The Patent Shaft Company

The business of the Patent Shaft Company was begun in 1835, its originators being a local Baptist minister the Reverend James Hardy who invented the faggoted axle of forged iron - the patent shaft and axle tree. The idea it is said having occurred to him after noticing the divisions of an orange when it is cut transversely - and the local grocer who provided the necessary funds. It was not until a few years later when it passed into more capable hands that the business prospered but the invention was an exceedingly valuable one and was applied to the fullest extent in the manufacture of axles for railway rolling stock. The company grew rapidly in size and importance and in 1867 acquired the adjoining, and to some extent competing works of Messrs Lloyd's, Fosters and Company (known as the "Quaker" works) owning blast furnaces, rolling mills, wheel shops, bridge and girder shops and collieries and which had itself been in business in Wednesbury since 1818.

It was at the Quaker works that some of the earliest experiments in the production of Bessemer steel were carried out and later in 1882, in the Patent Shaft Company's works the Gilchrist basic process of steel manufacture was first tried, and representatives of Mr Andrew Carnegie's firm first saw there, experiments in the basic open hearth process.

C G Wallace June1945