Catalogue description N. HINGLEY & SONS, LTD.

The collection contains records of the constitution, financing, management, accounting and production of N. Hingley & Sons, Ltd. and its subsidiaries from 1890 until 1982, with some earlier material.

Records of some Hingley subsidiaries are listed as separate collections within the holdings of Dudley Archives and Local History Service. They are: M & W Grazebrook, Ltd., ref DGR; Harts Hill Iron Company, Ltd., Accession ref 8283; Welin McLachlan Davits, ref Z238; and John Bradley & Co. (Stourbridge) Ltd., ref D6. For Halesowen Brick and Tile Company, Ltd., see Coombs Wood Collieries, Ltd., ref WRI/2/8. For N. Hingley and Sons (Netherton), Ltd., see Netherton Iron Chain, Cable and Anchor Company, Ltd., ref WRI/2/18. For W B Rubery and Company, Ltd. and Richard Sykes and Son, Ltd., see H P Parkes and Company, Ltd, ref WRI/2/20. For Turner's Flanges, Ltd., see B Perkins and Sons, Ltd., ref WRI/2/21 For Welin Mclachlan Davits, see also Samuel Taylor and Sons (Brierley Hill, Ltd., ref WRI/2/24, and the company's separate collection, ref Z238 H H Green and Russell, Ltd. and Walter Somers Ltd. are listed together under WRI/2/30. A themed album of photographs and cuttings extolling the virtues of wrought iron and including pictures from the Old Hill works and John Bagnall & Sons, Ltd, is catalogued with reference Z168. A copy of Kenneth Mallin's PhD thesis 'Noah Hingley: The World's Premier Manufacturer of Ships' Anchors and Cables in the period 1890-1918' (University of Warwick, 1997) is available to view at Dudley Archives and Local History Service. Dealing with the first 30 years of the incorporated company, its scope is narrow, but it is the only known competent account of the history of the firm. It has brief but useful sections on the firm's activities before 1890, and on the main characters involved in its development.

N. Hingley and Sons Ltd, Netherton, Dudley

The records in this collection were accessioned in the following sequence: from Wright-Hingley, Ltd. (accession 8264 in the year 1974) transferred from the Black Country Museum (accession 8495 in 1983) from Triplex Lloyd plc (formerly F H Lloyd & Co) (accessions 8740, 8741 and 8759 in 1988) purchased of Clearaway, Presteign, Powys (accession 8921 in 1992) from The Netherton Experience (accession 8926 in 1993) purchased of Plansearch-UK, Featherstone, Staffordshire (accession 8944 in 1993) from Plansearch-UK, Featherstone, Staffordshire (accession 8952 in 1994) Unless a specific accession number is given for a document, the document will have come from accession 8264. These accessions were catalogued as WRI in 2005 by a cataloguer on the Pay and Power project, funded by The Heritage Lottery Fund. The majority of records in this collection came from accession 8264.

The parent company was incorporated in 1890 in succession to one of the Hingley family partnerships (the other of which subsequently became the Harts Hill Iron Company, Ltd. qv). Other companies were taken over from the early 20th century (some absorbed, others maintained as wholly owned subsidiaries, etc.) and further subsidiaries established. In the post-Second World War era some dormant subsidiaries were revived and renamed as the group took on (albeit incompletely) a holding company-operating subsidiary pattern. Various activities were grouped (eg 'Engineering') and in the 1960s subsidiaries and plants were rationalised. The whole group was absorbed by F.H. Lloyd and Company, Ltd. of Wednesbury in 1966 but the consequent reorganisation of management, subsidiaries and activities was not completed until 1970/71, at which time F.H. Lloyd was reconstructed as a holding company and Hingley's (renamed F.H. Lloyd?) became one of its principal subsidiaries through which various of the old Hingley subsidiaries (and some other businesses?) were controlled. The main body of the records are listed in two groups: those of Hingley's itself and those of distinct subsidiaries within the Hingley group. However, various reports and papers of subsidiaries will be found in the former. Various classes of record run through from the pre-1890 partnership to the limited company. The latter took over from 1 July 1890 and its financial year ran from July-June until the 1940s or later. An element of uncertainty remains regarding the attribution of certain financial, employment and production records. Where there is doubt these have been classified under the parent company.

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