Walker Iron Works of Masbrough and Conisbrough

Walker Iron Works of Masbrough

Samuel and Aaron Walker had originally begun iron manufacture in the early 1740s at Grenoside, near Sheffield, relocating to Masbrough in 1746 along with their brother in law, John Crawshaw.

1753 Map showing Earl of Effingham's Close, Masbrough (half an acre plus garden). On 29 September 1754 Thomas Howard leased to Walker Brothers (Samuel and Aaron Walker of Masbrough, Jonathan Walker and John Crawshaw of Grenoside) for 21 years at £8 per annum plus £2.10s. per annum towards the maintenance of the mill weir, the close, where the Walkers built a water powered forge. (This is where Tesco's car park is now situated) Refer also to Samuel Walker's Diary
Forge Island

By 1757 trade had grown and the works expanded on land about a mile away. In 1770-1 the Walkers built a tilt mill next to the Mill (where Riverside Precinct now is) which was bought in 1780 by the South Yorkshire Navigation Company and leased to the Walkers who used it to power their iron rolling mill

Walker Cannon

A large foundry was erected at the Holmes, in which they made almost all kinds of castings, and by 1757, thanks to a contract obtained by Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquis of Rockingham, large quantities of cannon were being produced for the American War of Independence; mills worked by water wheels, for the turning and boring cannon; forges and mills, not only at the Holmes, but at Thrybergh and Conisbrough.

Burcroft Boring Mill

Joseph Walker was in charge of the Burcroft works at Conisbrough, in 1778 a blacksmith's shop, 2 cottages and a stable were built, the following year a grinding wheel and 2 houses were built, and a 2nd Newcomen engine was installed. The Cannon boring works erected in 1779.

By 1781, three-fifths of metal cast at the Walker's works were supplied to the government.

HMS Victory

About 80 of the 105 guns aboard HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar were cast by the Walker Company of Rotherham. W&Co was on the left trunnion.

There are 12 iron guns on board HMS Victory today with the following marks:
W.Co. - Walker & Company, of Rotheram, Yorkshire. H.Co. - James Henckle & Company, Wandsworth, London ACB. - Alexander Brodie, on the River Severn

Ten of the eleven guns, cast by Walker & Company, are fitted with copper vent bushes, an innovation that was intoduced after Trafalgar. Guns fitted with copper vent bushes are stamped 'CVC' on top of the cascable.

The remaining 12 are 9 x 32 pounders on the lower gun deck, and 3 x 24 pounders on the middle gun deck. It is very unlikely that any of these guns were in the ship at Trafalgar as all were removed in 1806 when the ship was repaired. The existing iron guns were placed on the ship in 1808 when the ship was re-arming for deployment in the Baltic.

Cannon was manufactured at Rotherham until the termination of the Peninsular War in 1815. The Conisbrough foundry closed in 1821.

Gospel Oak Iron Works

Samuel Walker, of Aldwark Hall, grandson of the original Samuel Walker, with his cousin William Yates, purchased the Gospel Oak Iron Works, Tipton and in 1822 removed the models and machinery for making cannon from the Holmes (and possibly Conisbrough which closed in 1821) to Gospel Oak Works in Staffordshire which they had purchased in 1817. In 1848 the works owned by John and Edward Walker, '...the manufacture of iron and tinplates is largely carried on; and adjacent is a foundry in which bridges, immense quantities of cannon, etc, are made. These works together employ 350 persons, and the wrought-iron cannon produced in the establishment have been brought to such perfection as probably to supersede brass cannon, from their possessing more tenacity, when hot, than those of brass, and not being heavier, a great desideratum with artillery-men...' Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848).

Walker cannon are on display overlooking the harbour in Market Square, St. Andrews, Charlotte county, Canada.

In April 2010 six newly-restored cannon went on display at Leeds Royal Armouries Museum including a British cast-iron, 32-pounder SBML Blomefield gun on a cast-iron gun carriage, dated 1810 and made in Rotherham. This was the kind of heavy gun that armed the Royal Navy in Nelson's time, and on this type of carriage, used to defend fortifications.

Iron Bridges

Staines, Railway Bridge 1890. (Neg. 27255) © Copyright The Francis Frith Collection 2008. http://www.francisfrith.com

Reproduced courtesy of The Francis Frith Collection.
The large iron bridges of Sunderland, Yarns, and Staines, as well as the bridge which crosses the Thames, called Southwark Bridge, were cast at these foundries, in which less business is at present done than formerly, partly from the number of similar establishments which have arisen in other parts of the kingdom, but principally, perhaps, from the great wealth of the Walker family having diminished the stimulus to ardent exertion. They commenced a bank in Sheffield and Rotherham, in 1792, which is still continued, and they now tread chiefly in the flowery paths of commerce, which are more compatible with the life of a country ‘squire, than the plodding industry of their great manufacturing progenitor. After peace had been restored to Europe in 1815, and there was no longer any demand for those military and naval stores, such as cannon, mortars, balls, etc., and the Walkers gave up their extensive iron and steel works,except one smelting furnace. Source:White's 1833

Vauxhall Bridge connecting Vauxhall Road, London, with Millbank, was the work of four different engineers, and was finally finished by Walker at the expense of a public company. The bridge is of cast iron, but was originally to be of stone. The first stone was laid in 1811, but owing to the suspension of the works, it was not completed until 1816. The cost of the erection was £300,000, and the tolls did not yield one per cent per annum on that outlay.

Designed by John Rennie, Southwark Bridge was built by a public company at a cost of £800,000. It consists of three cast iron arches, the centre of 240 feet span, and the two side ones of 210 feet each, raised above 40 feet over the highest tides. The piers and abutments are of stone, founded upon timber platforms, resting on piles driven below the bed of the river. The iron work weighs 5700 tons, and was supplied by Walker of Rotherham. From experiments made to ascertain the rate of expansion and contraction, it is shown that the centre arch rises in summer above an inch. The bridge was commenced in 1813, and opened on March 24th 1819, at the stroke of midnight.

In the winter of 1788, a small team of men were building a bridge across the river Don in Rotherham. The fact that before Christmas a stream of distinguished visitors had been to see the construction was an indication that this was no ordinary bridge and its designer was no ordinary engineer.

Leading the project was Thomas PAINE (1737-1809), author of 'Common Sense' and 'The American Crisis', which had been read to Washington's soldiers before the Battle of Trenton[New Jersey] on Christmas Day 1776.

With the backing of Walker's of Rotherham, a company that had a capital value of 200,000 pounds Sterling, it seemed that Paine was on the brink of winning financial success and settling down into a properous retirement.

Within three years, his bridge-building projects were laid aside, with the latest model rusting in a London pub yard, and Paine was back in politics.

In 1774 Paine had sailed to America, where he became editor of a journal in Philadelphia. In 1775 the American War of Independence broke out.

Paine returned to England - looking for "practical Iron men," And the most practical - certainly the best capitalised - was Walker's of Rotherham. By October 1789, Paine was at work on a large- scale model at Masborough. He was to erect a bridge across the River Don near the house of the Local MP, Francis Foljambe. This project never came to completion, but Paine, still with the backing of Walker's, decided to exhibit the bridge in London with a larger project in mind - bridging the Thames itself.

In the summer of 1789 The French Revolution broke out. Bonaparte came to power in 1799. By 1802, Paine was back in America where he was to die seven years later.

Meanwhile, the Walker's grew rich making cannon for the British navy. Eighty of the cannon on Nelson's flagship the - Victory - were made by Walker's. It used to be a regular outing to walk out into the fields and see the test firings of Walker's cannons.