W & J Galloway & Sons
Encyclopedia
W & J Galloway and Sons was a British manufacturer of steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

s and boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...

s, based in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, England. The firm was established in 1835 as a partnership of two brothers, William and John Galloway. The partnership expanded to encompass their sons and in 1889 it was restructured as a limited liability company. It ceased trading in 1932.

The Galloway brothers had been apprenticed to another partnership involving their father, a maker of waterwheels and gearing for mills, prior to setting business on their own account. Their firm grew to be a specialist producer of steam engines and industrial boilers with a worldwide customer base and a reputation for ingenuity. Their products were used in such diverse areas as electricity generation and refrigeration. The business grew with the increasing application of steam power in industry, and it died with industry's move to the application of electric power.

Galloway, Bowman and Glasgow

William Galloway was born on 5 March 1768 at Coldstream
Coldstream
Coldstream is a small town in the Borders district of Scotland. It lies on the north bank of the River Tweed in Berwickshire, while Northumberland in England lies to the south bank, with Cornhill-on-Tweed the nearest village...

 in the Scottish Borders
Border Country
Border Country is a novel by Raymond Williams. The book was re-published in December 2005 as one of the first group of titles in the Library of Wales series, having been out of print for several years. Written in English, the novel was first published in 1960.It is set in rural South Wales, close...

, became a millwright
Millwright
A millwright is a craftsman or tradesman engaged with the construction and maintenance of machinery.Early millwrights were specialist carpenters who erected machines used in agriculture, food processing and processing lumber and paper...

 and eventually moved to Manchester in 1790. He was one of many Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...

 who moved to England around this time, seeking to gain from the rapid expansion of industry there; others included William Murdoch
William Murdoch
William Murdoch was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.He was the inventor of the oscillating steam...

 and James Watt
James Watt
James Watt, FRS, FRSE was a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer whose improvements to the Newcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.While working as an instrument maker at the...

, who both settled in Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, and fellow settlers in the Manchester area such as John Kennedy
John Kennedy (manufacturer)
John Kennedy was a Scottish-born textile industrialist in Manchester.John Kennedy was born in 1769 in Knocknalling, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. In 1784 he moved to Chowbent, near Leigh in Lancashire, to be apprenticed to William Cannan, the son of a neighbour of the Kennedys...

, James McConnel and the cotton-spinning brothers, Adam and George Murray.

He set up business at his home address of 37 Lombard Street. In 1806 he formed a partnership in business with a friend and fellow ex-resident of Coldstream, James Bowman: Galloway wrote to him offering a joint business venture in return for a £200 injection of capital
Capital (economics)
In economics, capital, capital goods, or real capital refers to already-produced durable goods used in production of goods or services. The capital goods are not significantly consumed, though they may depreciate in the production process...

. Bowman moved from London, where he had gone to seek his fortune, and took up residence at Trumpet Street, Manchester. It would appear that the partnership with Bowman coincided with a move of premises to the Caledonia Foundry at 44 Great Bridgewater Street, on the corner of Albion Street in the Gaythorn district. At this point the business was trading as millwrights but by 1813 "engineers" had been added to their description, and by 1817 there was a further addition, being that of "ironfounders". The term "engineer" in relation to mechanical work was still a relatively new one.

At around 1820 William Glasgow, a foundryman from the Tweed
River Tweed
The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is long and flows primarily through the Borders region of Great Britain. It rises on Tweedsmuir at Tweed's Well near where the Clyde, draining northwest, and the Annan draining south also rise. "Annan, Tweed and Clyde rise oot the ae hillside" as the Border saying...

 who had been working in Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

 for Rothwell and Hick
Benjamin Hick
Benjamin Hick was a mechanical engineer. He was born at Leeds in 1790 and trained at Fenton, Murray and Wood, the well known makers of steam engines, textile machines and other machinery. In 1810 Hick moved to Bolton as manager of Rothwell's Union Foundry...

, joined Galloway and Bowman as a junior partner. His role was to supervise the new ironfounding section of the business. The works were extended by the purchase of additional land at this time. The partnership manufactured water wheel
Water wheel
A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of free-flowing or falling water into useful forms of power. A water wheel consists of a large wooden or metal wheel, with a number of blades or buckets arranged on the outside rim forming the driving surface...

s, their associated gear
Gear
A gear is a rotating machine part having cut teeth, or cogs, which mesh with another toothed part in order to transmit torque. Two or more gears working in tandem are called a transmission and can produce a mechanical advantage through a gear ratio and thus may be considered a simple machine....

ing, and other machinery associated with all forms of milling. As early as 1820 the men had completed some projects for customers in France (at Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...

) and the United States (Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

).

His son, John, wrote later that

At some time prior to 1828 Galloway and Bowman formed a partnership as machine makers. This was separate and in addition to their partnership with Glasgow, which continued to trade as millwrights, founders and engineers. It has also been speculated that Bowman married a sister of Galloway.

The firm of Galloway, Bowman and Glasgow became the repair facility for the fledgling Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...

, which had no workshops of its own. In 1830–31 the partnership constructed their first steam locomotive, the Manchester and by the following year had produced another, the Caledonian
Caledonian (locomotive)
Caledonian was an early steam locomotive which had a short career on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway .-Design:Caledonian was an 0-4-0 locomotive, with two vertical cylinders mounted in front of the smokebox driving all four wheels by means of connecting rods...

. These had wooden wheels on to which were shrunk welded metal tyres. The wheels were built by John Ashbury, who was later to become a notable engineer in his own right and the owner of the eponymous railway wagon works
Ashbury Railway Carriage and Iron Company Ltd
The Ashbury Carriage and Iron Company Limited was a manufacturer of railway rolling stock founded by John Ashbury in 1837 at Knott Mill in Manchester, England, near the original terminus of the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway...

 at Openshaw
Openshaw
Openshaw is a ward of the city of Manchester, in Greater Manchester, North West England. It lies about two miles east of Manchester city centre. Historically a part of Lancashire, Openshaw was incorporated into the city of Manchester in 1890. Its name derives from the Old English Opinschawe, which...

, Manchester.

Neither locomotive was an initial success, although the design problems were resolved. In the case of the Caledonian the vertical cylinders were placed between the frames in front of the smokebox
Smokebox
A smokebox is one of the major basic parts of a Steam locomotive exhaust system. Smoke and hot gases pass from the firebox through tubes where they pass heat to the surrounding water in the boiler. The smoke then enters the smokebox, and is exhausted to the atmosphere through the chimney .To assist...

 and drove vertically mounted connecting rods attached to the leading wheels, which were also in front of the smokebox. It had a tendency to derail and had to be rebuilt with inside cylinders and a cranked axle. Vertical cylinders were the norm at this time (other builders used them too), the theory being that a horizontal or inclined arrangement would lead to premature wear due to the weight of the piston
Piston
A piston is a component of reciprocating engines, reciprocating pumps, gas compressors and pneumatic cylinders, among other similar mechanisms. It is the moving component that is contained by a cylinder and is made gas-tight by piston rings. In an engine, its purpose is to transfer force from...

. There were four or five locomotives built in total, at a price fixed by the railway company of between £900 and £1000 each. John Galloway junior commented late in life that:

The success to come with stationary steam engine
Stationary steam engine
Stationary steam engines are fixed steam engines used for pumping or driving mills and factories, and for power generation. They are distinct from locomotive engines used on railways, traction engines for heavy steam haulage on roads, steam cars , agricultural engines used for ploughing or...

s was in no small part based on the experiences with the short-lived railway locomotive production: the locomotives had boilers rated for 50 pound per square inches (3.4 bar), compared to the normal stationary engine boiler rating of 5 or at that time. To put this into context, however, John Galloway senior is reported to have said that the challenges of building a locomotive were nothing compared to those of getting it out of the works and on to the railway afterwards. He elaborated that

By this time the partnership were producing a wide range of engineered items, including: wagons and associated parts for collieries and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; machinery for silk mills and for salt works; steam engines for cotton mills; pipes for Benjamin Joule
James Prescott Joule
James Prescott Joule FRS was an English physicist and brewer, born in Salford, Lancashire. Joule studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work . This led to the theory of conservation of energy, which led to the development of the first law of thermodynamics. The...

's Salford Brewery in New Bailey Street, Salford; and also a lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 rolling mill.

William Galloway junior was born in 1796 and on 14 February 1804 his brother, John, was born at his father's Lombard Street address. The brothers were both apprenticed for seven years to their father from the age of 14, William as an ironfounder and John as a millwright and engineer. Bowman's son, William, was similarly apprenticed, as a millwright from 1821. In the last year of his apprenticeship, 1824, John Galloway went to Dunkirk to install engines, boilers and pumps for the French government.

William Galloway senior died on 7 September 1836 and some time between April and December 1838 James Bowman also died. Glasgow had given Bowman six months' notice of his wish to terminate the partnership on 11 April 1838. In 1839 the Galloway brothers bought up some of the stock of the erstwhile partnership which was being disposed of by auction. The Caledonia foundry building itself was subsumed by Central Station
Manchester Central railway station
Manchester Central railway station is a former railway station in Manchester City Centre, England. One of Manchester's main railway terminals between 1880 and 1969, it now houses an exhibition and conference centre named Manchester Central.-History:...

 by the 1890s.

It is possible that William Glasgow was still conducting business as an ironfounder in 1841 from an address at Gloucester Street.

W & J Galloway

The Galloway brothers had stayed working for their father's partnership until in 1835, not long before its demise, they set up business together as W. and J. Galloway. They had been considering such a move since at least 1830, with John saying many years later that "there were too many in partnership already, and conflicting interests began to present themselves".

The brothers built a foundry at Knott Mill, an area around Chester Road in Hulme
Hulme
Hulme is an inner city area and electoral ward of Manchester, England. Located immediately south of Manchester city centre, it is an area with significant industrial heritage....

, Manchester. This was constructed on the site of former premises which had served a similar purpose but had fallen into disuse subsequent to the death of its owner, Alexander Brodie, in 1811. The site was near to William's address as known in 1832, which was 26 Jackson's Lane, Hulme. (The lane was subsequently renamed Great Jackson Street). A key advantage of the site was the adjacent River Medlock
River Medlock
The River Medlock is a river of Greater Manchester in North West England. It rises near Oldham and flows, south and west, for ten miles to join the River Irwell in the extreme southwest of Manchester city centre.-Source:...

, sources of water being vital for iron founding and the operation of steam engines, and it was the erosion caused by this watercourse which required the works to be built on two levels. It has been noted that the Medlock had a greater concentration of steam engines along its length than any other similar river in England and the quality of the water was so poor, due to industrial pollution, that there were in fact immense difficulties with priming
Priming (steam engine)
Priming is a condition in the boiler of a steam engine in which water is carried over into the steam delivery. It may be caused by impurities in the water, which foams up as it boils, or simply too high a water level...

 in steam engine boilers.

Prior to 1840 the firm had manufactured at least two steam engines, the first being for Hayward of Yeovil
Yeovil
Yeovil is a town and civil parish in south Somerset, England. The parish had a population of 27,949 at the 2001 census, although the wider urban area had a population of 42,140...

, Somerset and the second for a mill in Glossop
Glossop
Glossop is a market town within the Borough of High Peak in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the Glossop Brook, a tributary of the River Etherow, about east of the city of Manchester, west of the city of Sheffield. Glossop is situated near Derbyshire's county borders with Cheshire, Greater...

, Derbyshire. In that year they were successfully gaining much work in the manufacture of gas pipes and equipment for gasworks, this being a new and burgeoning industry. From 1842 until June 1847 the brothers were also in partnership, as Galloways & Company, with Joseph Haley, in Manchester and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, as "Manufacturers of Patent Screw or Lifting Jacks, and as Patentees of Machines for cutting, punching and compressing Metals, and of the Rivets and other articles constructed by the said last-mentioned Machines ... [and] as Cotton Banding Manufacturers". In that month the partnership was dissolved, with the Galloways continuing to manufacture the machines and rivets in Manchester and Haley continuing with the rivets in Paris. By 1856 they had six of these machines in their own factory and were manufacturing two tons of rivets per machine per day, the devices being operated by one man and 20 boys. An example of a wooden-bodied Galloway-Haley lifting jack is in Museo del Ferrocarril
Railway Museum (Madrid)
The Museo del Ferrocarril in Madrid, Spain, is one of the largest historic railroad collections in Europe. Located in the Las Delicias Station, just south of Atocha in the barrio of Delicias, it was built in 1880 by Gustave Eiffel....

 (railway museum) in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, Spain. The patents were Haley's; for example, patent number 8768 of 31 December 1840 for an improved lifting jack and compressor.

From 1848 the brothers were taking out numerous patents related to steam power, with John Galloway taking a particular interest in issues that would improve the efficiency of boilers. Prior to that they had registered at least one design to improve efficiency under the Designs Act of 1843. The most significant of the early patents was that of 11 March 1851 (England and Wales) and 14 April 1851 (Scotland) for the Galloway boiler, (UK patent 13532/1851, extended in 1865 for a further five years). They had been building boilers of this type prior to the patent being granted, since at least 1849, and one was exhibited in 1851 at the Great Exhibition before being subsequently purchased by the West Ham Gutta Percha Company. The firm went on to build approximately 9,000 of the type by 1891, as well as licensing the design for manufacture by other parties. Indeed, so much work was created by this aspect of the business that in 1872 premises were obtained on Hyde Road, near Ardwick railway station
Ardwick railway station
Ardwick railway station serves Ardwick in Manchester, England. It is about one mile south of Manchester Piccadilly. It was opened by the Sheffield, Ashton-Under-Lyne and Manchester Railway in 1842.-History:...

, just to handle it, leaving the Knott Mill works to concentrate on the building of engines.

The Lancashire boiler, which formed the basis on which the Galloways developed their 1851 design, had been patented by Sir William Fairbairn and John Hetherington
John Hetherington & Sons
John Hetherington & Sons was a textile machinery manufacturer from Ancoats, Manchester in England. It was founded in 1830. Thecompany gradually expanded and acquired a number of factory buildings in Ancoats. It established the Vulcan Works on Pollard Street in around 1856 and left these buildings...

 in 1844. In 1854 Fairbairn was sent a warning letter by the firm regarding what they believed to be an infringement of their patents. Nine years previously the Galloways had done the same to James Lillie, a former business partner of Fairbairn, with reference to a boiler-related design that they alleged had been registered by them in 1845, although there is no record of any such designs or patents of the type which were registered by the Galloways between 1843 and 1845.

It should be noted that the Galloway boiler was not entirely the work of the brothers as they certainly sought the advice of Robert Armstrong, a consulting engineer, in 1850 and indeed it was he who arranged for the boiler to be exhibited in 1851. Similarly, Sekon notes that at least one Galloway patent relating to boilers was actually originally devised by another person: Timothy Hackworth
Timothy Hackworth
Timothy Hackworth was a steam locomotive engineer who lived in Shildon, County Durham, England and was the first locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.- Youth and early work :...

's 1830 design for the boiler of his locomotive The Globe was later patented by the Galloways for use with stationary steam engines.

Working with Bessemer

From 1855 the firm was also working with Henry Bessemer
Henry Bessemer
Sir Henry Bessemer was an English engineer, inventor, and businessman. Bessemer's name is chiefly known in connection with the Bessemer process for the manufacture of steel.-Anthony Bessemer:...

, inventor of the eponymous process
Bessemer process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly...

, in steel manufacture; he described William Galloway as "my old friend" when writing in 1905. He had been a customer of the firm since 1843 when he had developed a process for refining sugar and employed the Galloways to construct it. The firm and he conducted a series of experiments throughout 1855 on land bought especially for the purpose at the Knott Mill Ironworks. This was while he was trying to prove his method, and Galloways are thought likely to have constructed the equipment that Bessemer then used in his later trials at Baxter House in London, after which he announced the process to the world in August 1856 at Cheltenham
Cheltenham
Cheltenham , also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a large spa town and borough in Gloucestershire, on the edge of the Cotswolds in the South-West region of England. It is the home of the flagship race of British steeplechase horse racing, the Gold Cup, the main event of the Cheltenham Festival held...

. From these events comes the claim, frequently made and including by John Galloway himself, that the first ingots of Bessemer steel in the world were made at the Knott Mill Ironworks. Furthermore, the Galloways were the first to license Bessemer's process, obtaining the rights to operate it in Manchester and for a radius of 10 miles around it before the process was made public. Within a month of his public announcement Bessemer had raised £27,000, granting further licenses to the Dowlais Ironworks
Dowlais Ironworks
The Dowlais Ironworks was a major ironworks and steelworks located at Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales. Founded in the 18th century, it operated until the end of the 20th, at one time in the 19th century being the largest steel producer in the UK...

 in South Wales
South Wales
South Wales is an area of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and Mid Wales and West Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the south-west of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.1 million people and includes the capital city of...

, Govan Iron Works (Glasgow), Butterley Iron Company
Butterley Company
Butterley Engineering was an engineering company based in Ripley, Derbyshire. The company was formed from the Butterley Company which began as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790 and existed until 2009.-Origins:...

 (Derbyshire), and a tin-plate company in Wales.

The Knott Mill works were one of those at which Bessemer set up his experimental "converting vessels" when attempting to prove his process commercially late in 1856. The other test sites were Dowlais, Butterley and Govan. The tests failed to work as intended: it later became clear that this was because the pig iron
Pig iron
Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with a high-carbon fuel such as coke, usually with limestone as a flux. Charcoal and anthracite have also been used as fuel...

 used contained phosphorus
Phosphorus
Phosphorus is the chemical element that has the symbol P and atomic number 15. A multivalent nonmetal of the nitrogen group, phosphorus as a mineral is almost always present in its maximally oxidized state, as inorganic phosphate rocks...

 whereas that with which he had experimented in London did not. The product was "rotten hot and rotten cold", according to his friend, William Clay He refunded the licensees' money and an additional £5,500.

It was a further two years before Bessemer resolved the technical metallurgical problems, at which point the Galloway ironworks were once again his test site. There he trialled the steel he had produced at his London factory, which he granulated and then transported for remelting and conversion into ingots at Sheffield:

When this success was achieved in 1858 the Galloways gave up their licensed rights, which had not been bought back as had those of the other licensees. They went instead into partnership with Bessemer, Robert Longsdon and William Daniel Allen (long-term business partners, and both of them his brothers-in-law) in building and operating his steel works in Sheffield. The business, which was established in 1859, was called Henry Bessemer & Co. and the capital input totalled around £12,000 with Bessemer and Longdon contributing £6,000, Allen contributing £500 and the Galloways £5,000. The partnership agreement was to be operational for 14 years. It initially produced steel at £10 to £15 less per ton than had previously been possible, and later for around £45 less. The Galloways also supplied equipment for its works – including tyre mills for the production of railway wheels – as well as, later, for other works which licenced the process, such as the Weardale Iron Company and John Brown
Firth Brown Steels
Firth Brown Steels was initially formed in 1902, when Sheffield steelmakers John Brown and Company exchanged shares and came to a working agreement with neighbouring company Thomas Firth & Sons...

 of Sheffield. The venture blossomed, although Bessemer himself was to make more money from his licensing deals. He quotes the following profit/(loss) figures for the early years of the factory's trading:
Bessemer's Sheffield factory: profit / (loss) in the early years of trading (£)
1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867
(729) (1,093) 923 1,475 3,685 10.968 11,827 3,949 18,076 28,622


Another involvement was in Bessemer's disastrous attempts to produce a ship with a stabilised passenger area, the SS Bessemer
SS Bessemer
The SS Bessemer was an experimental Victorian cross-Channel passenger paddle steamer with a swinging cabin, a concept devised by the engineer and inventor Sir Henry Bessemer, intended to combat seasickness....

, for which the Galloway firm supplied the hydraulic equipment. The concept had been that a saloon within the vessel would be supported in such a way as not to pitch, roll or yaw as the ship sailed. (The ship's manoeuvrability was poor and, having crashed on its maiden voyage, investors lost confidence and the project was abandoned with the equipment remaining untested.)

The firm also manufactured on behalf of Bessemer the converters for the works of the Pennsylvania Steel Company in the late 1860s. Along with the Bolton
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...

 firm of Hick, Hargreaves, Galloways were the only business allowed to produce equipment for the new process.

Nor might these have been their only involvement: William Galloway owned some land at Runcorn
Runcorn
Runcorn is an industrial town and cargo port within the borough of Halton in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. In 2009, its population was estimated to be 61,500. The town is on the southern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form Runcorn Gap. Directly to the north...

 and there were discussions between him and Bessemer regarding a partnership to erect a blast furnace
Blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...

 there for the purpose of manufacturing "rich manganesian pig-iron", which was required at that time to de-oxidise the molten blown metal. However, the delays in progressing this idea, due to Bessemer's process gaining widespread use, ultimately resulted in Galloway feeling that he was too old to embark on the venture.

The partnership of Henry Bessemer & Co. was formally announced to have ended on 25 June 1877 "by the effluxion of time", although the Sheffield factory continued production with Allen buying out Bessemer's interest in it that year. The dissolution of the partnership involved selling the business, its premises and its equipment. Including the distributions of profits made during its lifespan, each partner had at the date of effective dissolution in 1873 made 81 times the amount of money that they had original subscribed. William Galloway had died in 1873 (his executors being John Galloway junior, John Brown Payne and John Galloway Meller), as had Robert Longsdon, whose executors were also named in the notice of partnership dissolution; Bessemer had retired from day-to-day business in the same year. A person with the last name of Meller, but not John Galloway Meller, had been an executor to the estate of William Galloway senior.

W & J Galloway & Sons

1856 saw the sons of the firm's founders join the partnership. John Galloway was the son of William, born on 18 July 1826 at Great Jackson Street, Manchester, and Charles John was the son of John, born 25 April 1833. Both had been apprenticed to the firm previously and its name was adjusted to reflect their involvement. Great Jackson Street was very close to the Knott Mill works and Pigot and Slater's General and Classified Directory of Manchester and Salford for 1841 not merely lists William junior living at number 69 but also John at number 55 and a Mrs Mary Galloway at 67. It also shows various members of the Glasgow family, including William at 34 Great Bridgewater Street and John at 53 Great Jackson Street.

Despite this expansion of the partnership a deed registered in the Court of Bankruptcy in July 1864 only names William and John Galloway, who were to receive a payment of 6s. 8d. in the pound from Thomas Redhead of Belvoir Terrace, Old Chester Road, Tranmere
Tranmere, Merseyside
Tranmere is a suburb of Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula, England. Administratively, it is also a ward of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral. Before local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974, it was part of the County Borough of Birkenhead, within the geographical county of Cheshire...

, the proprietor of a steam tug. A later petition for the winding-up of the Globe New Patent Iron and Steel Co, Ltd. in 1875 shows that by that date the partnership comprised John Galloway snr, John Galloway Jnr, Charles John Galloway and Edward Napier Galloway. Edward was another son of John senior, who had married a Miss Lewis in 1827 and went on to have four sons and a daughter.

During the 1850s and 1860s the firm generated many overseas sales. These were to countries such as Turkey, India and Russia, and for items as diverse as gunpowder mills, boilers, presses, and steam engines for use in a wide variety of applications. The firm also supplied cast iron columns for buildings, constructed the pier at Southport
Southport Pier
Southport Pier is a Grade II listed structure in Southport, Merseyside, England. At 1,216 yards it is the second longest in Great Britain after Southend Pier...

 (and then extended it, for which their tender was £3,000) and, between 1855 and 1857, a 1535 feet (467.9 m) railway viaduct over the River Leven close to Ulverston
Ulverston
Ulverston is a market town and civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria in north-west England. Historically part of Lancashire, the town is located in the Furness area, close to the Lake District, and just north of Morecambe Bay....

. The pier and the bridge both employed a new construction method, devised by John Galloway, using pressurised water jets to create the holes into which the piles were later driven.

Galloways were among the well-known promoters of a new business, The Lancashire Steel Company Ltd., in 1863. The intention was that this new company would develop a 10 acre site at Gorton
Gorton
Gorton is an area of the city of Manchester, in North West England. It is located to the southeast of Manchester city centre. Neighbouring areas include Longsight and Levenshulme....

 with buildings, blast furnaces and all the necessaries of steel production by the Bessemer process, in order initially to produce 200 tons a week of steel in blocks weighing up to 10 tons each. The site was adjacent to the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway
The Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway was formed by amalgamation in 1847. The MS&LR changed its name to the Great Central Railway in 1897 in anticipation of the opening in 1899 of its London Extension.-Origin:...

, for ease of transport. It was planned eventually to produce 20 ton blocks and to equip with the most powerful of tooling such that the company could supply the maritime market. Capitalisation was to be £150,000. In fact, the venture was a failure and it was wound-up
Liquidation
In law, liquidation is the process by which a company is brought to an end, and the assets and property of the company redistributed. Liquidation is also sometimes referred to as winding-up or dissolution, although dissolution technically refers to the last stage of liquidation...

 in 1867.

Around 1873 the firm supplied two blowing engine
Blowing engine
A blowing engine is a large stationary steam engine directly coupled to air pumping cylinders. They deliver a very large quantity of air at a pressure lower than an air compressor, but greater than a centrifugal fan....

s to the huge Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...

 steelworks at Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It was also in this decade that the company began to install flat belt drive systems
Line shaft
A line shaft is a power transmission system used extensively during the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the widespread use of electric motors small enough to be connected directly to each piece of machinery, line shafting was used to distribute power from a large central power source to machinery...

 for the transfer of power from their stationary steam engines to the looms and similar machinery which they were intended to service. This technique was common in the US but rare in Britain until this time: the advantages included less noise and less wasted energy in the friction losses inherent in the previously common drive shafts and their associated gearing. Also, maintenance was simpler and cheaper, and it was a more convenient method for the arrangement of power drives such that if one part were to fail then it would not cause loss of power to all sections of a factory or mill. These systems were in turn superseded in popularity by rope drive methods.

Charles John Galloway had a particular interest in exhibitions. The firm displayed two 40 horsepower Galloway boilers at the 1873 Vienna Universal Exhibition, as well as a 35 horsepower compound engine. In 1876 the firm was gazetted for an award for Services to the American Executive in Machinery Department at the Philadelphia International Exhibition, and he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour after the Paris Exhibition of 1878, raised to the rank of Officer after the similarly titled event of 1889. He was also very active in the organisation of the Royal Manchester Jubilee Exhibition of 1887. John Galloway junior was chairman of the organising committee for the latter event. Some years later, in 1894, Galloways won the Grand Prix in the Motive & Machines section of the Antwerp International Exhibition
Exposition Internationale d'Anvers (1894)
Exposition Internationale d'Anvers was a World's Fair held in Antwerp, Belgium between 5 May and 5 November in 1894.It covered , attracted 3 million visits and made a profit-Participating Nations:There were several participating nations:Germany,Austria,...

.

Charles John did not limit his activities to that of the family firm and was chairman of Boiler Insurance and Steam Power Co. Ltd. in September 1880, when an extraordinary general meeting held in King Street, Manchester resolved to liquidate the company and sell its business and assets. He was also a director of the Manchester Ship Canal Company and had been a director of the Steam Boiler Assurance Co. Ltd.

Galloways Ltd.

The partnership was converted into a private company, Galloways Ltd., in 1889, with a share capital of £250,000 in £100 shares. The initial subscribers, who each took one share, were John Galloway, John Galloway junior, Charles John Galloway, Edward Napier Galloway, Arthur Walter Galloway, John Henry Beckwith, W E Norbury and C Rought – all but the last giving their address as the Knott Mill Ironworks. Beckwith, MIMechE
Institution of Mechanical Engineers
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is the British engineering society based in central London, representing mechanical engineering. It is licensed by the Engineering Council UK to assess candidates for inclusion on ECUK's Register of professional Engineers...

, had been a frequent co-applicant with Charles John Galloway in applications for patents and provisional protection thereof: he had joined the company aged in his early 20s in 1864 as a draughtsman and, after a brief interlude working for another business in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, returned in 1867; by 1877 he was chief design engineer and he became managing director with the conversion to limited company status; he resigned as managing director in 1897 but kept his seat on the board of directors until his death one year later.

John Galloway junior had been increasingly involved in the management of the partnership for many years as it grew rapidly but the restructuring of the partnership as a company saw Charles John Galloway installed as chairman and managing director. John Galloway junior had by this time numerous other business interests, as well as being a JP
Justice of the Peace
A justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...

 (as indeed was Charles) and having a great interest in philanthropy. His business interests included being chairman of Earle's Shipbuilding and Engineering Company
Earle's Shipbuilding
Earle's Shipbuilding was an engineering company that was based in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England from 1845 to 1932.-Earle Brothers:...

 at Hull, and a director of Carnforth Hematite Iron Co, (correct spelling, founded 1865) the North of England Trustee, Debenture & Assets Corporation Ltd., Hoyland & Silkstone Colliery Co. and the Blackpool Land Company. Earle's had built the SS Bessemer.

Five years later, on 11 February 1894, John Galloway senior died at the age of almost 90. His estate was valued at £143,117 and by this time there were 500 employees at the Knott Mill site and a further 800 at Ardwick. His last home address was Coldstream House, Old Trafford and his executors were William Lewis Galloway (a sugar refiner, of The Lawn, Brook Lane, Timperley), Edward Napier Galloway (Normanby, Altrincham) and John Galloway Meller (a land agent of Cooper Street, Manchester). An engineer, Edward Galloway was appointed a Land Tax Commissioner in 1899; he died on 5 October 1919 when living at Hill Rise, Leicester Road, Altrincham. The children of John Galloway established a charitable fund in memory of him and his wife, Emma, in 1895. This survived under the name of the John and Emma Galloway Memorial until October 1991, when it was amalgamated.

John Galloway junior died on 16 December 1896 at his home, The Cottage, Seymour Grove, Manchester. He left one son, William Johnson Galloway, born in 1868, who was also involved with the family firm and was at the time of his father's death the Conservative MP for Manchester South-west (his father, although keeping a low profile, was of Liberal persuasion and a member of the United Presbyterian Church). Both of these men were interred at Weaste Cemetery, Salford
City of Salford
The City of Salford is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It is named after its largest settlement, Salford, but covers a far larger area which includes the towns of Eccles, Swinton-Pendlebury, Walkden and Irlam which apart from Irlam each have a population of over...

.

There was a capital restructuring in 1895, and in 1899 the business became a public limited company. Somewhere between these two dates the chairmanship appears to have moved from Charles John Galloway to Edward Napier Galloway, according to the announcements of these events in The London Gazette. However, The Engineer
The Engineer (magazine)
The Engineer is a London-based fortnightly magazine covering the latest developments and business news in engineering and technology in the UK and internationally...

reported Charles John as chairman at the company's annual general meeting in 1901 and also noted that Sir Richard Mottram was a director. Mottram was Mayor of Salford between 1894 and 1898; he held other directorships with Manchester Liners Ltd
Manchester Liners
Manchester Liners was a cargo and passenger shipping company, founded in 1898, based in Manchester, England. The line pioneered the regular passage of ocean-going vessels along the Manchester Ship Canal. Its main sphere of operation was the transatlantic shipping trade, but the company also...

 (or perhaps Manchester Linen Ltd) and Chillan Mills Co Ltd.

The 1901 meeting authorised a dividend payment of 6% and also the issue of 2,746 shares at £10 each in order to aid investment in plant and extended premises for the purpose of manufacturing "high-speed engines". This issue of shares amounted to 20% of the then issued capital, and they were taken up by existing shareholders. In the same year the company did indeed extend its Knott Mill factory considerably, at which time a visitor noted in particular the work in progress on "several exceptionally large engines for iron and steel works" (one had a 45 ton, 24 foot diameter flywheel and a total weight of 230 tons) and also a wood treatment plant for the Northern Wood Haskinising Company (haskinising was a wood preservation technique). There were also reports at this time that the company had licensed and was developing Pictet
Raoul Pictet
Raoul-Pierre Pictet was a Swiss physicist and the first person to liquefy nitrogen. He was born in Geneva and served as professor in the university of that city...

's discovery of an improved method for the production of oxygen gas, although there were also suggestions that this may have been as part of a syndicate involving other Manchester businesses. The plan was for Pictet to experiment further at the Galloway works and if the outcome was successful then a new company would be formed.

The 1902 annual general meeting confirmed that the expansion was complete, voted a similar dividend and re-elected William Johnson Galloway and Charles Rought as directors; it also noted that an order for a blowing machine from Carnforth Hematite was being processed.

Charles John Galloway died on 14 March 1904. His address at the time of death was Thorneyholme, Knutsford
Knutsford
Knutsford is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority area of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, in North West England...

 and his executors were Arthur Walter Galloway, Henry Bessemer Galloway and William Sharp Galloway, being his sons. He was interred at Mobberley
Mobberley
Mobberley is a semi-rural village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, situated between Wilmslow and Knutsford. Mobberley railway station lies on the Manchester to Northwich and Chester line and was opened on 12 May, 1862 by the Cheshire...

 Church.

The Galloway boiler was still being improved around this time. In 1902 the company introduced a superheater
Superheater
A superheater is a device used to convert saturated steam or wet steam into dry steam used for power generation or processes. There are three types of superheaters namely: radiant, convection, and separately fired...

 and in 1910 began to use another design of the same.

The company was involved in a significant court case in 1912, which went to the highest court of the land and was subsequently cited in other cases, including in the United States. In 1902 a Mr Noden, employed as a riveter, had an accident at work which resulted in the amputation of a finger. He resumed work at the company in 1903 as a caulker, which involved using a light hammer, but in 1910 was instructed to use a heavy pneumatic hammer. The vibration from this heavier hammer caused his hand to become inflamed and he sought compensation, based on his injury of 1902. A lower court awarded him this compensation but the judgment was overturned on appeal by the Law Lords, who directed that there was no evidence that the 1902 accident was a contributory cause of his injury of 1910 and that, in any event, the latter incident was not actually an accident at all and therefore there was no entitlement to compensation under the terms of the 1897 Workmen's Compensation Act.

There had been a previous judgement of some legal significance in 1900, being the matter of Statham vs Galloways Ltd. In this instance an employee had obeyed the order of a superior and as a consequence of doing so had suffered injury. The ruling was that the injured employee had stepped outside the Workmen's Compensation Act by doing something which he knew to be outside the scope of his duties but, nonetheless, obedience was also a duty and that obedience took precedence.

The company was placed in receivership on the application of its debenture holders in 1912, despite the business being "much more promising than for some time past". The cause of this was a proposal to issue prior lien debentures to the value of £50,000, a move which would dilute the position of existing debenture holders. It was reported that the company might be restructured in order to resolve this issue.
There was a restructuring of the company on 27 July 1925, a scheme of arrangement being made with shareholders and debenture holders such that the capital was reduced from £330,000 to £198,192. The following year saw the company take on the drawings and patterns of John Musgrave & Sons
John Musgrave & Sons
John Musgrave & Sons was a company that manufactured stationary steam engines. It was based at The Globe Ironworks, Bolton, Greater Manchester in England...

 following the closure of that business.

It has been calculated that the number of engineering firms in Manchester more than halved between 1899 and 1939, with the inter-war recession causing particularly severe contraction in the manufacturing spheres of textile machinery, locomotive engineering and boilermaking. The businesses most likely to survive were those that did not rely extensively on exports, on the production of capital goods and on time-served skilled labour – "the newer, more capital-intensive, mass-production, domestic market-oriented engineering firms, employing a large proportion of semi-skilled labour fared better and dominated the industry by 1939."
The company went into receivership in 1932 and in 1933, Hick, Hargreaves & Co. purchased the complete records, drawings and patterns of the defunct W & J Galloway Limited.

Galloway boiler and Galloway tubes

In 1848, Galloways patented the Galloway tube, a tapered thermic syphon
Thermic syphon
Thermic siphons are heat-exchanging elements in the firebox or combustion chamber of some steam boiler and steam locomotive designs. As they are directly exposed to the radiant heat of combustion, they have a high evaporative capacity relative to their size...

 water-tube inserted in the furnace of a Lancashire boiler. The tubes are tapered, simply to make their installation through the flue easier.

These were followed in 1851 by the Galloway boiler. The flues beyond the two furnaces of the Lancashire boiler were merged together into a single wide flue. This widened and flat-topped flue was stayed by the use of many conical vertical Galloway tubes being riveted into it, improving the circulation of water and increasing the heating surface.

Patent applications involving family


See also

  • Manchester Hydraulic Power
    Manchester Hydraulic Power
    Manchester's Hydraulic Power system was a public hydraulic power network supplying energy across the city of Manchester via a system of high-pressure water pipes from three pumping stations from 1894 until 1972...

    , an example of Galloways' steam-powered hydraulics work
  • William Johnson Galloway
    William Johnson Galloway
    William Johnson Galloway was a British businessman and Conservative politician.Galloway was born on 5 October 1868 at Sale, Cheshire and was the only son of John Galloway, JP. He was educated at Wellington College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge...

     (1868–1931), only son of John Galloway junior, was recorded as a director of the company at various dates from 1892 to 1905. His directorship may have extended before and after these years.


External links

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