, continued until WWII. Probate £55,695 (£5.0m).
George Butchard (b 19/5/1838, Liverpool: d 6/8/1901, Gravesend, Kent) was a ship engineer who in 1880 bought the Tower plant, and floated the Tower Portland Cement Co. Ltd in 1881. From 1884 to 1890 he was also a director of the Shoreham Portland Cement Co. Ltd. When the Tower plant was taken over by APCM, he became a managing director, but died the following year. Probate £9,492 (£1.52m).
David Butler Butler (b 20/4/1865, Cranbrook, Kent: d 30/9/1948, Marden, Kent: Note 1) was son of a farmer, and worked as a clerk at Hollicks in 1881. He joined Henry Faija's consultancy in 1881 as trainee, 1884 as assistant and 1887-1890 as deputy. He was Manager at Folkestone from 1888 until its closure in 1891, then was chemist at Vectis 1891-1894. He returned to the Faija consultancy as its head on Faija's death in 1894. He collaborated with William Gilbert in plant designs. His books are authoritative on the traditional British manufacturing techniques and correctly anticipated their rapid annihilation by rotary kiln technology. Probate £39,230 (£2.0m).
Francis Joseph Patrick Cary (b 17/3/1871, Gravesend, Kent: d 4/5/1947, Wallasey, Cheshire) was the son of a wealthy London cotton merchant. Aged 20, he formed a partnership with W J Wilders to build and operate the Shield plant. On its acquisition by APCM, he remained as its manager until 1914, after which he was employed in sales. Probate £737 (£40,000).
Charles Townshend Casebourne (b 28/6/1836, Caledon, Co. Tyrone: d 17/5/1897, Greatham, Co. Durham). His father was a civil engineer working on the Ulster Canal, and in 1845 moved to West Hartlepool for construction of the docks. In 1862, he established a cement plant at West Hartlepool, but moved to Cliff House in 1866. The company went public in 1882, and he remained chairman until his death. Obituary by ICE CXXX, p 321. Also Readman and Turley. Probate £2,811 (£490,000).
Rowland Telford Casebourne (b 31/5/1877, West Hartlepool, Co. Durham: d 1/7/1916, Thiepval, Somme) was son of C T Casebourne. During 1904-1914 he was plant manager at Billingham. He was among the 50,000 or so killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Probate £884 (£118,000).
Francis (Frank) Chapman (b 1839, St Pancras, Middlesex: d 26/8/1905, Wadhurst, E Sussex) was son of a pawnbroker and became a dealer and exporter of cements brought from the Midlands by canal. He married William Tingey's daughter Isabella and in 1877 he became a director of Gillingham. With the JBW takeover in 1893, he became their export director, and assumed that role in APCM in 1900. Probate £16,889 (£2.7m).
Walter George Chapman (b 20/8/1876, Sydenham, Kent: d 20/1/1974, Marylebone, Middlesex) was son of Frank Chapman and joined JBW in 1897. He became a director of APCM in 1910, and eventually took his father's role of export director. Probate £30,246 (£480,000).
Charles Charleton (b 1852, Lambeth, Surrey: d 16/12/1916, Brighton, E Sussex) was son of Edward Charleton and father of E C Charleton. He became a partner and sales manager for I C Johnson & Co. in 1883. He became vice-chairman of BPCM in 1911. Probate £32,855 (£4.4m).
Edward Charleton (b 13/5/1799, Alnwick, Northumberland: d 8/4/1883, Lambeth, Surrey) was a member of the Newcastle Coal Exchange, involved in shipping, and engaged in partnership with I C Johnson and John Watson to operate the Gateshead plant, and later also the Greenhithe plant. Probate £11,902 (£1.88m).
Edward Charles Charleton (b 13/10/1877, Kensington, Middlesex: d 26/12/1951, Hove, E Sussex) was son of Charles Charleston. He managed the installation of rotary kilns at Greenhithe from 1906, and became an ordinary director of BPCM in 1911. Probate £36,188 (£1.62m).
Charles Percival Elliott Cheffins (b 3/2/1865, Hampstead, Middlesex: d 30/12/1937, Chelsea, Middlesex) was eldest son of C R Cheffins. Manager at Gillingham, 1890-1895, then manager at Swanscombe 1895-1905. Probate £7,345 (£680,000).
Charles Richard Cheffins (b 22/7/1833, Holborn, Middlesex: d 2/12/1902, Westminster, Middlesex) was a chemist and civil engineer and one of the founders of Gillingham, managing it until 1890. Father of C P E Cheffins. Probate £48,139 (£7.7m).
Harold William Joshua Cheffins (b 12/1/1869, Hampstead, Middlesex: d //1942, Hastings, E Sussex) was second son of C R Cheffins. He trained as a mechanical engineer and worked at Gillingham in the 1890s before moving to Swanscombe, then became a managing director of Dartford in 1904. This experience was sufficient to make him leave the industry in 1907. NP.
George Cooper (b 9/1826, Canterbury, Kent: d 18/8/1912, Dartford, Kent) was son of a Canterbury mason, surveyor and architect, and obtained financial work in the City of London. In 1860 he and John Hampton Hale took over Weston & Co. who were just embarking on making Portland cement at Millwall. When Westons moved to Northfleet in 1879, they became directors of the firm. Cooper became an ordinary director of APCM in 1900. Probate £50,491 (£7.8m).
Walter Johnson Cooper (b 1869, Walsall, Staffordshire: d 27/5/1928, Paignton, Devon) worked briefly as chemist at Arlesey 1887-1889, before moving to Mitcheldean 1889-1891 as manager, where he had the opportunity to see the by-then abandoned first rotary kiln. He then moved to Penarth as manager, commissioning the Ransome kilns there. He was managing director of the South Wales Portland Cement Co. Ltd and became a managing director of BPCM in 1912. Probate £92,834 (£7.6m).
Octavian Julius Croft Corelli (b 8/1/1886, Hampstead, Middlesex: d 11/12/1968, Storrington, W Sussex) was son of an Italian merchant. He studied organic chemistry under Adolf Grün at Zurich. In 1914 he was chemist at Aberthaw, and in 1915 became manager. From 1920, he did analytical chemistry consultancy work in many countries. He had a laboratory in Bombay from the early 1920s until the 1950s, and provided technical management for cement plants in Gwalior and Coimbatore, India. Probate £26,380 (£630,000).
George Edward Wakefield Cranage (b 2/8/1862, Wellington, Shropshire: d 20/3/1934, Corbridge, Northumberland) was a schoolmaster who became manager of the Gateshead plant in 1899 and became an ordinary director of BPCM in 1911. Probate £14,145 (£1.32m).
William Robert Craske (b 30/8/1845, Stowmarket, E Suffolk: d 7/4/1930, Borstal, Kent) was son of a corn merchant's clerk, but by 1871 he was manager at Borstal Court. His family may have been acquainted with the East Anglian Hollicks and Booths. He became a partner in Booth & Co. in 1881, which he remained until the APCM takeover. Probate £18,657 (£1.54m).
David Cowan Crichton (b 22/11/1883, Arbroath, Angus: d 5/1/1954, Gravesend, Kent) was a rare example of a real chemist. He studied organic chemistry under James Walker at University College, Dundee from 1900, publishing several papers of his own research. In 1906, he became chemist at Cousland, becoming manager in 1911. From 1923 he supervised the calcium aluminate cement experiments at Magheramorne and West Kent. He had spells as manager at Norman (1926) and Magheramorne (1928) before supervising the development of white cement at Beddington, functioning as assistant to S G S Panisset, and taking over as head of research after the latter's death in 1937. From 1945 until retirement in 1952 he was Blue Circle's Chief Chemist, implementing the establishment of the Greenhithe Research Department. Probate £9,069 (£330,000).
Alfred Cecil Critchley (b 23/2/1890, Calgary, Alberta: d 9/2/1963, Egham, Surrey) was a Brigadier General in WWI. In 1922 he collaborated with Henry Horne in his attempted takeover of A/BPCM, as a result of which he obtained a directorship, which he retained until his death. Probate £23,332 (£650,000).
Thomas Cubitt (b 25/2/1788, Buxton, Norfolk: d 20/12/1855, Dorking, Surrey) was a major building contractor, concentrating on large-scale domestic building in London and southeast England. His minor contribution to the cement industry was the construction of a small cement plant adjacent to his Burham brickworks. See Wikipedia etc.
William Martin Cuningham (b 3/7/1847, Greenock, Renfrewshire: d 7/2/1924, Kensington, Middlesex) was an engineer based in St Petersburg in the 1880s. He became a director of London Portland and in 1900 became an ordinary director of APCM. Probate £14,970 (£1.18m)
Edward Spedding Curwen (b 5/1852, Hackney, Middlesex: d 3/9/1929, Northwood, Middlesex) was from a family of stockbrokers, and on the strength of his business relationship with J W Philipps, obtained an ordinary directorship of BPCM in 1911. Probate £67,261 (£5.5m).
Arthur Charles Davis (b 23/8/1876, Hoylake, Cheshire: d 27/10/1950, Barrington, Cambridgeshire). View his detailed biography on a separate page. Probate £193,617 (£8.9m).
Bernard Davis (b 3/5/1908, Cambridge: d 25/5/1983, Chelsea, Middlesex). 2nd son of A C Davis. Manager, Thamesside 1939. He took over chairmanship of Atlas Stone from his uncle, F W Davis, on his retirement in 1944. Probate £449,348 (£2.1m).
Frederick William Davis (b 3/1874, Birkenhead, Cheshire: d 3/10/1961, Worthing, W Sussex). View his detailed biography on a separate page. Probate £76,181 (£2.3m).
Geoffrey George John Davis (b 23/5/1908, Cambridge: d 7/7/1993, Haslemere, Surrey). View his detailed biography on a separate page. Probate £730,292 (£2.0m).
Gilbert Davis (b 2/8/1901, Cambridge: d 14/3/1973, Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire). View his detailed biography on a separate page. Probate £165,549 (£2.9m).
George Hambrook Dean (b 29/4/1834, Sittingbourne, Kent: d 4/9/1924, Sittingbourne, Kent) was son of a tailor, and began in life as a draper. He married George Smeed's daughter and in 1876 he joined with Smeed and John Andrews to form Smeed, Dean & Co. Ltd. After Smeed's death in 1881, he inherited most of Smeed's land holdings and became chairman of the company. Probate £184,929 (£14.6m).
Arthur Henry Dillon (b 5/1/1875, Westminster, Middlesex: d 25/5/1934, Oxford) was the founder of the Oxford Portland Cement Co. Ltd. He was the nephew of Kirtlington's lord of the manor, G J E Dashwood, and married John Tomlinson Brunner's widowed daughter, Hilda, thus putting him in the way of more-than-adequate capital. He became a stockbroker, moving from London to Oxfordshire in 1906. He took on John Lamb Spoor to design the plant, but fell out with him, and Spoor ended up suing him to get his fees. With the replacement of the plant by the new one at Shipton, he and Brunner's son were once again directors. He became sheriff of Oxfordshire, and in 1932 he became 18th Viscount Dillon. Probate £28,482 (£2.7m).
Leif Ditlevsen (b 28/6/1907, Roskilde, Sjælland: d 26/11/1994, , ) trained as a chemical engineer and joined FLS and in 1937 became the first works chemist at Pitstone.
Abram Hugh Double (b 8/7/1867, Chelmondiston, E Suffolk: d 4/12/1938, Marylebone, Middlesex) was son of a bargee from Waldringfield. He became secretary of Sussex PC Co. from 1896, and after 1911 he was for a while an ordinary director of BPCM. Probate £16,502 (£1.47m).
Albert Double (b 30/11/1876, Southwick, W Sussex: d 17/12/1960, Dartford, Kent) was younger brother of A H Double. He worked at Shoreham from 1901, and became manager in 1911. He became manager at Bevans from 1921, and at Kent from 1925 to 1946. Probate £24,088 (£730,000).
Arthur Durose (b 10/1862, Nottingham: d 1/4/1930, Watford, Hertfordshire) was son of a silk dealer and trained as a chartered accountant. He worked as accountant for the Keeble brothers on their many projects, and in 1900 he joined the brothers as a partner in the Saxon company. On its acquisition in 1911, he became an ordinary director of BPCM, retiring in 1919. Probate £43,359 (£3.6m).
Edward John Vavasour Earle (b 17/9/1851, Hackney, Middlesex: d 15/11/1923, Camberwell, Surrey) was son of a travelling salesman. Early in his career he became a purveyor of high-end ladies' footwear. He gained Freedom of the City of London in 5/1892 as a Cordwainer. In 1895 he partnered with John Bean Martin and Harry Le Marchant (a friend in footwear) to acquire the Wickham cement plant at Strood. He used company money to pursue (with Le Marchant) various ventures, including the notorious Etruscan Copper Estates, and the patents for Collos slag cement. The copper company, of which he was chairman, was bankrupt in 1/1907, and he was ousted from Martin Earles in 1909 following an auditors' investigation. He continued touting Collos until his bankruptcy, and died in poverty; Le Marchant stayed out of Collos, and died rich. NP.
Edward Earle (b 1/7/1826, Hull, ER: d 12/8/1893, Hull, ER) was second son of George Earle. He took over the chairmanship of G & T Earle on the death of his brother George Foster Earle in 1877. After his death, his sons Edward Westgarth Earle (8/1858-13/2/1920) and Ernest Earle (1/1862-18/11/1933) became partners in the business. Probate £57,156 (£9.5m).
Foster Earle (b 27/2/1831, Hull, ER: d 10/9/1897, Hull, ER) was third son of George Earle. He became chairman of G & T Earle after the death of Edward Earle in 1893, and established a limited company in 1894. However, it remained a family firm, with all the shares owned by family members. Probate £75,109 (£13.0m).
George Earle (b 7/1784, Hull, ER: d 8/12/1863, Hull, ER) and Thomas Earle (b 21/1/1788, Hull, ER: d 21/2/1850, Hull, ER) were brothers who formed the company G & T Earle in Hull in 1809 as general traders and shippers. In 1821 they commenced making Roman cement. After their deaths, the firm went on to make Portland cement in 1875. George Earle's descendants ran the cement business, while Thomas's sons set up the Hull shipbuilding business of C & W Earle. Probate: George <£18,000 (£2.9m).
George Foster Earle I (b 19/2/1813, Hull, ER: d 18/2/1877, Hull, ER) was eldest son of George Earle. He became chairman of G & T Earle on his father's death in 1863, and transferred the business to Wilmington in 1866. They began making Portland cement there in 1875. Probate <£90,000 (£13.6m).
George Foster Earle II (b 8/2/1890, Cottingham, ER: d 11/12/1965, Hungarton, Leicestershire) was son of J H Earle. He took over from his father in 1914. In 1946, he became chairman of Blue Circle, on the retirement of Percy Malcolm Stewart. Probate £185,577 (£4.9m).
John Hudson Earle (b 8/10/1856, Hull, ER: d 16/10/1935, Cottingham, ER) was younger son of George Foster Earle I. He joined G & T Earles in 1880 and became a partner in 1885. He took over as chairman on the death of his uncle Foster Earle in 1897. As the only remaining member of the firm interested in the business, he could only re-finance by selling out to BPCM. He retired in 1914, handing over his directorship of G & T Earle (1912) to his son George Foster Earle II. Probate £37,496 (£3.5m).
Edward Shipley Ellis (b 7/1/1817, Beaumont Leys, Leicestershire: d 3/12/1879, Leicester) and his younger half-brother Alfred Ellis (b 9/8/1821, Beaumont Leys, Leicestershire: d 20/2/1879, Woodhouse Eaves, Leicestershire) traded with their father as John Ellis & Sons. In addition to participating in their father's businesses as coal and lime merchants, worsted spinners and colliery owners, they also rented land at Barrow to make lime from the local Blue Lias, which had already been exploited for centuries. After their father's death, in 1869, they started making Portland cement. The cement was used almost entirely in-house to make concrete products, initially paving slabs made by pressure moulding with Mountsorrel granite from the adjacent quarry as aggregate. These slabs mostly went to London, distributed from St Pancras. Later products such as spun pipes were made. After the death of the brothers in 1879, several of John Ellis' dozens of grandchildren ran the business until it went public in 1893. Probate: Edward <£90,000 (£14m); Alfred <£70,000 (£11m).
John Ellis (b 3/8/1789, Leicester: d 26/10/1862, Belgrave, Leicestershire) was the son of a Quaker farmer, who became a coal merchant, railway promoter and radical Liberal politician. In census returns he is variously called "farmer & grazier" (1841), "worsted spinner" (1851) and "JP and railway director" (1861). He was also a coal and lime merchant and a colliery owner. He was a Leicester councillor in 1837, an alderman in 1838 and MP for the borough 1848-52. His cement industry significance was his promotion of railway communications from the East Midlands to London. He promoted the first steam-locomotive-hauled railway in southern England, connecting the Coalville coalfield to Leicester, in 1832. With the launch of the Midland Railway in 1844, he became vice-chairman, and chairman from 1849. He organised the final connection from Bedford to St Pancras (complete 1868) before his death. The railway was key to the success of the cement plant founded by his sons (above). He has a Wikipedia article and an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Probate <£40,000 (£6.2m).
Oliver Lesli Ellis (b 31/12/1861, Brighton, E Sussex: d 4/5/1945, Rotherham, WR) was the son of a Brighton wine merchant, hotellier and alderman. His history is obscure, and the following is a collection of disparate snippets, all defying explanation. Someone must have written about him, providing Francis with his unreferenced source. A little explanation would allow me to condense all this to a couple of sentences. Francis, characteristically unhelpful, said he was a nephew of Sir Whittaker Ellis, Lord Mayor of London 1881-2. How is that relevant? I failed to find him in the 1871 census, but in 1881 he was living in lodgings in Bromsgrove as a "master miller". In 1/1886 he married a much older widow, Clara Anderson (née Waddington, 1848-?), in the City of London. She was the daughter of a Hackney umbrella manufacturer, and her first husband was another wine merchant. On 2/8/1889, his son Lesli Vincent was born in Santa Fé, New Mexico. In 1891 they were living in Gravesend - he was a cement works deputy manager. On 5/2/1893, his son Cyril Oliver was born in Gravesend. In that year he joined Gibbs & Co. Ltd as a director; Francis described him as "an engineer recently returned from Texas". By 1898 he had become managing director. With the takeover of Gibbs in 1900 he became ex officio a managing director of APCM. He was a close relative of the Ellis members of Farebrother & Ellis - the firm employed for valuation of the APCM companies. In 1901, they were living at a more desirable address in Gravesend - he was a "cement manufacturer". In 1908 he filed a patent for a toaster. In 1911, he was living in Kensington, separated from his family and described as a "motor bicycle manufacturer". In 1921, he was living in Yalding, Kent, as a self-employed mechanical engineer. Engineering Records contain no reference to him. In 1939 he was living in a small semi in Rotherham, WR, with a housekeeper, as "retired manufacturer". Probate £396 (£23,000). Explanations welcome!
Erik Elmquist (b 28/1/1890, Aalborg, Denmark: d 12/7/1965, Allerød, Denmark) worked for FLS as a commissioning engineer. His work included the commissioning of the FLS plant at Kirton Lindsey in 1920-1924. He stayed on and in 1925 joined forces with the owner's son Thomas Parry, forming a design consultancy - Parry & Elmquist - that mainly designed and supplied FLS plant. In addition to work for Tunnel and Ward's, they did work for Rugby, Alpha and ICI. The company was liquidated in 1962. Elmquist obtained directorships of several of his client firms, including Central and Ketton. English probate £145,492 (£4.0m).
Henry Faija (b 14/11/1844, Holborn, Middlesex: d 21/8/1894, Sunbury, Middlesex) was a civil engineer and consultant on cement technology, owning a testing house in Westminster as Henry Faija & Co. There is an extensive account of his work by Edwin Trout in Global Cement, March 2017, pp 12-19. Probate £6,224 (£1.04m).
William Augustus Trebst Flitton (b 5/1868, Melbourne, Cambridgeshire: d 21/8/1929, Pentyrch, Glamorgan) was son of a grocer and became manager of East Anglian 1899, manager of Premier 1906, manager of Norman 1920 and manager of Penarth 1926. Probate £2,039 (£167,000).
William Cyril Flitton (b 3/4/1897, Harston, Cambridgeshire: d 13/7/1974, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire) was son of W A T Flitton, and studied engineering at Sheffield University 1916-18. He was engineer at Norman 1920-22, then worked in Guyana in the bauxite industry, then in India and Australia. He was manager at Wouldham 1945-48, manager at Wilmington 1957-58 and manager at Humber 1959-62. Probate £10,588 (£167,000).
Benjamin Christmas Forder (b 20/12/1873, Buriton, Hampshire: d 9/4/1962, Sherborne, Dorset). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. Probate £19,867 (£580,000).
Benjamin John Harfield Forder (b 3/11/1848, Winchester, Hampshire: d 2/10/1916, Blandford, Dorset). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. Probate £170,424 (£23m).
Walter Forder (b 3/1859, Norwich: d ?) was a builder working mainly in East Anglia. He was made managing director of Dreadnought in 1914. NP.
Charles Formby (b 8/6/1828, Frindsbury, Kent: d 24/6/1880, Hastings, E Sussex) was son of the vicar of Frindsbury, and became a lime merchant. He was joined later by his younger brother James Marshall Formby (b 1836, Frindsbury, Kent: d 16/10/1898, Halling, Kent) to begin making lime at the Clinkham limeworks at Halling; they traded as Formby Brothers. In 1862 they commenced PC production at Whitewall. Following Charles' death, the firm went public in 1881 as Formby's Cement Works Co. Ltd, and James withdrew from involvement, and remained a farmer at Halling. Probate: Charles <£,7000 (£1.14m): James £1,402 (£240,000).
Alfred Francis (b 1804, Lambeth, Surrey: d 27/11/1871, Lambeth, Surrey). Second son of Charles Francis and partner in Charles Francis & Sons from 1840. The company was Francis Brothers from 1852. In 1865, he parted from his brother and formed Francis & Co. in partnership with his son P O Francis, based on the Nine Elms plant. He also commenced building a new plant at Cliffe, because the existing Nine Elms plant was due to be purchased by the Southwestern Railway. In 1868, the Phoenix Wharf became the railway wharf, and the old plant was shut down. In 1866, C E de Michele joined the partnership. Probate <£7,000 (£1.09m).
Charles Francis (b 11/1777, Lambeth, Surrey: d 10/7/1863, Lambeth, Surrey). Founder of Francis & White at Nine Elms, making Roman cement. Charles Francis & Sons from 1836. Retired 1852. Probate <£40,000 (£6.4m).
Charles Larkin Francis (b 12/1801, Lambeth, Surrey: d 3/2/1873, Westminster, Middlesex). Son of Charles Francis and partner in Charles Francis & Sons from 1836. From 1840, he developed Medina cement as a competitor of Portland cement. The company was Francis Brothers from 1852. In 1865, he parted from his brother and formed Charles Francis, Son & Co. to run the Vectis plant. Died bankrupt and intestate. NP.
Gerald Beaufoy Francis (b 1856, Lambeth, Surrey: d 3/3/1924, Ropley, Hampshire) was the third son of Alfred Francis, from 1877 a partner in Francis & Co. In 1900, he became a managing director of APCM. Probate £3,559 (£280,000).
Percy Oldfield Francis (b 1847, Lambeth, Surrey: d 1/5/1927, Freshwater, Isle of Wight) was the eldest son of Alfred Francis, from 1865 a partner in Francis & Co. Probate £11,309 (£900,000).
William Holcombe Francis (b 31/8/1848, Lambeth, Surrey: d 17/6/1927, Lee-on-Solent, Hampshire) was the second son of Alfred Francis. He set up Empson, Holcombe & Co with Reginald Empson Middleton and V D de Michele in order to acquire and develop Johnson's plant at Cliffe Creek, before handing it over to Francis & Co. Probate £136 (£10,900).
Thomas Freen (b 1775, Stoke Edith, Herefordshire: d 10/10/1845, Islington, Middlesex) was son of a Herefordshire landowner who seems to have had connections in Warwickshire. In 1833 he bought the "Blue Lias cement works" at wharf 3 on the Kingsland Basin on the Regents canal, and advertised as a merchant for lime (including lias lime) and plaster and manufacturer of Roman cement. In the 1841 census, when he was living in Rotherfield Street, Islington (Note 2), he called himself a "cement maker" so he was probably making his own Roman cement. His company continued in existance as a partnership after his death. A fire destroyed the plant in February 1852, and in the following year they claimed to be making Portland cement at Wouldham, probably with the support of George Burge Jnr. The partners went bankrupt in 1855. The Kingsland Roman cement plant remained in operation under the company name until 1865.
Douglas Haliburton Gibbs (b 29/9/1863, Sewardstone, Essex: d 17/10/1945, Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire), son of W A Gibbs. He was chairman of the family cement firm 1884-1898. He was an ordinary director of APCM from 1900. While seeking trade in Mexico in 1911, he purchased the Tolteca plant (built 1909 by Louisville Cement Corp.) and became first managing director of the Tolteca Portland Cement Co. (La Tolteca Compania de Cemento Portland SA). Resigned from the Board of A/BPCM in 7/1924 "to facilitate concentration of management". Probate £49,570 (£2.9m).
William Alfred Gibbs (b 23/10/1819, Islington, Middlesex: d 6/8/1900, Edmonton, Middlesex), together with his brother David Aspland Gibbs (1813-1898), was partner in a soap-making business at Wapping. He is credited with inventing "Gibbs Dentrifice" (Gibbs SR etc). The brothers, already in the whiting business, founded the Thames plant to make Portland cement at West Thurrock in 1872. Probate £35,733 (£6.0m).
William Gilbert (b 3/1867, Billinghay, Kesteven: d 25/4/1938, Wandsworth, Surrey). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. NP.
Arthur Glover (b 12/1838, Westminster, Middlesex: d 12/12/1914, Gravesend, Kent). He became manager at Swanscombe in 1873 after William Goreham's departure, continuing until ?1890. Father of E A Glover. Probate £10,855 (£1.63m).
Edward Arthur Glover (b 2/1871, Swanscombe, Kent: d 4/7/1938, Lewes, E Sussex). Son of Arthur Glover. Plant manager Quarry 1893-1901, manager Lewes 1902-1929. Probate £22,368 (£1.99m).
William Goreham (b 1817, Kirton, E Suffolk: d 24/3/1886, Swanscombe, Kent) was the nephew of a wheelwright who had moved from Suffolk to Swanscombe. He joined his uncle there in the 1830s and worked as an engineer, understudying I C Johnson. After Johnson's departure in 1851, he became production manager, and instituted many improvements in processes. In 1870, he patented the thick slurry process which obviated the need for settlement of slurry in slurry backs. In 1873, he left and set up the Tower plant with finance from Alfred Tolhurst, which he sold in 1880 to Butchard. His son W F Goreham continued independently in the business, and his son-in-law Charles Hewitt and his brother W W Hewitt continued in management. Probate £1,413 (£240,000).
William Frederick Goreham (b 7/1858, Swanscombe, Kent: d 10/1929, Wandsworth, Surrey) was son of William Goreham. He worked at Tower as an engine fitter, and in 1883 he moved to the Tyne becoming plant manager at Wallsend, accompanied by. In 1889, he became manager at Union. He returned to Greenhithe in 1896, where he joined his brother-in-law W W Hewitt in operating the Dartford plant. The family probably went abroad for some years around the turn of the century. By 1911 he was back in Hammersmith, a salesman for a car firm. NP.
John Cubitt Gostling (b 3/1841, Swanscombe, Kent: d 26/9/1904, City of London) was son of a market gardener. His parents were William Gostling and Martha Cubitt, who came to Swanscombe from the Norwich area in 1838. He got work in the City, and 1868 found some backers to erect a cement plant at Northfleet as John Cubitt Gostling & Co. A whiting plant was opened at Greenhithe in 1869. The company went public in 1871, and expansion of the cement plant commenced. In 9/1873, his directorship was suspended. On 2/10/1873, the kiln exhaust stack under construction collapsed. In 1875, Gostling was found guilty of misappropriation of company funds and spent 4 months in Holloway. Afterwards, he was re-employed as manager, but without a directorship. In 1876, the Northfleet plant was sold to the London PC Co. Ltd, and a new plant was constructed, with the aid of George Burge Jr, at Frindsbury. The company - still J C Gostling & Co. Ltd - became insolvent in December 1880 and was reformed with new backers. In 11/1885 Gostling brought a case against two of the directors for fraud. The case was dismissed in 1/1886, after which he was persona non grata in the City. From then on he continued in business as a "cement merchant", but prohibited from using his own name - which was still the name of the company. In 1/1896 a new company - the Globe PC and Whiting Co. Ltd - was established to take over the assets of J C Gostling & Co. Probate, after a long period of debt settlement, £18 (£2,900).
Albert Younglove Gowen (b 8/5/1883, Cleveland, OH: d 6/1/1964, Bern, Switzerland). Following from involvement in the cement industry in the USA, Gowen formed the Alpha Company in the UK and in 1933/4 acquired Rodmell - this was followed by Oxford, Cliffe, Kirton Lindsey and Metropolitan. Instrumental in forming an effective Cement Makers Federation. 1936 Director Anglo-Alpha Cement Company in South Africa - 1938 A/BPCM/Tunnel take over the Alpha Company - 1940 Director A/BPCM - 1947 Resigned. NP.
Richard Greaves (b 5/8/1802, St Albans, Hertfordshire: d 29/4/1870, Warwick) inherited his father's business as a canal carrier, railway promoter and landowner. He began quarrying and supplying Lias limestone at various points along the canal system, and in 1824 commenced burning Blue Lias lime at Wilmcote. In 1840, in partnership with J W Kirshaw, he started making artificial cement at Stockton, delivering by canal to several merchants' wharves in London. He partnered with John Coulson Bull - another railway promoter - in 1864, and commenced making Portland cement at Harbury. He was mayor of Warwick in 1857 and High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1861. On his death, his nephew Michael Henry Lakin. became a partner, and the company became Greaves, Bull and Lakin. Probate <£5,000 (£780,000).
John Hampton Hale (b 25/4/1829, Camberwell, Surrey: d 12/8/1911, Westminster, Middlesex) was son of a City banker, and became a major financier involved in insurance and flotations and a City Corporation functionary. In 1860, he and George Cooper took over Weston & Co. who were just embarking on making Portland cement at Millwall. When Westons moved to Northfleet in 1879, they became directors of the firm. Although his vast fortune derived almost entirely from his financial dealings, and his dealings with the small cement firm were at arms length, in census returns he consistently called himself "cement manufacturer", as did George Cooper. Probate £281,573 (£43m).
Charles Hall (b 16/4/1825, Andover, Hampshire: d 10/4/1897, Rugby, Warwickshire) was son of a carpenter. He trained in accountancy, and in the 1850s and 1860s worked as a managing agent on several railway construction projects, including one that brought him to Warwick in 1858. G H Walker called him in to report on the state of the Rugby plant as part of his case against Henry Reid, and with the collapse of the firm after Walker's death in 1872, he was taken on as manager. With the dissolution of the temporary limited company in 1884, he became managing partner, the other partners remaining overseas. By the time of his death, the plant had been put on a firm footing. Probate £10,555 (£1.82m).
James Alfred Hallett (b 15/3/1818, Westminster, Middlesex: d 1/2/1908, Putney, Surrey) was son of a banker and founded the banking firm of Hallett & Co., specialising in naval accounts. He was principal financier for the West Kent Gault Brick & Cement Co. Ltd along with W G Margetts and Henry Hayne. In 1893, his company failed and its accounts were taken on by Cocks Biddulph, at which point he resigned his directorship. Probate £322 (£50,000).
John Heal (b ?: d ?) has evaded identification. Any ideas? He was a director of Imperial in 1898. He became an ordinary director of APCM in 1900. Probate £ (£).
Charles Hewitt (b 1/1840, Cosby, Leicestershire: d 15/3/1903, Swanscombe, Kent) was the eldest son of a carpenter who moved to Kent from Leicestershire in the late 1840s. He and his brothers closely collaborated with the Goreham family in developments at Swanscombe. He married William Goreham's eldest daughter Mary Ann. By 1891 he was manager of the cooperage. In 1893 he joined his brother in setting up the Dartford plant. He retired in 1900, before things went bad. Probate £5,039 (£800,000).
William Walter Hewitt (b 5/2/1853, Swanscombe, Kent: d 3/2/1920, Swanscombe, Kent) was Charles Hewitt's younger brother. He married William Goreham's third daughter Sarah Rebecca and became assistant plant manager at Swanscombe. In 1893, he set up the Dartford plant with his brother; W F Goreham joined them in 1896. The company failed and was acquired from the receiver by BPCM. He attempted to start a new agency business in 1913, but it failed. NP.
Ernest Frederick Hilton (b 9/1850, Faversham, Kent: d 18/2/1931, Croydon, Surrey). See the page on Hilton, Anderson & Brooks. Probate £50,246 (£4.3m).
William Frederick Honywood Hinde (b 3/10/1861, Dawlish, Devon: d 22/1/1916, Bexhill, E Sussex) was a cavalry officer a director of Queenborough. He became an ordinary director of BPCM in 1912. Probate £5,137 (£690,000).
Edwin Hollick (b 2/4/1820, Dedham, Essex: d 5/5/1866, Littlehampton, W Sussex) was son of Ebenezer Hollick who moved from Dedham to Stratford, West Ham, in the 1830s, and finally to Chatham. He founded the Borstal Court plant in 1852, passing it to his nephew Jabez on his death. Probate <£9,000 (£1.48m).
Jabez Hollick (b 8/1838, West Ham, Essex: d 26/9/1906, Blackheath, Kent) was son of Edwin Hollick's elder brother Samuel. He inherited his uncle's business in 1866, immediately sold the Borstal Court plant to Dedham relative S B Booth, and bought the Winkfield Bell Roman cement plant at East Greenwich and converted it for PC production. He became a Freeman of the City in 10/1884 as a member of the Guild of Spectaclemakers. He sold out to APCM in 1900. Probate £8,046 (£1.28m).
Henry Alfred Augustus Holt (b 1/1851, Southwark, Surrey: d 22/11/1924, Beckenham, Kent) followed his father's profession of journalist, at least up to the 1881 census. However, he formed his partnership with Henry Macevoy in 1879 to construct and operate the Britannia cement plant. Holt became the "Managing" partner - Macevoy's role was solely to provide encouragement and money. On its takeover in 1900, he became an ordinary director of APCM. Probate £13,652 (£1.18m).
Henry Spence Horne (b 5/1891, Marylebone, Middlesex: d 3/7/1958, Wandsworth, Surrey) was son of an iron merchant and stockbroker, and himself became a stockbroker and company promoter. In 1901, his father called himself a cement merchant. In 1924, he launched a hostile takeover of A/BPCM using borrowed money, going bankrupt when the lenders foreclosed. During his brief period of control, there was a reorganisation of the company which remained in place after he departed. He placed his elder brother, India merchant James Allan Horne (b 21/6/1875, Waltham Abbey, Essex: d 3/2/1944, Westminster, Middlesex) on the board. For his subsequent activities and third bankruptcy, see Red Triangle. NP.
Charles Isaacs (b 1814, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire: d 18/4/1898, Kensington, Middlesex) moved to Bristol as a fur and skins trader, but set up the Bathurst Blue Lias lime plant in 1860. In 1874 he moved to London and launched the Lion plant, later called Wouldham. Probate £373 (£64,000).
Arthur Joseph Jack (b 27/5/1862, St Pancras, Middlesex: d 11/11/1942, Seaford, E Sussex) was son of an Irish wharfinger in London and trained as a civil engineer. He moved to Newhaven aged 19 as a trainee member of ICE to work for the LB&SC railway on its expansion of the harbour, and collaborated with Alfred Edward Carey (b 2/6/1852, Wargrave, Berkshire: d 30/12/1922, Reigate, Surrey). Together they launched the Sussex PC Co. Ltd in 1884 with Jack as managing director, and with finance from local landowner Henry Brand (Note 3). The Newhaven plant began operation in 1886. In that year they were joined by J F Plaister, who took over the role of managing director in 1891. Jack and Plaister both became ordinary directors of BPCM when it acquired SPCC in 1912. Probate £7,162 (£470,000).
Arthur Maynard Chesterfield Jenour (b 7/1/1905, Plymouth, Devon: d 1/9/1992, Newport, Monmouthshire) was a son of J W Beynon's daughter Emilie. After education at Eton, he immediately entered T Beynon & Co., becoming a director in 1938 and chairman in 1945. He became a director of Aberthaw in 1929 and was its chairman from 1946 until its takeover in 1983. He was a director of APCM 1963-1975. He was knighted in 1959. Probate £1,029,657 (£2.9m).
Niels Max Jensen (b 6/11/1894, Randers, Denmark: d 19/3/1965, Tel-Aviv, Israel) graduated as a mechanical engineer in 1912. He worked at the New York and London offices of FLS 1918-21. In 1921 he was living in Luton, Bedfordshire, as a director of the West Hydraulic Engineering Co., which made hydraulic presses, but he described himself as making cement-making machinery. He returned to FLS London office in 1924. In 1932 he became deputy chairman and managing director of Tunnel and Irish Cement and became chairman when A G Larsen returned to Denmark in 1940. He became chairman of FLS in 1945. He retired in 1964. UK probate £110,531 (£2.9m).
Isaac Charles Johnson (b 28/1/1811, Battersea, Surrey: d 29/11/1911, Gravesend, Kent) was one of the cement industry's most important pioneers. He wrote much autobiographic material, which formed the basis of a chapter of A J Francis' book. As with O'Hagan, the relative abundance of self-promoting autobiographical material has tended to give an exaggerated impression of his importance.
He was the son of a labourer at Francis & White's Nine Elms (Battersea) Roman Cement plant. His formal education was minimal and his literacy and numeracy were largely the result of his innate intelligence and application. He was apprenticed in carpentry 1828-33 and learned technical drawing. He gained experience in many aspects of the building industry, including periods working at the cement plant. His father obtained for him an introduction to John Bazley White, who was sufficiently impressed to take him on as plant manager at the Swanscombe plant in 1838. There, around 1842, he was charged with emulating the Portland cement that William Aspdin had introduced at Rotherhithe in 1841. An attempt was made to buy the technology from the secretive Aspdin, but this was rebuffed, and Johnson rashly claimed that he could "work it out for himself". Johnson took three years to do this (see invention account), but eventually founded a production facility for the product that became Britain's largest, from which grew Blue Circle. The chatty openness with which Johnson described this early work - in distinct contrast with William Aspdin's paranoid secrecy - allowed him to make an unchallenged claim that he was the "inventor" of "true Portland cement".
He left JBW in 1851 and established plants in his own right. At Frindsbury (1851), he established the first on the Medway in collaboration with George Burge, who went on to construct many more plants on the Medway. In 1854 he set up Cliffe Creek (1854) in partnership with local builder John Osmotherly (1799-1871).
In 1855, he was invited by George Thirkeld Gibson (b 28/8/1801, Newcastle: d 25/3/1874, Gateshead), solicitor and freeholder of the Gateshead plant on lease to William Aspdin, to consult on the efficiency of the plant, with a view to cancelling the lease. Aspdin went bankrupt on 17/4/1855, and the plant shut down. Gibson had contacts with London-based Tyne coal merchants Edward Charleton and John Watson (Note 4), and set up a partnership between them, Johnson, Edward Morris (?-?) and his cousin Thomas Cumming Gibson (b 31/3/1800, Newcastle: d 22/12/1870, Hammersmith, Middlesex) as I C Johnson & Co. This bought the Cliffe plant and re-started the Gateshead plant in October 1856. Johnson re-located to Tyneside for the next 25 years, becoming Liberal Mayor of Gateshead, and concentrated his efforts on developing the Johnson Chamber Kiln there, with a patent May 1872. The Gateshead plant grew fairly large by the standards of the day, growing from Aspdin's 15 kilns to 40, and its initial raw material - waste chalk ballast - soon ran out. Johnson then sourced a reliable chalk supply in Kent, eventually buying the quarry at Stone, and using Tyne coal ships to bring the chalk as a "return load".
The logic of making clinker at the chalk source soon became unanswerable, and he decided to build a plant at Greenhithe. Sensibly, he reasoned that the new plant should be large from the outset, and incorporate all the best practices that he had absorbed in his long career. The result was the Greenhithe plant which opened in 1877. Johnson, at age 70, moved back to the Thames and ran his business from there for the rest of his life. From 1880, he gradually relinquished his participation in the business to his Gateshead business associates and their descendants. The Gateshead plant was managed by John Watson jr, the Greenhithe plant by Charles Watson, and Charles Charleton managed the London sales office. His own children were not interested in the business; his eldest dissipated his fortune as a big game hunter. In his later years, he took up cycling and photography, and continued proselytising for tee-totalism and alcohol prohibition.
He has a large, and characteristically inaccurate, Wikipedia article (I will not link to this rubbish) and a substantial entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, based largely on Francis' account, which in turn was largely based on his autobiography. The latter he wrote up to about 1880; it was brought up to date by his daughter, and published after his death: Autobiography of Isaac Charles Johnson Esq, JP, Farncombe & Sons, 1912. See also his 100th birthday. Probate £40,657 (£6.3m).
William Joy (b ?8/1846, Ryarsh, Kent: d 1/3/1906, Snodland, Kent) was son of a blacksmith. He was taken on as a labourer at Lee's in 1864, and in 1874 moved to Aylesford as foreman. He became manager at West Kent in 1877, having designed the chamber kilns installed there. He also built many houses in Snodland. NP.
Arthur Lister Kaye (b 12/5/1834, Whitley Upper, WR: d 5/12/1893, Stretton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire) was a younger son of a baronet. He joined the Royal Artillery and fought in the Crimea. He left the army in 1864 and spent a short time in Australia in 1865-6 before returning to live in Warwickshire. In 1868 he entered a partnership with L M Tatham and W H Walker to make lime and cement at Rugby. This arrangement collapsed after six months, and in the same year he and Tatham took over Oldham's lime plant at Southam, operating it as Tatham, Kaye & Co. After Tatham's death in 1871, the plant continued trading as Kaye & Co., and Portland cement production began around 1875. Probate £2,322 (£390,000).
Lister Lister Kaye (b 19/12/1873, Stretton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire: d 12/2/1962, Stretton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire) was the eldest son of Arthur Lister Kaye. After his father's death, he and his mother Eugenia jointly ran Southam. He inherited the baronetcy after the death of his uncle. His mother retired in 1905, leaving him in sole control. Conversion of the plant to rotary production followed. After WWI, profits were poor; the company became insolvent in 1934, and was sold to Rugby. Probate £14,867 (£430,000).
Arthur James Keeble (b 3/1857, Heston, Middlesex: d 22/9/1914, Wereham, Norfolk). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. NP.
George Hedley Keeble (b 1/1854, Heston, Middlesex: d 5/12/1928, Peterborough). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. Probate £141 (£11,600).
Edwin West Killick (b 1/10/1836, Deptford, Surrey: d 27/3/1923, Northfleet, Kent) was son of a Deptford oyster dealer. He joined Robins as a bricklayer in 1859; by 1871 he was foreman and by 1891 he was manager - he retired at the APCM takeover in 1900. He devised a kiln similar to the Gibbons kilns in use at Robins. Probate £1,951 (£145,000).
John Messer Knight (b 15/3/1813, Southwark, Surrey: d 4/9/1880, Northfleet, Kent) was a Quaker associate of Thomas Sturge and entered into partnership with Thomas Bevan and Alfred Sturge to form Knight, Bevan & Sturge, which operated the Bevans plant. Alfred Sturge died in 1859, and Knight resigned in 1876, selling his share to Bevan who assumed sole control. Probate "under £500,000" (£81m).
Michael Henry Lakin (b 7/10/1846, Malvern, Worcestershire: d 21/3/1931, Warwick) was Richard Greaves' nephew, and became a partner in Greaves, Bull & Lakin in 1870, inheriting much of his uncle's estate. He was High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1899 and Mayor of Warwick 1902-5. He was made baronet in 1909. His son, Richard (30/5/1873-14/2/1955), collaborated with Henry Horne in the formation of the Red Triangle group. Probate £301,473 (£26m).
James Lark (b ~1830, London: d ?) is very elusive. In 1856 he obtained several patents. In 1858 he was a foreman at Faversham. He founded the Strood Dock plant in that year. In 1874, he was technical advisor for the launch of the Lion Cement Works, but it failed in 1876, and in 1877, he was running a hotel in Grays, while also managing the abortive Eclipse plant, which folded in 1879. Apart from inconsistent census entries in 1861 (at Strood Dock) and 1871 (in Gravesend), his history has eluded me.
Axel Gunnar Larsen (b 10/1/1902, Frederiksberg, Copenhagen: d 1/2/1973, Drogheda, Co. Louth) was third son of P S H Larsen. He graduated in chemical engineering from MIT in 1926, and worked for FLS's US division until 1932 when he returned to Denmark. He became chairman of Tunnel on his father's death from 1935 to 1940 and of Aalborg Portland and FLS from 1935 to 1945, when he was succeeded by N M Jensen. He became occupied Denmark's Minister of Public Works in the wartime period. His political stance during these years was not seen as a disqualification by British customers. After the war he moved to Ireland and remained chairman of Irish Cement until 1970.
Poul Sehested Harald Larsen (b 21/3/1859, Flensburg, Schleswig Holstein: d 10/5/1935, Copenhagen) was the main driving force in the development of F L Smidth as a plant supplier. He graduated as a civil engineer from Copenhagen polytechnic, and worked for several engineering firms before joining FLS in 7/1884, and in 1887 became a partner. In 1890, by constructing and operating the Aalborg plant, he established FLS's role as both multinational plant supplier and cement manufacturer. He became responsible for business in English-speaking countries. From 1923, he was company chairman. In addition to a wide catalogue of Danish directorships, in the cement industry he was chairman of Aalborg, of Tunnel from 1912, and of Helwan from 1929. He was described by N M Jensen as "unquestionably the most outstanding industrialist Denmark has ever produced". He was succeeded by his son A G Larsen. He has a substantial entry in the Danish national biographical encyclopedia.
William Laurence (b 6/1822, Strood, Kent: d 4/6/1899, Leeds, Kent) inherited his father's Maidstone grocery business, becoming an alderman and JP and mayor in 1853 and 1865. He set up as a farmer at Leeds, east of Maidstone. He made most of his money fron the grocery business. He provided finance to Alfred Wimble to set up the Crown plant at Northfleet in 1875. His youngest son, Percy (b 7/1858, Maidstone, Kent: d 15/9/1929, Bedford), ran the cement plant until its takeover in 1900. Probate £104,054 (£17.7m).
George Moffatt Rhys Layton (b 17/1/1853, Paddington, Middlesex: d 20/9/1941, Hove, E Sussex) was son of a "colonial broker" living in Baldock, Hertfordshire. He was educated at Rugby, and Caius College Cambridge 1871-5, and Inner Temple 1873-9, then becoming a barrister. In 1883, he and his brother Charles Temple Layton (b 3/11/1850, Paddington, Middlesex: d 19/11/1911, Yeovil, Somerset) acquired the failed cement plant at Arlesey and re-built it on modern lines. Notwithstanding the claim that he made "careful analyses" of the raw material, he still called himself only "barrister & solicitor" in the 1891 census. In 1888, he allowed Stokes to install a rotary kiln, which failed. On the company's takeover by APCM in 1900, he became an ordinary director. He was among those ousted from the board in 1919. Probate £324 (£24,000).
William Martin Leake (b 1831, Marylebone, Middlesex: d 25/8/1918, Newnham, Gloucestershire) was son of a lawyer and trained as a civil engineer. In 1859 he went to Ceylon to work on an irrigation project, and invested in a coffee plantation. He returned to England in 1873, and in 1874 formed a partnership with J G Wainwright to set up Tunnel. He bought Hollicks in 1898, selling to APCM in 1900. He sold out Tunnel to FLS in 1911. Probate £17,495 (£1.58m).
Charles Ashby Lean (b 3/7/1844, Ebbw Vale, Monmouthshire: d 29/6/1902, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) was nephew of G C Ashby. His father Charles Lean was a civil engineer working on railway construction, and he followed him in that profession, and became a consultant. He provided finance to revive the failing business of his cousin J D Ashby, providing a damning report on its management, and forcing its reorganisation. Probate £2,717 (£430,000).
William Lee (b 23/8/1801, Finsbury, Middlesex: d 29/9/1881, Snodland, Kent) was son of a builder who grew up in Lewisham. His father purchased the lime works at the site later occupied by West Kent, and he was sent to run it in 1826, specialising in grey lime. With profits from this he bought the Holborough estate in 1843 and in 1846 the estate of Poynder & Medlicott, who were making lime and Roman cement at Halling, and moved his lime operations there. His son Samuel (b 13/2/1826, City of London: d 15/8/1852, Snodland, Kent) and subsequently his son-in-law Alfred Smith (b 1/7/1826, Gillingham, Kent: d 1/3/1867, St Leonards, E Sussex) were taken as partners to form Lee, Son & Smith in 1853. In 1854 they started making Portland cement. In 1876, he took into the partnership Alfred Smith's son, Samuel Lee Smith. On his death, W H Roberts took his place as partner. Lee conducted a campaign against the City of Rochester corporation, which had owned the whole of the tidal Medway and charged fees for its use. His case was finally won with the formation of the Medway Conservancy in 1881. He was Liberal MP for Maidstone 1852-7 and 1859-70, and deputy lieutenant of Kent. Probate £114,034 (£18.0m).
William Levett (b 1817, East Farndon, Northamptonshire: d 3/1/1878, Brixton, Surrey) became a wine merchant and accountant in Westminster. According to Francis, "about 1854 a London accountant, William Levett, established cement works at Elmley Ferry". He purchased the brickworks of Mackenzie & Furness at Elmley, providing the finance for George Burge Jr to convert the plant for PC manufacture. The plant was advertising Roman and Portland cements in 1855. He probably never visited the plant, but maintained depots in London for product distribution. After his death, the company retained his name until the 1900 takeover by APCM, after which the plant was soon closed. Probate <£9,000 (£1.37m).
Henry Macevoy (b 1831, Sandwich, Kent: d 26/4/1905, Willesden, Middlesex) was the son of Irish immigrants - his father from Belfast and his mother from Kilkenny. His eldest sister was born in Cork, then they moved to London around 1828. They moved to Kent in 1830, where Henry was born, finally settling in Dartford around 1840, where his father found work in a foundry. Henry left around 1846, presumably going to London (although not traced there). At some time in the 1850s he joined the growing British community in Chantilly (Oise), getting work as a groom in the racehorse stables there. In 1861 he married his 15-year-old girlfriend at the British embassy in Paris "with the consent of the Ambassador". His first five sons were all born in Chantilly. He appears to have lived on and off in France for at least 20 years, including coping with the Franco-Prussian war, during which Chantilly was occupied by the Germans. In 1871 (by then called a "trainer of horses") he and his wife and six of his sons were briefly staying with his sister Caroline and her husband W J Wilders at 4, Portland Road, Northfleet; his brother-in-law was working as a labourer at Bevans. During the next decade he must have made a lot of money. For the British sporting press he acted as a correspondent on racing and other sports in France, and made money sponsoring French horses to compete in England. It may be that through his journalistic links he encountered Henry Holt. The Britannia cement plant was launched in 1879, largely with his money, although he had not permanently returned to Britain. In the 1890s, he became a member and sponsor of the National Sporting Club, promoting both racing and boxing events. He probably never visited his cement plant. Probate £13,081 (£2.1m).
Henry Marchant ("Harry Le Marchant") (b 2/10/1855, Brentford, Middlesex: d 11/7/1926, Cousldon, Surrey) was the son of a Sussex farmer who moved to Brentford. He found work with the depot for Portland stone brought by rail to Nine Elms. In 1883, with J S Bush, he bought the ailing Portland Stone Company. Some time in the late 1880s, he fell in with Vavasour Earle and joined with him in launching the London Shoe Company in 1892 to supply footware to the London upper classes. This was successful, and he and Earle then progressed to various other promoter schemes. In 1/1895 they supplied capital to J B Martin, who had been operating the Whickham cement plant on a shoestring, forming Martin, Earle & Co. Ltd. They re-financed the company in 1897 and 1899 for rapid expansion (see article. In 12/1900, they launched the notorious Etruscan Copper Estates to operate ancient copper workings dating back to 800 BC. This went bankrupt in 1907. He stayed out of the Collos patents which bankrupted Earle. He became a director of BPCM and went on to get directorships in several other companies. The "Le" in his name was an affectation adopted later in life, and not used by the rest of his family. Probate £20,349 (£1.61m).
Arthur Pearson Margetts (b 1/6/1872, Willesden, Middlesex: d 5/7/1932, West Farleigh, Kent), eldest son of W G Margetts, became joint managing director of West Kent after his father's death. The company became one targetted for absorption into APCM in 1900, and he was offered a directorship, but the company withdrew from the deal at the last moment. It was finally sold to BPCM in 1911. Probate £120,605 (£10.7m).
Stanley William Margetts (b 24/8/1873, Willesden, Middlesex: d 10/1/1949, Chobham, Kent), second son of W G Margetts, became joint managing director of West Kent after his father's death. The company was sold to BPCM in 1911. Probate £215,641 (£10.2m).
William George Margetts (b 8/10/1842, Bermondsey, Surrey: d 3/11/1896, Malling, Kent) was son of a stationer and watchmaker who became a stockbroker. In 1873, with banker J A Hallett and local landowner Henry Hayne (15/8/1832-15/1/1915) he set up the West Kent Gault Brick & Cement Co. Ltd to purchase the Aylesford brick plant and commence making PC there. They subsequently also acquired the Millbay lime works site and converted it to PC production. Margetts' younger brother Thomas Clement Margetts (b 7/1851, Clerkenwell, Middlesex: d ? Note 5) became the manager; the others remained in London. After his death, his sons A P Margetts and S W Margetts took over as managing directors. Probate £22,274 (£3.8m).
Geoffrey Martin (b 29/1/1881, Dover, Kent: d 6/3/1966, Wembley, Middlesex) was an authority on industrial chemistry. He was the son of a Royal Artillery officer and was born in Dover on the family's return from India. They moved immediately to Milford Haven, and he attended Haverfordwest grammar school. The family moved to Bristol where he attended the Merchant Venturers' Technical College (in 1909 merged into the University of Bristol), and received a BSc (ex University of London) in 1901. During 1901-1906 he attended the Universities of Berlin and Kiel. During 1907-1910 he studied organosilicon chemistry at Nottingham. During 1910-1915 he lectured at Birkbeck College and received a DSc. During 1915-1917 he worked in research for various chemical companies, and from 1917 to 1921 he was Director of research and quality control for CWS, Manchester.
On 22/5/1921, he took up the position of Research Director of the British Portland Cement Research Association. "Residential quarters" had been provided at Rosherville Court for him, and he was living there at the 1921 census on 19th June. The Association immediately underwent a severe shrinkage of its physical workload, and was wound up on 31/1/1925. He then set up a consultancy - Martin & Taylor Ltd - and Asheham Cement & Lime Co., set up with the aid of Percy Girouard of Armstrong Whitworth to build a gas-suspension cement kiln - a project so wildly absurd that it is clear that he learned nothing during his short stay in the cement industry. This occupied him until the mid-1930s, after which he did little more, and he retired in 1938.
In view of the fact that he was a much better-qualified chemist than any other in the cement industry at the time, he might have made a useful contribution. However, he was working at a time when clinker mineralogy and thermodynamics were not yet understood, and his poor grasp of thermodynamics prevented any advance on that front. He wrote The Theory of the Rotary Cement Kiln (British Portland Cement Research Association, 1925) and Chemical Engineering and Thermodynamics applied to the Cement Rotary Kiln (Crosby, Lockwood & Son, 1932). These writings came to be regarded as something of a Bible by some, while others thought that he was an embodiment of the dictum that "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king". Many of his misunderstandings of the cement making process continued to infect thinking in the English-speaking world for the rest of the century.
He published many text books on other areas of practical and industrial chemistry during 1900-1932. Many of these went on into later editions, although revised by others. Probate £41,820 (£1.06m).
John Bean Martin (b 8/1833, born at sea, Jersey: d 10/7/1914, Strood, Kent) understudied his grandfather as a veterinary surgeon. He developed other businesses and owned the main Medway Towns omnibus company. He became a mortgagee of the Wickham cement plant, and when it failed in 1895, he bought it and kept it running for a year before he got major investment from Vavasour Earle and Henry Marchant, allowing a massive expansion. He retired in 1902, avoiding the later financial collapse of the company. Probate £30,526 (£4.6m).
Eustace Charles Mason (b 19/4/1886, Ipswich, E Suffolk: d 18/2/1937, Ipswich, E Suffolk) was the second son of F W Mason. He was educated at Rugby, and travelled in Germany, bringing home news of rotary kilns. He claimed to have prospected for raw materials at Claydon whereupon his father moved the cement business there. He inherited the business in 1927. On his death, W J Spall took over as manager. Probate £87,504 (£8.1m).
Frank William Mason (b 5/1848, Ipswich, E Suffolk: d 14/11/1927, Felixstowe, E Suffolk) was second son of George Mason, and took over his timber and cement businesses in 1893. He commenced construction of the Claydon plant in 1907, commissioning it in 1913. Frequent references to him in the press only ever called him a timber merchant. Probate £77,816 (£6.2m).
George Mason (b 6/1812, Ipswich, E Suffolk: d 11/10/1893, Ipswich, E Suffolk) was the son of a builder who set up as an architect. He then went into timber import and oil-seed crushing, and later paper making. He started making Roman cement using Orwell septaria at Commercial Road, Ipswich around 1850, alongside his timber yard. In 1873, he bought the Waldringfield plant and carried on making Roman cement, using Deben septaria, and also Portland cement using imported Thames/Medway raw materials. He lived all his life in Ipswich. He was mayor of the borough 1875-6. The oil crushing business was always his main concern and on his death it passed to his eldest son, George Calver Mason. The timber and cement businesses passed to his second son, F W Mason (above). Probate £180,199 (£30m).
George Vincent Maxted (b 30/8/1859, Eastling, Kent: d 27/10/1944, Elstree, Hertfordshire) was a nephew of G H Dean. He commenced work for a locomotive engineer 1876, Jan-Dec 1879 for Aveling & Porter, Rochester, then for Taylor of Taylor & Neate. With Frank Knott (b 26/3/1860, Leigh, Lancashire: d 26/1/1950, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire), he set up the Maxted & Knott consultancy in Hull in 1890. He became consulting engineer to G & T Earle from 14/7/1893. They provided design input for many cement plants, including Beddington, Cousland, Dunstable, Harbury, Humber, Lees and Masons. Probate £16,502 (£980,000).
Charles Eastland de Michele (b 27/2/1809, Marylebone, Middlesex: d 19/2/1898, Weybridge, Surrey) had been editor/co-owner of the Morning Post and was British Consul in St Petersburg for most of 1849 to 1866. On returning from Russia, in 1868, he became a partner in Francis & Co. and with the death of Alfred Francis in 1871, became senior partner. Probate £19,284 (£3.3m).
Vitale Domenico de Michele (b 11/11/1848, Westminster, Middlesex: d 21/3/1906, Rochester, Kent) was son of C E de Michele. His great-grandfather had been born in Italy. His many siblings had very conventional English names, and his own names were presumably the result of the effusion of Italian nationalist sentiment that occurred during the year of his birth. Following education at Westminster, he was in 1865 apprenticed in engineering with Robert Stephenson at Newcastle-on-Tyne. When his father became a partner in Francis & Co., he was brought back (reluctantly) to manage the Nine Elms plant. He was accompanied in his move from Newcastle by another Stephenson alumnus - R E Middleton. In 1871 he became junior partner. While continuing to manage the plant, he and Middleton also established in 1876 a private consultancy, working from an office in Westminster. With Middleton and W H Francis, he set up "Empson, Holcombe & Co" as a ghost company to independently acquire and develop I C Johnson's part of the Cliffe site. After amalgamation of this, the Nine Elms plant and Johnson's Quarry plant in 1886, he managed the whole site. When Francis & Co sold out to APCM in 1900, he "severed connection" with the cement industry, although he participated in the committee that produced the British Standard Specification for Portland cement - BS12: 1904. Probate £12,138 (£1.93m).
Reginald Empson Middleton (b 5/1844, St Bees, Cumberland: d 1/7/1925, Kensington, Middlesex). Educated at Charterhouse, he became an apprentice at Robert Stephenson, Newcastle, in the company of V D de Michele, with whom he then moved to Cliffe. Set up Empson, Holcombe & Co. with William Holcombe Francis and V D de Michele. Probate £36,497 (£2.9m).
William Morgan (b 1/1838, Llanfeugan, Breconshire: d 24/9/1909, Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was the son of the parish clerk in Pencelli, east of Brecon. He became an accountant and in 1874 became a partner and secretary of the Gillingham Portland Cement Co. He subsequently became a director of White's and a managing director of APCM from 1900 until his death. Probate £62,735 (£9.8m).
Percy John Neate (b 22/10/1858, Marylebone, Middlesex: d 29/7/1948, Hampstead, Middlesex) became apprenticed to the LBSC railway in 1877. In 1882 he joined with W R Taylor to form Taylor & Neate Engineers at Rochester, supplying many types of mechanical equipment, including cement production equipment. The partnership dissolved in 1893 and P J Neate Engineering Works resulted. This was acquired by APCM in 1900 and Neate retired in 1903. Probate £87,896 (£4.5m).
Charles Nelson (b 7/1/1834, Leamington, Warwickshire: d 24/8/1877, Kenilworth, Warwickshire) founded cement manufacturing at Stockton, Warwickshire. His father, George Nelson (b 1800, Nottingham, d 1850, Warwick) studied chemistry and moved to Leamington Spa in order to extract and sell the "salts" of the spa. Setting up as an apothecary, he extended his business, in partnership with his brother-in-law Thomas Bellany Dale, into the refining of gelatine which remained the primary business of the family. Gelatine was extracted using lime, and the lime works at Stockton was set up to provide this. Charles took over management of the lime works in 1856, and in around 1872, he commenced PC manufacture, trading separately from the family firm as Charles Nelson & Co., in partnership with his brothers George and Montague and T P Blyth and William Blackstone. After his death the firm continued under management of the Blyth family. Probate <£30,000 (£4.5m).
Henry Osborne O'Hagan (b 13/3/1853, Blackburn, Lancashire: d 3/5/1930, Roquebrune, Alpes-Maritimes). View his detailed biography on a separate page. Probate £243,572 (£20m).
Sidney Glyde Stephen Panisset (b 31/5/1877, Rotherhithe, Surrey: d 22/3/1937 Sutton, Surrey) was A C Davis's leg-man, and probably wrote most of the material published under Davis's name. He learned chemistry at the City & Guilds College, and became Works Chemist for Martin Earles in 1896. Davis stole him as Chemist for Saxon and Norman in 1907. He became Works Supervisor for APCM in 1912, and became the secretary of BPCRA (always based at A/BPCM's head office) when it formed. He dealt with most communications with the DSIR. He became APCM's Director of Research in 1931. Probate £8,641 (£800,000).
Thomas Parry (b 12/1876, Hibaldstow, Lindsey: d 20/1/1934, St Pancras, Middlesex) was a son of Henry Parry who owned the Kirton Lindsey limeworks, and trained as a chemist. He became chairman of the Central Portland Cement Company Ltd when Kirton Lindsey commenced making cement, and remained in that role until his death. In 1925, with Erik Elmquist, he set up the design consultancy Parry & Elmquist. Probate £106,949 (£10.0m).
Charles William Pasley (b 8/9/1780, Eskdalemuir, Dumfriesshire: d 19/4/1861, Paddington, Middlesex) spent a lifetime in the army ending as a general and KCB. He became famous as an expert on cements in the pre-Portland era. He became director of engineering at the Chatham Field Instruction Establishment in 1812. He expanded the use of concrete and hydraulic limes in military construction and developed his own articial lime. His book Observations on Limes, Calcareous Cements, Mortars, Stuccos & Concrete, &c was published in 1838 and a second edition in 1847. In neither of these was Portland cement mentioned; he only became aware of it after the Great Exhibition in 1851. Probate <£14,000 (£2.2m).
John Pattrick (b 1792, Thorpe-le-Soken, Essex: d 4/2/1872, Dovercourt, Essex) was a corn miller at Dovercourt and branched out into Roman cement manufacture in the 1820s. He commenced making PC in 1856, using raw materials brought from the Thames and Medway. He served six terms as Mayor of Harwich during 1847-1865. Probate <£4,000 (£620,000).
Weetman Dickenson Pearson (b 15/7/1856, Kirkburton, WR: d 13/5/1927, Echt, Aberdeenshire). S Pearson & Son was a firm of building contractors formed in Yorkshire by Samuel Pearson (1814-1884). He took his son George Asquith Pearson (1834-1899) into partnership. George's son Weetman was privately educated and left school in 1872 to join the family firm as an apprentice. In 1875 he was sent to the USA to find business opportunities for the company. This led to a large amount of new work. In 1879 Samuel retired and passed his partnership to Weetman, at which point Weetman became the driving force of the firm, moving the headquarters to London in 1884. There followed massive expansion throughout Britain and overseas, with the firm specialising in large construction projects - railways, docks, bridges and tunnels, for example the Blackwall Tunnel (1892-97) and the first five of many rail tunnels under the Hudson and East Rivers in New York City (1888-1910).
Weetman became a baronet in 1894. He attempted and failed to get into parliament for Colchester in 1892, but won it as a Liberal in 1895, holding it until he was elevated to the Lords in 1910. He was on the radical wing of the Liberals, campaigning for votes for women, old age pensions and Home Rule for Ireland.
Projects such as the construction of the Grand Canal draining the valley in Mexico City led to close ties with Mexico, and expansion into oil prospecting. This eventually became very lucrative. In view of his patchy attendance in Parliament, Pearson became known as "the honourable member for Mexico". The Mexican oil business was sold to Shell - as Shell-Mex - in 1919. In Britain, the firm took on the construction of the naval dockyard at Dover, necessitating brief entry into the cement industry at Wouldham. During WWI he was co-opted as president of the Air Board. He was made a Viscount in 1917.
After the war, the company continued to expand into a vast horizontally-integrated conglomerate, expanding particularly into publishing, which is the main activity of the successor company today. Weetman Pearson has a substantial entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, and a range of Wikipedia articles. Probate £4m (£320m).
Henry Peters (b 10/1848, Halling, Kent: d 25/6/1939, Bournemouth, Hampshire) was fourth son of William Peters. In 1888 he formed a partnership with his younger cousins William Harold Stilwell Peters (b 29/10/1866, Burham, Kent: d 22/9/1951, Jersey), son of his uncle Joseph and William Kingsnorth Peters (b 2/4/1867, Merstham, Surrey: d 29/10/1943, Brockenhurst, Hampshire), son of his uncle Edwin. The firm remained a family partnership until they sold out to BPCM in 1912, and all three were able to retire on the proceeds. Probate: Henry £22,399 (£1.96m): William £44,310 (£2.7m): Harold £51,097 (£2.3m).
Joseph Peters (b 7/1/1829, Snodland, Kent: d 25/5/1876, Ticehurst, E Sussex) was second son of William Peters. He managed the family firm's Medway Valley lime works and headed the company following his father's death in 1867, although he had little direct involvement. Under his management, in 1870 the manufacture of Portland cement was commenced at Wouldham Hall, although the main promoter of the project was his younger brother Henry, who took over the company after Joseph's death. Probate <£25,000 (£3.8m).
William Peters (b 9/1793 Finsbury, Middlesex: d 27/1/1867 Wouldham, Kent) was a member of a large extended family who had been involved in barge operation and lime burning - particularly grey stone hydraulic lime made from the Chalk Marl of the North Downs. His father came from Dorking and made lime in the area. Around 1820, he and his brothers James (b 1796) and Thomas (b 1802) moved to the Medway Valley. In 1841, James was a lime burner at Snodland, Thomas was a lime burner at Halling, and William was a lime merchant at Snodland, which is where his sons William, Joseph and Edwin were born. In 1846, they moved to Halling, which is where his fourth son Henry was born, and where his brother Thomas and his son (also Thomas) had been making lime. The Wouldham Hall estate was purchased in 1854; lime works were commenced there, and they moved permanently to Wouldham Hall. In 1864, the Halling Manor works was sold to Hilton & Anderson and they took over the Merstham lime works from Hall & Co.; his son Edwin went to manage it. William Peters died in 1867, and was described in his probate documents as holding lime works at Wouldham and Merstham, and London depots at Upper Ground Street, Southwark, No 7, North Wharf, Paddington Basin, and 199 Old Kent Road. Probate <£60,000 (£9.3m).
John Wynford Philipps (b 30/5/1860, Warminster, Wiltshire: d 28/3/1938, Westminster, Middlesex). He was thirteenth baronet of his line and was adequately educated, getting a third from Keble. His prospects received a huge boost when he married into money. He had been Liberal MP for Mid Lanarkshire 1888-1894, and for Pembrokeshire 1898-1908, after which he was elevated to the Lords. As an MP, he has a minimal Wikipedia entry. From 1890, he was involved in a number of investment trusts, particularly interested in shipping and railways internationally. As a member of the 69 Old Broad Street Group of promoters, he provided the capital for the formation of BPCM and became its first chairman 1911-13. He has a substantial entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Probate £123,736 (£11.0m).
John Francis Plaister (b 21/4/1858, Bedford: d 13/12/1933, Eastbourne, E Sussex) was son of a school teacher, educated at Framlingham College. After clerical work, he joined the Sussex PC Co. Ltd in 1886. He took over from A J Jack as managing director in 1891. He visited Germany, Denmark and the USA investigating kiln technology and installed Britain's first successful rotary kilns in 1901. Jack and Plaister both became ordinary directors of BPCM when it acquired SPCC in 1912. Probate £18,672 (£1.71m).
Richard Plews (b 12/1826, Lambeth, Surrey: d 3/8/1908, Marylebone, Middlesex) was a son of a lawyer and engineer. He took articles with the family firm in 1842, and became solicitor to Charles Francis & Sons of Nine Elms. When Charles Larkin Francis set up Charles Francis, Son & Co. to run the Vectis plant, he became their solicitor and ran their London office. When the company became insolvent in 1871, he bought it, forming a partnership with John Douglas and Henry Francis. He was chairman of the limited company, and became an ordinary director of APCM after the 1900 takeover. Probate £1,526 (£240,000).
Henry Pooley (b 13/8/1892, Liscard, Cheshire; d 24/10/1964, Westminster, Middlesex) was initially apprenticed to the family firm making weighing machines before taking a degree in Engineering at Bristol. He joined forces with William Alden Brown in the construction of a cement plant in Mozambique (1922-1924). He then set up on his own, and set up Green Island (Hong Kong) in 1926. He was consultant for Coltness 1933-1935 and later set up Metropolitan, as well as many overseas projects. He continued Brown's association with Aberthaw and Rhoose, and specialised in dust precipitator installation. Probate £24,861 (£680,000).
Charles Fielder Price (b 4/1857, Walsall, Staffordshire: d 5/10/1919, Paddington, Middlesex) was son of a railway manager. He was a coal merchant in Hammersmith in 1881. By 1891 he was general manager of Harefield(?) He became an ordinary director of BPCM in 1912. Probate £1,950 (£144,000).
Frederick Ransome (b 18/6/1817, Ipswich, E Suffolk: d 19/4/1893, Dulwich, Surrey) was a member of the Ransome engineering firm of Ipswich. He left in 1844, when he obtained his patent for artificial stone. While maintaining a coal merchant's business, he developed his artificial stone, and from 1859 he concentrated on the latter entirely. In 1885, he obtained his first patent for a rotary kiln. His lack of understanding of clinker mineralogy led to failure. He handed the work over to F W S Stokes, and retired in near poverty. Probate £89 (£14,800).
Halford Walter Lupton Reddish (b 15/8/1898, Coventry, Warwickshire: d 12/10/1978, Easebourne, W Sussex) was the accountant who turned the ailing Rugby into a major force in the industry. He has a substantial biographical chapter in Frearson's book, but, strangely, nothing in ODNB or Wikipedia. He was the son of a Rugby solicitor and attended Rugby School. There he encountered Norman Edyvean Walker, one of the Walker family who owned the Rugby plant. Having trained in accountancy, he was called in by Walker in 1926 to consult on the firm's finances, and in 1929 he became a non-executive director. The firm was like many small companies during the depression, making little or no profit and victimised by the larger companies. Reddish became managing director in 1933 when the plant was at its nadir, running intermittently at 30% capacity.
Emerging from depression, the industry had been stabilised by the annihilation of Red Triangle and the formation of a tight cartel. Reddish enthusiastically gamed the cartel rules, and during the rapid expansion that followed the depression, massively expanded the company by installation of new capacity and acquisitions. In 1934, he bought the bankrupt Kaye's for a minimal sum. He converted the firm to a limited company in 1935 and raised money to improve the capacity of Rugby and reconstruct Southam on modern lines, complete in 1937. In 1936, he purchased the similarly-decrepit Albert Batchelor's plant, and reconstructed it with modern equipment, complete in 1938. In 1937, he took a share in Charles Nelson, subsequently buying it out and shutting it in 1945. In 1938 he bought the Gillingham plant, and shut it down to consolidate the Rochester market. The purchase of Eastwood's in 1962 added three more plants, and Chinnor was added in 1963. Expansion of all the plants continued until the general contraction of the 1970s. He retired in 1976 after 43 years at the head of the firm.
Although right wing politics were universal among mid-20th-century cement industry leaders, most kept their political positions and actions surreptitious. Reddish differed from these in the stridency of his public utterances. In the 60s and 70s, he was beloved of the British media as their go-to source whenever an ultra-right-wing opinion was required. Probate £2,171,571 (£17.6m).
Gilbert Richard Redgrave (b 12/5/1844, Kensington, Middlesex: d 14/6/1941, Abinger, Surrey) was son of RA artist Richard Redgrave. He trained as an architect, and from 1867 worked for H Y D Scott as a draughtsman, on the Royal Albert Hall among other things. From Scott he learned about cements, and he became a member of ICE in 1872. Scott recruited him and Charles Spackman to assist on his cement-from-sewage scheme during 1873-8. He and Spackman then collaborated closely for the next fifty years. Through Scott, he entered the civil service, and became an inspector of technical education. He became Chief Inspector of Schools and Classes for the Department of Science and Art. As a member (with his father) of the South Kensington set, he was widely-read and literate; through his books, he became an internationally-recognised authority on the technology and history of cements. He became a professional bibliographer and assisted Spackman in his bibliography of writings on cement. From 1894 to 1929, he joined with Spackman as a passive co-director of the Isis PC Co. Ltd. He has a bizarrely wide-of-the-mark Wikipedia article. Probate £16,301 (£1.19m).
Henry Reid (b 1825, Glasgow: d 17/3/1883, Bexleyheath, Kent) was trained as a civil engineer. Edwin Trout wrote a comprehensive biography (Note 6). The following is a chronological summary. He was working on the Ulster Canal in 1846, and he married Maria Greer (b 1825, Omagh, Co. Tyrone) that year. He returned to Britain to manage the Emmbrook brickworks near Wokingham in 1849. In 1852, he went into partnership with John Winkfield to make Portland cement at East Greenwich. In the 1860s he began offering consultancy to other manufacturers. Around 1865 he consulted for Seacombe on making PC from soap waste. In February 1866 he provided consultancy on PC at Elmley, but this venture failed before the end of the year, and he abandoned the East Greenwich plant, which was acquired by the Ashbys on 21/10/1867. From then on, he acted as a peripatetic consultant, while his family, now supervised by their long-term governess Maria Phillipa Harden (b 1828, Camberwell, Surrey), remained in the Kent suburbs of London.
In 1868 he published A Practical Treatise on
the Manufacture of Portland Cement, and in 1869, perhaps more importantly, A Practical Treatise on Concrete and how to make it, the latter being a relatively new subject. These seem to have effectively promoted his consultancy business. 1869 saw the start of his acrimonious relationship with Rugby, ending in 1871. In 1871 he consulted on starting true PC production at Dunball. In 1873 he established the Dove Holes plant, and operated it for three years. In 1876, he consulted with Afonwen on making a burnable rawmix. In 1877 he issued updated editions of his books as Science and Art of the Manufacture of Portland Cement and (1879) Practical Treatise on Natural and Artificial Concrete. In 1881, he consulted with Harry Cooper on commencing PC production at Drinagh - Ireland's second PC plant. It is probable that many other plants starting up in the 1870s received help from Reid. Concurrently with these, it is believed that he did international consultancy, mainly in the Americas. Just before his death, his last job was to provide a fulsome validation of the prospectus of the (failed) Hanmer cement plant, dated 28/2/1883. His second son, Walter Francis Reid (b 6/1850, Hurst, Berkshire: d 18/11/1931, Kingston, Surrey) collaborated with him in his consultancy, and continued the work after his death. NP.
John Samuel Rigby (b 11/6/1850, Widnes, Lancashire: d 27/8/1941, Neston, Cheshire) was the son of a shipping agent and learned chemistry at Farnworth Grammar School; he later called himself a chemical engineer. In 1866 he commenced work with John Brunner and Ludwig Mond at the Leblanc process alkali works of John Hutchinson & Co., Widnes. He established in 1880 a process to make cement from chemical industry waste carbonates and developed slag/lime cements (sold as PC) at Seacombe from 1885. He obtained many patents for these processes 1887-8 and a company was launched to expand the work - the British Patent Portland Cement Co. Ltd., establishing the Ditton plant. The prospectus stated the intention of using a rotary kiln. After failure of both Seacombe (~1892) and Ditton (1896), he attempted more experiments in the Aberthaw area, launching the Eddystone-Aberthaw Lime & Cement Co. Ltd in 1902, with similar results. He spent some time abroad, in California and Turkey. In later life he concentrated on concrete block making businesses. Probate £97 (£7,000).
Thomas Rigby (b 28/4/1877, St Helens, Lancashire: d 15/7/1929, Hamburg) was a mechanical engineer, a member of IME from 1901. He began work in the coke and gas industries, and in the process of projects for the gasification of wet fuels such as peat and sewage sludge, he became involved with spray drying systems. He formed a company - Industrial Driers Ltd - to promote his ideas. He obtained British and US patents for spraying slurry into cement kilns, which was in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s. Probate £2,075 (£170,000).
William Henry Roberts (b 12/1847, Snodland, Kent: d 7/4/1926, Tunbridge Wells, Kent) was son of William Lee's daughter Ann. In 1881 he was taken into partnership in Lee's by S L Smith. He left before the firm went public in 1900, but his son W L H Roberts became a director. Probate £8,755 (£690,000).
William Lee Henry Roberts (b 15/1/1871, West Malling, Kent: d 18/10/1928, East Peckham, Kent) was son of William Henry Roberts. He became a partner in Lee's in 1892 and managed the plant. The firm went public in 1900, just before the formation of APCM, and he and S L Smith became the first directors of William Lee, Son & Co. Ltd. The firm entered into "working arrangements" with APCM, and Roberts and Smith left when it was taken over by BPCM in 1911. Roberts was a vocal opponent of A/BPCM. He owned the Holborough estate, adjacent to the Lee's site, and commenced building the Holborough plant in 1923, with assistance from Percy Girouard of Armstrong Whitworth and backing from Henry Horne and Richard Lakin. It was merged into Red Triangle in 1927. He died before Red Triangle crashed. He was a major landowner in Kent, High Sheriff of the county, Rochester Bridge commissioner and Medway Conservator. Probate £291,898 (£24m).
Archibald David Robertson (b 5/12/1822, Bombay: d 30/8/1905, Ashtead, Surrey) was a civil servant in the Bombay government who had returned from India in 1862. He financed the re-starting of the Wouldham Court plant in 1963. In 1880 he sold the plant and, in partnership with retired India merchant Walter Richard Cassels (b 4/9/1826, St Pancras, Middlesex: d 10/6/1907, Kensington, Middlesex) and Robertson's sons Leslie and Raymond, bought the Lion Works in Essex, re-naming it Wouldham. He seems to have had little contact with either plant, using them purely as investments, while living in Kensington. Probate £15,680 (£2.5m).
Leslie Wybrow Robertson (b 15/1/1859, Kolhapur, Maharashtra: d 1/2/1929, Lodsworth, W Sussex) and Raymond Inverarity Robertson (b 8/8/1860, Mumbai: d 13/1/1939, Putney, Surrey) were sons of A D Robertson, and joined with their father and W R Cassels as partners in Wouldham. In the 1881 census they were both living in Grays as "managers at cement works", but they then retired to a safe distance. Raymond became a director of Wouldham Cement Co. (1900) Ltd under Pearson in 1900 and of BPCM in 1911. Probate: Leslie £245 (£20,000): Raymond £6,445 (£560,000).
William Lewen Tugwell Robins (b 1/1782, Tetbury, Gloucestershire: d 18/9/1869, Hammersmith, Middlesex) trained as a lawyer in London, and commenced work as a solicitor in Holborn in 1805. Around 1820 he moved to Hammersmith, with offices in Westminster. In 1847 he fell in with William Aspdin, whose previous partnership was bankrupt during the setting up of his cement plant at Northfleet. Evidently while Aspdin was still undischarged, a new partnership was established with Robins, his son-in-law George Henry Goodwin, and Aspdin, as Robins, Aspdin & Co. The operation of the cement plant proceeded. In March 1849, Goodwin resigned and on 19/1/1850 John Henry Cox took his place. Whereas Robins had done little supervision of the business, Cox was much more vigilant and immediately discovered the malpractices which always characterised Aspdin's operations. He brought an action in Chancery for dissolution of the partnership. He obtained an injunction, effective 7/11/1851, effectively locking Aspdin out of the business. This left Robins and Cox in control of the plant, and their partnership was named Robins & Co. Growth of the business was severely restricted by the growth of the Bevans plant, maliciously set in motion by Aspdin. Robins inevitably became more involved in cement manufacture, and after the departure of Cox, he set up a limited company - Robins & Co. Ltd - in 1865. After his death, the firm retained its name until the APCM takeover in 1900. Probate <£2,000 (£300,000).
Sydney Greenwood Robinson (b 30/12/1873, Burley, WR: d 4/1/1929, Delhi) was son of a clerk. After Leeds Grammar School 1887-9, he was apprenticed in engineering with Tannett Walker 1889-94. He worked for a variety of engineering firms including Blackman fans, before in 1900 joining the London office of Krupp. In 1901 he joined FLS. He became head of their London office and promoted the purchase and re-building of Tunnel as Smidth's UK showpiece. He successfully promoted FLS as the principal supplier of modern equipment in the UK after 1914. He was a director of Tunnel and a promoter and director of the Kent plant. Probate £34,828 (£2.9m).
Edwin Robson (b 12/3/1863, Hull, ER: d 24/9/1939, Sutton, ER) took over his father's oil seed crushing business in 1884; this remained always his primary business. The Stoneferry cement plant was bought by J W Burstall and G A Lambert in 1889, and was reorganised as a limited company - Burstal & Co. Ltd. Robson was brought in as chairman. In 1903 Burstall and Lambert left, and the firm became Robson's Cement Co. Ltd. Robson sold it to BPCM in 1912, becoming an ordinary director; he also continued running his oil business. Probate £73,562 (£6.4m).
Walter Francis Roch (b 20/1/1880, Llanboidy, Carmarthenshire: d 3/5/1965, Llanarth, Monmouthshire) was elected Liberal MP for Pembrokeshire in the 1908 by-election following John Wynford Philipps' elevation to the peerage. Solely by virtue of this, he became an ordinary director of APCM in 1911. He was finally ousted in 1924. Probate £44,433 (£1.18m).
Frederick Howard Rosher (b 7/6/1864, St Pancras, Middlesex: d 1945, Paddington, Middlesex) was son of a builders' merchant based at Regents Basin. His father commenced PC production at Crown Quay in 1880, and he took over its management in 1885. In 1890, in partnership with his younger brother Francis Edwin Rosher (b 11/9/1867, St Pancras, Middlesex: d 17/1/1953, Battersea, Surrey), he built the Artillery plant; they sold out when their attempt at going public failed in 1894. A second attempt with bigger backers and a larger portfolio including brick and pottery indertakings was launched in 1895 as Rosher & Co. Ltd. Both cement plants failed; Crown Quay was offered for sale in 1901 and found no buyers. Artillery was sold in the late 1890s. NP.
George Berners Ruck-Keene (b 5/1867, Erwarton, E Suffolk: d 14/4/1913, Colchester, Essex) was son of a clergyman and after education at Cheltenham became a City banker. He became a partner in F C Barron & Co. in 1900 and was in sole control after Barron died in 1904. On takeover by BPCM he became an ordinary director of the latter. Probate £11,677 (£1.74m).
Henry Young Darracott Scott (b 2/1/1822, Plymouth, Devon: d 16/4/1883, Sydenham, Kent) was son of a Plymouth quarry owner. He entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1838, and became a senior instructor there in 1851. He studied chemistry at King's College, London, and established an applied chemistry course at the Royal Engineers Establishment, Chatham. In 1854 he patented his "selenitic cement", which was a sulfoaluminate cement made by burning together from hydraulic lime and gypsum. This was subsequently produced by many cement manufacturers for stuccoing and moulding applications, but not in great quantity. In 1864 he was seconded to the civil service, providing engineering services for the Great Exhibition and for the development of the cultural complex of South Kensington, including coordinating the design and construction of the Royal Albert Hall. His major (though unwitting) contribution to PC history was in training G R Redgrave and C Spackman in cement chemistry and manufacture. He has a substantial entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Probate £775 (£122,000).
Frederick Shadbolt (6/5/1828, Westminster, Middlesex: d 9/1/1891, Eastbourne, E Sussex) operated the Caledonian Road Roman cement works from around 1845 under the company name of Coles, Shadbolt, which was a partnership. He acquired the Waldringfield plant around 1870, and sent his nephew P G Shadbolt to manage it in 1872, but sold it to George Mason in 1873. Probate £15,744 (£2.6m).
Leslie Garnet Shadbolt (b 7/10/1882, Harefield, Middlesex: d 21/1/1973, Kelling, Norfolk) was son of P G Shadbolt. He joined Coles, Shadbolt in 1901, and after his father's death in 1903, converted it to a public company. He installed a rotary kiln at Harefield. He became an ordinary director of BPCM in 1912 and was ousted in 1919. He remained managing director of the London Brush Co. Probate £56,647 (£980,000).
Percy George Shadbolt (b 3/9/1855, Hornsey, Middlesex: d 13/8/1903, Mullion, Cornwall) was the son of George Shadbolt (1818-1901), a London merchant whose brother was Frederick Shadbolt. He worked for his uncle from 1873, initially managing the Waldringfield plant for a short time, then managing the brickworks at Harefield. Here he recognised the presence of raw materials for PC, and commenced the cement plant in 1880. After his death in 1903, his son Leslie (above) took over. Probate £50,870 (£8.1m).
Andrew Armstrong Short (b 26/4/1883, Newcastle on Tyne: d 23/12/1948, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire) graduated in Engineering from the University of Sheffield. He followed his father's profession in hydraulic engineering and became a draughtsman in many roles including 1908-1912 for Edgar Allen. During 1919-1924 he was chief engineer at Rhoose and from 1924 manager at Chinnor. On the death of W E Benton, he became managing director in 1940. He received a substantial I Mech E obituary. Probate £5,355 (£270,000).
George Henry Skelsey (b 7/11/1858, Whitley, WR: d 17/3/1905, Llandrillo-yn-Rhôs, Denbighshire) was son of a brick maker and clerk. In 1886 he and some friends took over the Adamant plant at Stoneferry, and formed Skelsey's Adamant Cement Co. Ltd on 1/1/1890. He left the firm in 1896, his brother Walter taking over. He invested in land on the Dee estuary, but in attempting to sell it on, went bankrupt in 1902. NP.
Walter Skelsey (b 2/1855, Toronto, Ontario: d 27/11/1927, Harrogate, NR) was son of a farmer and nephew of G H Skelsey. He and his brothers-in-law Robert & Arthur Brearley, all woollen manufacturers, became directors of Skelsey's Adamant Cement Co. Ltd. G H Skelsey left in 1896 and Walter took control. His son John Clifford Skelsey (1880–1931) was works manager at Barton. On the takeover of the company by BPCM in 1911, he sold out, and returned to woollen manufacture. Probate £14,861 (£1.19m).
George Smeed (b 1811, Sittingbourne, Kent: d 2/5/1881, Tunstall, Kent) was a prototypically Dickensian character, who vigourously promoted his questionable back-story throughout his life. He claimed to have been born in poverty, growing up as a street hawker, sleeping in hedgerows. In fact, he inherited considerable wealth, and despite a complete lack of education and well-attested illiteracy, by the 1830s he was a well-established citizen of Sittingbourne. His inheritance was invested in increasing swathes of land in the area and a fleet of barges, and he established his first brickworks in 1845. His Murston plant became Britain's biggest brickworks of the time, and as a small adjunct to it, in 1858 he founded the Sittingbourne cement plant. In 1859 he was a member of the syndicate that took over Thomas Cubitt's brick and cement plant at Burham. Despite spending a year in Maidstone jail for smuggling, he became the largest employer and wealthiest man in Kent. G H Dean married his daughter and in 1876, they formed Smeed, Dean & Co. Ltd. Dean headed the company after Smeed's death. Probate £154,204 (£24m).
Samuel Lee Smith (b 7/1856, Clapham, Surrey: d 6/9/1923, East Malling, Kent) was a son of William Lee's daughter Sarah and Alfred Smith. Following his father's death, he became a partner in Lee, Son & Smith. After William Lees's death in 1881, Smith and W H Roberts (succeeded in 1892 by his son W L H Roberts) ran the company. They went public in 1900 and sold up to BPCM in 1911. Probate £153,802 (£11.4m).
Charles Spackman (b 6/9/1848, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire: d 11/3/1932, Clitheroe, Lancashire). Charles Spackman was son of Charles William Spackman, a "stucco plasterer" and builder in Cheltenham. In the 1871 census he was working for his father as a carpenter and joiner, but he had studied chemistry at Birmingham and at University College, Nottingham, and from 1873 to 1878 he worked, alongside Gilbert Redgrave, for H Y D Scott in his researches on cements and limes. Scott's client companies included the owners of Lees, Barrow, Stockton, Harbury and Barnstone, and in doing chemical work for these he began his large portfolio of chemical data, and familiarised himself with raw materials around the country. He was at Folkestone from 1879 to 1882. During 1881-1882 he made trial burns on Oldbury alkali waste. In 1883, he moved to Barrow, where he instigated genuine Portland cement manufacture, using his own design of kiln for dry process operation. In 1893 he went to Dublin to rebuild the Rialto plant there, and finally, in 1894, he moved to Clitheroe and, in partnership with Redgrave, set up the Isis plant, where he stayed until 1929. He was a Fellow of the Chemical Society and a member of the Society of Chemical Industry. His son (1881-1967) was called Charles Redgrave Spackman. Probate £8,470 (£750,000).
John Lamb Spoor (b 9/1856, Swalwell, Co Durham: d 3/3/1918, Chatham, Kent) was an autodidact of lowly origins whose potential was recognised by Isaac Charles Johnson - a man of similar background. He was born in Swalwell, a few miles west of Gateshead. His immediate relatives were blacksmiths associated with the local iron works. He entered employment with I C Johnson & Co. around 1873. He moved to Cliffe, Kent in 1877 to supervise the commissioning of chamber kilns there and at Greenhithe. Around 1889 he left Johnsons and set up on his own, constructing the Borstal Manor plant. He ran out of money before the plant was complete. His mortgagees foreclosed, and he went bankrupt 26/10/1894. According to Francis, he went to India and supervised erection of works at Madras and Bangalore and after four years had made sufficient money to return to this country and pay his creditors in full. (This would have been 1898.) He then returned to India and erected his own works in Calcutta, finally coming back to this country in 1902. The London Gazette says his bankruptcy was annulled on 29/12/1899. On his return, he set up as a consultant, and supervised, among other things, the building of Cousland and Kirtlington and the rebuilding of Lyme Regis, while continuing to live in Strood, Kent. He was a Kent County Councillor. He died in 1918 and was buried in Cliffe churchyard. Probate £5,136 (£460,000).
William Harry Stanger (b 24/9/1847, Pietermaritzburg, Natal: d 13/2/1903, Kensington, Middlesex) founded a respected independent testing works and laboratory. His father was Surveyor-General for Natal, and returned to England in 1851. He attended King's College, London and had apprenticeships in railway engineering. In 1870, he became an army trainer in traction engine driving, then got experience in Brazil in the same field. In 1873 he became engineering clerk for the Crown Agents for the Colonies, and shortly afterwards set up as an independent inspector for government materiel. In 1886, he took on Bertram Blount to do chemical analysis, and in 1887 set up his test house in Broadway, Westminster. The testing of cement became a speciality, done for both government and outside customers. Stanger & Blount were consulted in 1894 to resolve the controversy surrounding the use of adulterants in cement and their conclusion that they afforded no benefit was accepted by the industry and written into the 1904 Standard. In 1898 they visited US plants and prepared their report on rotary kilns. On his death in 1903, Stanger received a substantial ICE obituary. Probate £19,323 (£3.1m).
Ferdinand Charles Stanley (b 28/1/1871, Marylebone, Middlesex: d 17/3/1935, Marylebone, Middlesex) was a son of the Earl of Derby. He joined the army and fought in Sudan and the Boer War. He was made chairman of APCM 1911-1924 as a condition of the financing of the formation of BPCM. He was vice-chairman of BPCM 1911-1913 and chairman of BPCM from 1913. For most of 1914-18 he was a Brigadier-General in France. He was finally ousted in the 1924 coup. Probate £28,080 (£2.6m).
Robert Stephenson (b 25/3/1847, Newmarket, W Suffolk: d 27/10/1929, Burwell, Cambridgeshire) was son of a racehorse trainer and obtained tenancy of much Cambridgeshire Crown farm land. He was digging "coprolite" in 1871; in 1891 he was "farmer and surveyor". His son, also Robert (b 3/7/1876, Burwell, Cambridgeshire: d ?) went to Charterhouse and Pembroke College, Cambridge then in 1899 he set up the Burwell cement plant on some of his father's land while working for his MA. In 1901 the father was "farmer, land valuer, JP" and the son was "surveyor and cement manufacturer". Robert snr died in 1929, leaving his estate (which was mostly sold) to his daughters. Far more significant than either father or son was his daughter Marjory (b 24/1/1885, Burwell, Cambridgeshire: d 12/12/1948, Cambridge). Probate £70,789 (£5.8m).
Alfred Stevens (b 19/1/1869, Newhaven, E Sussex: d 28/4/1950, Hampstead, Middlesex) was son of a grocer. He trained in accountancy and became secretary of British White Lead at Northfleet in 1891, and on its failure became its liquidator. The Imperial PC company bought the site, and Stevens became its secretary on its formation in 1/1898. On its absorption into APCM, he became secretary to the new company, and became a director in 1906. He was one of the very few of the APCM "old guard" who survived the successive reorganisations as Finance Director, and retired from the board in 1940. Probate £144,535 (£6.7m).
Halley Stewart (b 18/1/1838, Barnet, Hertfordshire: d 26/1/1937, Harpenden, Hertfordshire). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. Probate £117,365 (£10.8m).
Percy Malcolm Stewart (b 9/5/1872, Hastings, East Sussex: d 27/2/1951, Sandy, Bedfordshire). View his detailed biography in the Peterborough page. Probate £541,869 (£24m).
Frederick Wilfrid Scott Stokes (b 9/4/1860, Liverpool, Lancashire: d 7/2/1927, Ruthin, Denbighshire) was son of a barrister and civil servant, and trained in civil engineering aspects of railways. He joined Ransome & Rapier (Ipswich) as assistant to the MD in 1885. In 1888 he patented a modification of the Ransome rotary kiln and installed a prototype at Arlesey, which failed to work successfully. On Rapier's death in 1897, Stokes succeeded him as managing director of Ransome & Rapier and chairman in 1907. In recognition of wartime munitions work, he was knighted in 1917, and was made president of the Industrial Reconstruction Council in 1918. He has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Probate £65,894 (£5.3m).
Thomas Sturge (b 13/7/1787, Southwark, Surrey: d 14/4/1866, Northfleet, Kent). The history of the Sturges is given at length by Francis. The Sturges were a prominent Quaker family originating in the area between Bristol and Gloucester, and can be traced through Quaker birth and death records. His father - also Thomas (b 21/5/1749, Olveston, Gloucestershire: d 11/8/1825, Croydon, Surrey) - moved to Newington (Southwark) around 1780 and set up in business as a refiner of whale and seal oil, with a small fleet of whaling vessels. His factory was on Newington Butts. His sons Thomas, Nathan (b 17/3/1789), Samuel (b 22/9/1791) and George (b 8/11/1797, Southwark, Surrey: d 14/4/1888 Sydenham, Kent) joined the business and they traded as Thomas Sturge & Sons, until the business was sold in around 1840.
A curiously-ignored fact (briefly mentioned by Francis) is that in the 1830s, as a side-line, Thomas (jnr) and George had set up a Roman cement plant about a mile south in Camberwell. Francis speculates that the Sturges might have moved to Northfleet in order to compete in Roman cement manufacture with Parker and Wyatt. This is not a sensible suggestion, since location of a Roman cement plant would either be near the market (as at Camberwell) or near the raw material - which came from Sheppey and Harwich. The only reason for location of Parker's plant at Northfleet was the availability of the tidal mill. No "competing" mill was available. It was much more likely that they were attracted by Northfleet's main industries of the time, which were fishing and ship-building.
Be that as it may, Thomas and George moved to Northfleet. Two large freehold estates (the Orme House and Hive House estates) had been requisitioned by the Crown in 1808 for the construction of a naval dockyard. The scheme was abandoned in 1812, but the land remained in the hands of the Commissioner of Works, rented to various residential occupiers. It was finally put up for sale in 1837 and was bought by Thomas Sturge. Here, with the aid of William Aspdin, he built his Portland cement plant. This was done in partnership with his brother George and Alfred Sturge (b 19/10/1822, Olveston, Gloucestershire: d 21/11/1859, Rodborough, Gloucestershire), who was a son of his cousin Thomas Marshal Sturge, and was an engineer.
Thomas and George soon retired, and a new partnership was set up in 1854 between local Quakers J M Knight, Thomas Bevan and Alfred Sturge, forming the company Knight, Bevan & Sturge, which continued in business until 1900, when it became an important component of APCM.
Thomas continued to live with his sister at Northfleet House until his death. As a Quaker, he has a relatively reliable Wikipedia article, but no entry in the ODNB. Probate "under £180,000" (£30m).
Robert Curling Styles (b 21/11/1872, Swanscombe, Kent: d 29/10/1913, Chigwell, Essex) was the son of the farmer at Knockholt, and studied analytical chemistry, becoming works chemist at Swanscombe in the 1890s. He was one of the White's delegation to the USA in preparation for their investment in rotary kilns. Probate £1492 (£220,000).
Lawrence Mallory Tatham (b 4/2/1807, Warwick: d 19/12/1871, Hampstead, Middlesex) inherited his father's business of agency and distribution of Warckshire limes in London, with a wharf on Paddington Basin. He entered into partnership with W H Walker in 1865 and proposed the production of Portland cement at the Bilton lime and brick works. In 1868, A L Kaye joined the partnership, but they parted company with Walker within six months, and continued in partnership as Tatham, Kaye & Co. This company kept rights to distribute Walker's products in the south of England, as well as distributing the products of other lime producers. They acquired Oldham's lime works at Southam in the same year. After Tatham's death in 1871, the plant continued trading as Kaye & Co. Probate <£1,500 (£230,000).
William Tingey Snr (b 13/8/1820, Little Downham, Isle of Ely: d 22/8/1907, Gravesend, Kent) was the son of a farmer who, after the army, came to London and married the daughter of a gilder. His occupation at the time was given as pawnbroker. In 1851 he was living in St John's Wood as a silversmith - perhaps another name for pawnbroker. By 1861 he was called a warehouseman. He formed a partnership with his son in 1866 and they purchased land in the Rochester area, including the Crown plant. He lived in Kent thereafter, calling himself a cement manufacturer, although the cement business was largely his son's work. Probate £68,205 (£10.8m).
William Harold Tingey (b 10/9/1845, Westminster, Middlesex: d 8/7/1925, Rochester, Kent), son of W Tingey Snr became a partner in William Tingey & Son in 1866, and they purchased the Crown plant from George Burge Jr. He and George Burge Jr acquired most of the chalk land on the Frindsbury peninsula, as well as lands in Gillingham and above the bridge, and formed the Rochester Chalk Co. to quarry it and supply to the surrounding plants. In 1896, he consulted H O O'Hagan about a public flotation, which did not happen, but set in train the sequence of events which led to the formation of APCM in 1900. He became an ordinary director of the new company. Probate £88,125 (£7.0m).
Alfred Tolhurst (b 1834, Sedlescombe, East Sussex: d 12/1/1913, Edenbridge, Kent). Son of a farm labourer, he commenced work as a solicitor's clerk in Gravesend in 1850 and became a solicitor in 1865. He developed a large legal partnership, and put the profits into land and property. In 1893 he bought the Rosher quarry lands, initially selling ballast chalk. In 1896 he set up his cement plant, while still selling commercial chalk. He embarked on a predatory lawsuit against the Combine following the formation of APCM in 1900, which he won, but the verdict was finally overturned in the House of Lords in 1903, establishing an important precedent in contract law (Note 7). He sold out to BPCM in 1911. There is a family biography (Note 8). Probate £192,385 (£29m).
Philip Walmesley Tolhurst (b 13/12/1874, Northfleet, Kent: d 25/5/1922, Gravesend, Kent) was son of Alfred Tolhurst. A graduate civil engineer, he participated in the foundation of the Aberthaw company in 1912. Probate £71,183 (£4.5m).
Adolphus Octavius Trechmann (b 13/6/1867, Hartlepool, Co. Durham: d 30/1/1948, Ripon, NR) was youngest son of P O E Trechmann. On the acquisition of the Weekes plant in 1892, he was put in charge. In 1911 he became a director of BPCM. He sold his holding in the Warren plant in 1919. NP.
Albert Frederick Trechmann (b 17/9/1857, Hartlepool, Co. Durham: d 11/12/1937, Stockton, Co. Durham) was fifth son of P O E Trechmann. He ran the shipping business with O K Trechmann, forming Trechmann Brothers in 1895 and Trechmann Steamship Co. Ltd in 1897. The Trechmann fleet was largely destroyed during WWI. He sold his holding in the Warren plant in 1919. Probate £104,243 (£9.6m).
Carl Otto Trechmann (b 19/3/1851, Hartlepool, Co. Durham: d 29/6/1917, Castle Eden, Co. Durham) was eldest son of P O E Trechmann. He received an excellent education and became probably the first PhD chemist (University of Heidelberg) in the cement industry. He was made manager of the Warren cement plant. In addition to chemistry, he became an expert on geology and mineralogy, and bequeathed this interest to his son. In 1888, he drilled a borehole at the plant site which proved the presence of anhydrite 30-100 m below the plant. See also his obituary in the Mineralogical Magazine. Probate £102,446 (£11.6m).
Charles Taylor Trechmann (b 28/6/1884, Hartlepool, Co. Durham: d 18/2/1964, Bridgetown, Barbados) was son of C O Trechmann. He studied chemistry and geology at Armstrong College, Newcastle, then at Basel and Paris, and received a DSc from Durham in 1917. He organised the prospecting and development of the Warren anhydrite mine, but sold his holding in the Warren plant in 1924, and concentrated for the rest of his life on academic geology, becoming the leading authority on the Permian rocks of the northeast. He has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. Probate £136,098 (£3.7m).
Otto Kramer Trechmann (b 7/1854, Hartlepool, Co. Durham: d 14/1/1917, West Hartlepool, Co. Durham) was third son of P O E Trechmann. He was clerk then sales manager at Warren. On his father's death in 1892 he became joint manager of both the cement and shipping companies, and purchased the Weekes plant. In 1894 he took on his father's role as German consul in Hartlepool. As with the other members of the family, in the years approaching WWI, he reconfigured his family history as Danish, although they were German by origin, language and sentiment. Probate £127,375 (£14.4).
Peter Otto Eduard Trechmann (b 1819, Wilster, Holstein: d 17/5/1892, Norton, Co. Durham) was born not far from Lägerdorf in the area that became the cradle of the German cement industry, but he migrated to England in 1846, twelve years before the local industry started. He began working as a shipping clerk in Hartlepool. He set up his own shipping agency in 1848, and in 1850 acquired the Warren site, which had previously made whiting from the local ballast, and from 1848 had made Roman cement. Around 1857 he commenced making "improved" Portland cement, following its introduction in the northeast by William Aspdin five years earlier (Note 9). From 1859, Trechmann also took shares in shipping, and he operated steam ships from 1871. His business as a coal exporter was as substantial as his cement business. As they came of age, four of his eight sons joined the businesses. In 1866 he became mayor of Hartlepool, and around the same time became German consul for the area, a role he maintained for the rest of his life. Probate £95,583 (£15.9m).
Thomas Hutchinson Tristram (b 24/9/1825, Eglingham, Northumberland: d 8/3/1912, Hampton, Middlesex) was the son of a Northumberland vicar. He studied law at Oxford, and was the last member of the extinct College of Doctors of Law. He was prominent in 19th century jurisprudence, particularly ecclesiastical, and became Chancellor of the dioceses of London, Chichester, Hereford, Ripon and Wakefield. He stood for parliament as Tory for Hartlepool 1880 and 1885, coming third. He became a director of Casebournes on its going public in 1882, as a major provider of funds. He became its chairman in 1897, a post that he retained until his death, although he rarely stirred from his London home. However, his son F T Tristram took an active role in the business. Probate £1,902 (£290,000)
Francis Thomas Tristram (b 19/10/1864, City of London: d 2/3/1953, Nice, Alpes-Maritimes) was son of T H Tristram. Educated at Charterhouse, he became a director of Casebournes in 1886 and was managing director from 1897 to 1914. In 2/1914, he met F H Crawford and organised smuggling of ammunition to Belfast. A consignment of 3 tonnes of cartidges in cement bags packed at Cliff House was siezed on 7/7/1914. Tristram on police interview refused to name the consignee. He enlisted in the Durham Light Infantry that year, and apparently nothing more was said. Probate £6,159 (£230,000).
Henry Turvey (b 11/12/1868, Retford, Nottinghamshire: d 22/7/1953, Birkenhead, Cheshire) was the son of a professor of music, but studied law. By 1901 he was a solicitor's clerk and accountant. His wife was the daughter of a major Cambridge merchant and shareholder in the Saxon PC Co, and he became director and secretary of the company in 1903. He was a director of BPCM for a while. He became sales manager for CMC in 1921. Probate £5,816 (£220,000).
Aage Ulrich (b 13/1/1891, Copenhagen: d ?) graduated in civil engineering 1920 from Copenhagen Polytechnic and joined FLS working at West Thurrock. In 1937 he became the first plant manager at Pitstone.
James Gadesden Wainwright (b 23/12/1837, Everton, Lancashire: d 18/2/1929, Godalming, Surrey) was son of a merchant. He had a sugar refining business in London and became Treasurer of St Thomas' Hospital. In 1874 he formed a partnership with W M Leake to set up Tunnel. He sold out to FLS in 1911. Probate £91,161 (£7.5m).
Alfred Caldecott Walker (b 18/4/1851, Mumbai: d 11/4/1912, Westminster, Middlesex) was second son of G H Walker. Like his brother, H E Walker, he studied civil engineering then law, and went to India. He ended up practicing as a solicitor in Mumbai. He became a partner in the firm in 1884, but only returned to Warwickshire in 1892. After his brother's death in 1904, his wife Minnie (1856-1928) became a partner, and she led the company, along with three of H E Walker's sons, after Alfred's death. Probate £71,963 (£11.1m).
Frederick Thomas Walker (b 1/1871, Gainsborough, Lindsey: d 13/6/1932, Sheffield, WR) was a Sheffield builder who in 1921 bought the ancient quarry at Ketton, initially for building stone, and from 1927 promoted the construction of the cement plant. He was High Sheriff of Rutland 1924-5. He was one of the four initial directors of the Ketton PC Co., chaired by Joseph Ward. Probate £36,364 (£3.2m).
George Henry Walker (b 2/6/1819, Newbold on Avon, Warwickshire: d 2/12/1872, Richmond, Surrey) was the instigator of what became the Rugby Portland Cement Co. His biography is given in minute detail in John Frearson's book. What follows is a brief summary. He was son of the major local landowner and attended Rugby School. He was articled as clerk to a local solicitor in 11/1835. He moved to Bombay in 1844 and married there in 1848. His sons were born there. He returned to Newbold in 1852, but made two more trips to India in 1853-4 and 1856-9.
Lime works had been operated as part of the family estate since the 1770s or earlier, and ground Lias lime "cement" was distributed as far as London via the Oxford Canal which passed through the area. The Victoria lime works, occupying the present Rugby site, was commenced around 1851 to make use of the Rugby-Leamington railway, opened in that year. The lime works at Newbold remained canal-based. In 1865, he entered into a partnership with L M Tatham to form the Rugby Blue Lias Lime, Cement & Brick Co. Ltd, with a view to increasing lime production for the London market. Walker's involvement was purely for estate management, and paid managers ran the plants. The business was chaotic and lost money. Walker mortgaged his estate to provide his share of the capital, and in 1868, A L Kaye joined the partnership to provide extra funds.
His final years involved a frenzy of expensive litigation in which the increasingly manic Walker turned on everyone within suing distance. Lister Kaye's brief involvement and enlightenment caused the rapid dissolution of the partnership, and Walker was forced to raise money to buy him and Tatham out. He took on a new partnership with London lawyer Thomas Miller on 29/12/1868 to trade as the Rugby Portland Cement Co. The ambition to make Portland cement was problematic, since no-one involved had any knowledge of the product. Perhaps at Martin's instigation, he employed Henry Reid as a consultant. Reid rapidly determined that the unsaleable cement being produced was not Portland at all (see article), and persuaded them to take him on as manager. Reid had real Portland cement in production by 1870, but to the exclusion of the rest of the business, and losses were escalating, to a large extent due to customer claims originating in the previous regime. Walker fired Reid, who sued for breach of contract. Miller, horrified at this development, declared bankruptcy and his trustees called in Walker's debts to him. Walker even sued his lawyers at one point. Eventually his estate was sold to pay everybody off. Probate <£1,500 (£230,000).
Henry Edyvean Walker (b 20/5/1849, Mumbai: d 14/5/1904, Kensington, Middlesex) was eldest son of G H Walker. He wisely stayed out of his father's chaotic business and having studied civil engineering, left for Argentina in 1874, leaving his aunt to deal with the financial aftermath. He remained in Argentina "living hand to mouth" until 1889, with occasional visits home. In 1884 he became a partner in the firm along with his brother and Charles Hall the manager. Profits from the firm had by then paid off all outstanding debts. After his death in 1904, his wife Minnie (1856-1928) became a partner, and she led the company, along with other members of the family. Probate £36,673 (£5.8m).
William Herbert Graves Wall (b 27/12/1858, Bingham, Nottinghamshire: d 28/2/1940, Gravesend, Kent) was the son of the daughter of a road surveyor. Marrying a Snodland girl, he became a salesman and, from 1901, director of Lee's. He later became a director of BPCM but was ousted in 1919. He then became sales manager of Holborough. Probate £5,275 (£450,000).
Joseph Ward (b 4/9/1864, Wortley, WR: d 7/7/1941, Sheffield, WR) was the brother of Thomas William Ward, founder of Thos W Ward Ltd., the major ship-breaking and scrap dealing firm based in Sheffield. They formed the firm in 1880, and he became chairman on his brother's retirement in 1919. He chaired the Scrap Advisory Committee to the Ministry of Munitions 1914-18. He was Master Cutler 1931-2 and was awarded an honorary LLD by Sheffield University. In 1928 he acquired F T Walker's site at Ketton and put up more than half the finance for construction of the cement plant. He was the first chairman of Ketton PC Co. His portrait, resplendent in his academic hood and gown, hangs in the boardroom at Ketton. Probate £168,498 (£12.3m).
Charles Hubback Watson (b 25/8/1852, Newcastle-on-Tyne: d 6/8/1934, Sidmouth, Devon) was nephew of John Watson I and younger brother of John Watson II. He moved to Greenhithe with Johnson in 1877, and became manager shortly afterwards. He became an managing director of BPCM in 1911. Probate £52,013 (£4.9m).
John Watson I (b 1/3/1805, Wallsend, Northumberland: d 23/1/1871, Lambeth, Surrey) was a member of the Newcastle Coal Exchange, involved in shipping, and engaged in partnership with I C Johnson and Edward Charleton to operate the Gateshead plant. Probate <£60,000 (£9.4m).
John Watson II (b 1843, Hartlepool, Co Durham: d 3/7/1918, Cambridge) was nephew of John Watson I and elder brother of C H Watson. When Johnson moved to Gravesend in 1877, he took over management of the Gateshead plant. He retired in 1899, handing over his role to G E W Cranage. He donated the John Watson Building Stone Collection to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences at Cambridge. Probate £19,066 (£1.72m).
Frederick Selfe Watt (b 13/11/1882, Swanscombe, Kent: d 2/1/1946, Harbury, Warwickshire) was the son of the cooperage foreman at Swanscombe, and younger brother of W J Watt. He started there as a clerk in 1897. By 1911 he was the manager's assistant and in 1912 he became manager at Barton. He negotiated with its owners APCM to purchase the closed Gillingham plant. Around 1917 he became manager at Harbury until the Gillingham company launched in 1920, whereupon he became its managing director. On its takeover by Rugby, he moved back to Harbury. NP.
William James Watt (b 9/12/1871, Swanscombe, Kent: d 29/9/1958, Chichester, W Sussex) was elder brother of F S Watt. He became a foreman at Swanscombe and was its manager by 1911. He was subsequently manager at Halling Manor 1918-1925, Sundon 1925-1931, Dunstable 1931-1934 and Sundon again 1935-36. Probate £3,959 (£125,000).
Thomas Weekes (b 8/1835, Burham, Kent: d 21/5/1893, Gravesend, Kent) was son of a Medway bargee. In 1851, he was working as a clerk at Tuscany Lime Wharf on the Regents canal, where Blue Lias and Roman cements were handled. With finance from J H Boorman and T M Wild, he set up making Portland cement at Halling. On the death of Wild, he took on his brother William (b 5/1837, Burham, Kent: d 27/9/1915, Toronto, Ontario) as partner and they traded as T & W Weekes & Co. They sold the business to O K Trechmann in 1892. His son, Edward Scales Weekes (3/1860-27/10/1941), was retained as manager until 1911. Probate £6,036 (£1.00m).
James Weston (b 14/12/1807, Southwark, Surrey: d 7/7/1860, St Pancras, Middlesex) started making Roman cement at Millwall around 1837. On his death, the business was taken over by J H Hale and George Cooper, but retained the name Weston & Co. Probate <£5000 (£820,000).
Frederick Anthony White I (b 18/2/1842, Westminster, Middlesex: d 23/11/1933, Kensington, Middlesex). See Whites page. Probate £77,169 (£7.1m).
George Frederick White (b 24/12/1816, Battersea, Surrey: d 11/8/1898, Wimborne, Dorset). See Whites page. Probate £251,045 (£43m).
John Bazley White I (b 7/10/1784, Stepney, Middlesex: d 22/10/1867, Kidbrooke, Kent). See Whites page. Probate <£20,000 (£3.1m).
John Bazley White II (b 23/4/1814, Battersea, Surrey: d 9/3/1893, Newton Abbot, Devon). See Whites page. Probate £19,746 (£3.3m).
John Bazley White III (b 18/4/1848, Clapham, Surrey: d 9/2/1927, Hove, East Sussex). See Whites page. Probate £14,055 (£1.12m).
Leedham White (b 8/7/1838, Westminster, Middlesex: d 26/1/1905, Kensington, Middlesex). See Whites page. Probate £125,997 (£20m).
Tyndale White (b 1849, Newington, Surrey: d 27/11/1927, Ongar, Essex). See Whites page. Probate £239 (£19,100).
Thomas Martyr Wild (b 8/1799, Deal, Kent: d 22/10/1874, Poynton, Cheshire) was a farmer near Maidstone. He partnered with T H Boorman as Boorman, Wild & Co. to operate the oil mill at East Peckham. In 1855, with Thomas Weekes, they set up the first PC plant at Halling. Boorman left the partnership 1865, and the firm carried on as T M Wild & Co until his death. He sold the East Peckham oil mill to the Stewarts, inadvertantly introducing them to the cement industry. Probate <£1,500 (£210,000).
William Joseph Wilders (b 12/1836, Crayford, Kent: d 26/7/1910, Southend, Essex) was the son of a brickmaker who started work as a general labourer at Robins in 1852. In 1859, he married a sister of Henry Macevoy, and in 1868 he got work at the London Portland plant. In 1871, he accommodated the Macevoy family who were driven from their Chantilly home by the Franco-Prussian war. In the mid-1870s he joined a partnership with John Dove Rogerson (b 1844, Hull, ER: d 1917, West Ham, Essex) and Samuel Thistlewood Hunns (b 1839, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire: d 1910, West Ham, Essex) to make boiler cement. He dissolved this in 1879 when Henry Macevoy put up the money for the Britannia plant, and Wilders became its manager. He was the instigator and promoter of the use of Kentish Rag limestone as a cement extender. In 8/1891, he left the plant, leaving his son Edward Francis Wilders (b 4/10/1862, Swanscombe, Kent: d ?) in charge, and formed a partnership with Francis Cary to operate the Shield plant. The parting was amicable and Wilders & Cary was essentially a subsidiary of Macevoy & Holt. He retired on the takeover of the latter by APCM. Probate £7,615 (£1.18m).
Frank Willan (b 8/2/1846, Plymouth, Devon: d 22/3/1931, Burley, Hampshire) was mainly known as an Oxford rower and all-round good-egg, and became rich on that account alone. He became a director and major shareholder in Imperial, and naturally became an ordinary director of APCM in 1900. After 1919 he retired to the life of a country gent. Probate £239,194 (£20m).
Alfred Wimble (b 1838, Maidstone, Kent: d 28/8/1894, Gravesend, Kent) son of a pharmacist, inherited the family business, and with William Laurence set up the Crown plant at Northfleet in 1875. Probate £10,666 (£1.78m).