Catalogue description WOODHOUSE AND CO., BRASS FOUNDERS OF HEXTHORPE, DONCASTER

This collection includes cash books, a catalogue, accounts, trade cards, photographs, presentation plates and published works.

Woodhouse and Co, brass founders of Hexthorpe, Doncaster

Acc.265

The records were deposited in 1976

This catalogue was prepared in 1986.

• Manufacturing industry

This firm of plumbers' brassfounders moved to Doncaster from Rotherham in 1873, according to F. Birchall A Short History of the Plumbers Brassfounders' Industry in Rotherham and Doncaster (1946), when it was a partnership between a Mr. Wannop and Thomas Woodhouse. Woodhouse's son, Charles Henry, had entered the firm by the time its records begin in 1878. A second partner in the firm by that date was Thomas Osborne and by July 1883, a third partner George William Thirwell, had been taken in. The firm then traded as Woodhouse, Osborne and Co., with Woodhouse as works manager and his partners as travelling salesmen. By September 1887, the firm had opened sales premises in Nottingham and by 1906 had premises at Leicester also. In 1890, the partnership was dissolved and the firm was renamed as Woodhouse and Co. It became a joint stock company with a nominal capital of £60,000 in 1901. Of the £25,000 capital subscribed, in 1906, £20,000 was owned by C.H. Woodhouse. The firm was involved in a major dispute with its workforce in 1898-1899, which is covered by a volume of cuttings from local newspapers (see item DY/WO/10).

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