In 1860 the partnership of E. & A. Betts was established by Edward T. Betts and brother Alfred Betts. They manufactured machine tools. In 1878 the partnership was reorganized as the Betts Machine Co. In 1879 they acquired hand-tool maker American Standard Gauge Works of Philadelphia, which was moved to Delaware by the Betts company. The "American Std. Gauge Works" name continued, though some of there tools were marked "B.M. CO." In 1895 they sold the machinist tool portion of the company to the Taylor-Rice Engineering Co.

In 1917 the Betts Machine Co. was acquired by the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., who a couple of years earlier had acquired another local machine shop, the J. Morton Poole Shops. The facilities acquired with those two acquisitions provided the substantial facilities needed by du Pont to produce custom manufacturing machinery for their own factories. The former Betts factory on Maryland Avenue, Wilmington, became du Ponts' "Betts Shops", which in 1923 was renamed to the "Wilmington Shops". These facilities remained active into the 1980s.

Meanwhile, in February 1918 a new Betts Machine Co. was established in Rochester, NY, and that new business "purchased the patterns, patents, good will, etc., formerly possessed by the former Betts Machine Co. of Wilmington. Del." The timing of this new venture was unfortunate as the end of WWI in November of that same year led to a severe depression in the worldwide market for new machine tools. Especially hard hit were lathe sales as such an enormous number of lathes had been manufactured during the war to make shells and other munitions. Many of those lathes were specialized lathes that were quickly scrapped, but many others were functional enough, and cheap enough, to curtail sales of new lathes for several years.

Surprisingly, the new Betts Machine Co. survived its first couple of years of existence. In 1922 they merged with Colburn Machine Tool Co., Hilles & Jones Co., Modern Tool Co. and Newton Machine Tool Works to form the Consolidated Machine Tool Corp. of Rochester, NY.

The Betts family of Wilmington, Delaware, produced three generations of innovative founders and machinists. They played an important role in the founding of three of the city's major manufacturing enterprises: the first incarnation of the Betts Machine Co., as described above; the Harlan & Hollingsworth Co., a builder of railroads cars and an innovator in iron and steel shipbuilding; and the Pusey & Jones Co., a builder of iron ships and machinery.

Information Sources

• History of Delaware : 1609-1888 V II pg 777 L. J. Richards Co. 1888.

  Betts Machine Co.

  A firm doing an extensive business in the manufacture of heavy machinery is the Betts Machine Company, of Maryland Avenue. The house of E. & A. Betts was established in 1860, by Edward T. Betts and his brother, Alfred Betts. It was incorporated under the present title in 1879; the present officers being, president, Alfred Betts; vice-president, William Betts; treasurer, Edward T. Betts. The plant is located on a tract of about seven acres of land, and the buildings are extensive, the foundry having an area of seventy by one hundred and thirty feet, the machine shop four hundred by fifty feet, pattern shop, blacksmith shop and pattern houses one hundred and twenty by forty, besides which are the office building, etc. Steam power is supplied by three large engines. The facilities for shipment from these works are unsurpassed, as the railroad tracks run directly through the yards, and the house possesses about every convenience desirable. The products of the earlier works consist of machine tools and appliances of movements of all kinds, including lathes, planers, drills, slotting machines, turning and boring-machines, car-wheel borers, cutting-off machines, standard gauges, etc., for the manufacture of all of which the company has the highest reputation in the trade.

• 1918-02-21 Iron Age stated that a new Betts Machine Co. of Rochester, N. Y., had purchased the patterns, patents, good will, etc., formerly possessed by the former Betts Machine Co. of Wilmington. Del. Ownership of these patterns passed to M. H. Sherritt and C. H. Stoer of the Sherritt & Stoer Co., machine tool dealer, Philadelphia, PA, a few months previously when the Betts shops in Wilmington were sold to the E. I. duPont de Nemours Co. A. H. Ingle is head of the new Betts Machine Co.

• 1918 Standard corporation service, daily revised - Page 64, Standard Statistics Company.
• Directory of American Toolmakers Early American Industries Association 1999.
• American Lathe Builders: 1810-1910 by Kenneth L. Cope, 2001 page 18.
• The Hagley Museum Wilmington, DE.
• More history and machine information can be found at Tony Griffith's Lathe web site.