Spittlegate Iron Works

      These works, established in 1815 by Mr. Richard Hornsby, now cover some 16 acres adjoining the main line of the Great Northern Railway, from which sidings are carried into every part for convenience of receiving material at the point where it is to be used, and of loading finished goods under cover in the forwarding department. The works employ on an average about 1450 hands, including officials and clerks.

      About two-thirds of their area are devoted to various engineering departments, and the large shops recently erected are completely fitted with all modern appliances. The boiler shop is 212 x 100 feet, and contains a 15-ton overhead traveling crane, complete hydraulic plant, hydraulic flanging press, and full equipment of planing, drilling, punching, shearing, screwing, bending, tapping, and boiler-plate cutting machines. The engine erecting shop is 282½ x 50 feet, and has a similar overhead crane, in addition to fourteen swing jib-cranes. These two shops are lit by the Brush system of electric lighting. The turneries throughout the works cover an area of 3,390 square yards, and contain upwards of two hundred lathes of various kinds, milling, drilling, planing, shaping, slotting machines, &c. The prominent manufactures are various kinds of steam engines, namely portable, semi-portable, road locomotives, tramway or rail locomotives, horizontal stationary, vertical, compound stationary, compound portable, and horizontal winding engines; Lancashire, Cornish, vertical, locomotive, multi-tubular, and other boilers; saw benches.

      The remaining one-third of the works is employed in the manufacture of specialities in agricultural machinery, including the sheaf-binding harvester which succeeded in winning the first prize in the trials of the Royal Agricultural Society at Shrewsbury last year; also grass mowers, reapers, ploughs, thrashing machinery, turnip cutters, root pulpers, and specialties for home use as well as for the different colonies and other countries.

Information Sources

• Farmer’s Magazine Jul 1875 pages 34-39
• American Gasoline Engines Since 1872 by C. H. Wendel, Volume #2, 2006 pages 390-391
• More history and machine information can be found at Grace’s Guide.
• Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1885, pgs.447-448, courtesy of Grace’s Guide.