Heenan & Froude

Last updated

Heenan & Froude
Company type Public
Industry Engineering
Founded1881, Newton Heath, Manchester
FounderRichard Hammersley Heenan & Richard Hurrell Froude
Defunct1986
Fate Reverse takeover
Successor St. Modwen Properties
Headquarters,
Number of locations
Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, London, Worcester
Area served
Global
The former Heenan & Froude offices, Worcester, September 2007 Heenan and Froude Engineering Works - geograph.org.uk - 564198.jpg
The former Heenan & Froude offices, Worcester, September 2007
A Heenan & Froude developed water brake dynamometer Hydraulic dynamometer (Rankin Kennedy, Modern Engines, Vol VI).jpg
A Heenan & Froude developed water brake dynamometer

Heenan & Froude was a United Kingdom-based engineering company, founded in 1881 in Newton Heath, Manchester, England, in a partnership formed by engineers Richard Froude and Richard Hammersley Heenan. [1] [2] [3] Expanded on the back of William Froude's patent for inventing the water brake dynamometer, their most famous creation was the 518-foot (158 m)-high Blackpool Tower. [1] [4]

Contents

History

After service on developing the East India Railway (EIR), Hammersley Heenan returned to England and purchased the engineering company and works of Woodhouse and Co. in Newton Heath, Lancashire. In 1881, he went into partnership with former EIR colleague Richard Hurrell Froude, forming Heenan & Froude Ltd. In 1883, after the death of his father William Froude, Richard inherited the rights to his father's patents, including that for the manufacture of the water brake dynamometer. [1]

From its base, the company undertook a number of significant late-Victorian era engineering projects, including supplying and constructing the steelworks for Folkestone Pier (1887) and in the same year supplying a 1,600 feet (490 m) girder bridge to Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado (EFE) the national railway of Chile. [5] The company developed two designs of steerable torpedo, the first to the design of Colonel Lay which were demonstrated to both the Admiralty, and the second to an Australian design. In 1882 Heenan & Froude were appointed structural engineers to the Blackpool Tower, supplying and constructing both the main tower, the electric lighting and the steel front pieces for the aquariums. [5] They were also the architects behind Castlefield viaduct, Manchester, built in 1892. [6] [7]

After purchasing a factory in Birmingham, West Midlands in 1902, the company greatly expanded after incorporating and moving its headquarters to Worcester in 1903. [1] [4] [5] [8] By then a general purpose engineering company, they made: exhaust and mine ventilating fans; colliery and mining plant; belts, conveyors and elevators; sawing machines; bench chains; water dynamometers; spherical, horizontal and vertical engines; patent water boilers; bridge and roof iron work; and refuse destructors. [1] [4]

STD Motors

After World War I, the motorcar company Darracq and Company London (originally French, British owned since 1903) acquired a major stake in the company. [5] After Darracq was merged into STD Motors in 1920 (the merger of the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq motorcar companies), STD also acquired the residual shares in Heenan & Froude. [5]

Heenan Group

After STD Motors went bankrupt in 1935, the business was acquired by investors and renamed Heenan Group Ltd. [1] [8] At that point, it comprised seven engineering companies across five factories, and resultantly listed on the London Stock Exchange. [5] After agreeing a 50/50 joint-venture company in 1938 with Caprotti Ltd to develop and sell steam locomotive valves, [5] the board then began to build the business further through acquisition, including buying Gloucester-based Fielding & Platt in 1939. [1] [9]

Acquisitions

Having become a shadow factory during World War II, supplying precision aircraft parts, [5] post-war the company was chaired by A.P. Good. Through acquisition, he created a railway engineering business division by amalgamating significant parts of the UK's locomotive building industry: [1] [4] [5]

ALE owned the UK rights for the production of poppet valve gears for steam locomotives, including British-Caprotti, and the Lentz Rotary Cam and Oscillating Cam systems. The most important locomotive equipped by the company was the unique BR Standard Class 8 4-6-2 No.71000 Duke of Gloucester. [4]

Good died in 1953, after which the various businesses were sold off piecemeal by his successor James Fielding. [4] After the company supplied dynamometers to Ford UK to test the Ford GT40, Fielding acquired the first UK-supplied and fourth built model of the car. [10]

Redman Heenan Froude

In 1968 Heenan Group was acquired by Redman Engineering, and renamed itself Redman Heenan Froude Ltd. [1] [4] Soon afterwards the company decided to cease its heavy engineering business and concentrate instead on property development and leasing, changing its name again to Redman Heenan International plc. [1] [4] [8] In the late 1980s, the division of Froude Engineering became part of Babcock International. [1]

St. Modwen Properties

In April 1986, Sir Stanley Clarke CBE led the reverse takeover of the company, by backing his Clarke St. Modwen property development business into the virtual shell company that was Redman Heenan International plc. [11] Following completion of the deal, the company was renamed St. Modwen Properties plc. [4] [11] The residual engineering businesses were sold to FKI Group in 1987. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Electric Company</span> British engineering company (1886–1999)

The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Froude</span> British engineer and naval architect

William Froude was an English engineer, hydrodynamicist and naval architect. He was the first to formulate reliable laws for the resistance that water offers to ships and for predicting their stability.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talbot</span> French automotive brand of various corporations

Talbot is a dormant automobile marque introduced in 1902 by British-French company Clément-Talbot. The founders, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and Adolphe Clément-Bayard, reduced their financial interests in their Clément-Talbot business during the First World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dynamometer</span> Machine used to measure force or mechanical power

A dynamometer or "dyno" is a device for simultaneously measuring the torque and rotational speed (RPM) of an engine, motor or other rotating prime mover so that its instantaneous power may be calculated, and usually displayed by the dynamometer itself as kW or bhp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BR Standard Class 8</span> One-off three-cylinder 4-6-2 locomotive

The BR Standard Class 8 was a class of a single 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive designed by Robert Riddles for use by British Railways. Only the prototype was constructed, which was christened Duke of Gloucester. Constructed at Crewe Works in 1954, the Duke, as it is popularly known, was a replacement for the destroyed LMS Princess Royal Class locomotive number 46202 Princess Anne, which was involved in the Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash of 1952.

Brush Traction was a manufacturer and maintainer of railway locomotives in Loughborough, England whose operations have now been merged into the Wabtec company's Doncaster UK operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vulcan Foundry</span> British locomotive manufacturer, 1833–1969

The Vulcan Foundry Limited was an English locomotive builder sited at Newton-le-Willows, Lancashire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunbeam Motor Car Company</span> British automobile manufacturer, 1905–1934

Sunbeam Motor Car Company Limited was a British automobile manufacturer in operation between 1905 and 1934. Its works were at Moorfields in Blakenhall, a suburb of Wolverhampton in Staffordshire, now West Midlands. The Sunbeam name had originally been registered by John Marston in 1888 for his bicycle manufacturing business. Sunbeam motor car manufacture began in 1901. The motor business was sold to a newly incorporated Sunbeam Motor Car Company Limited in 1905 to separate it from Marston's pedal bicycle business; Sunbeam motorcycles were not made until 1912.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caprotti valve gear</span> Type of steam engine valve gear

The Caprotti valve gear is a type of steam engine valve gear invented in the early 1920s by Italian architect and engineer Arturo Caprotti. It uses camshafts and poppet valves rather than the piston valves used in other valve gear. While basing his design on automotive valves, Caprotti made several significant departures from this design to adapt the valves for steam. Having agreed a joint-venture with Worcester-based engineering company Heenan & Froude from 1938, Heenan & Froude fully acquired Caprotti post-World War II in 1947.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wolverton railway works</span> Railway carriage facility in England

Wolverton railway works, known locally as Wolverton Works or just The Works, was established in Wolverton, Buckinghamshire, by the London and Birmingham Railway Company in 1838 at the midpoint of the 112-mile-long (180-kilometre) route from London to Birmingham. The line was developed by Robert Stephenson following the great success of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway line.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastleigh Works</span>

Eastleigh Works is a locomotive, carriage and wagon building and repair facility in the town of Eastleigh, in the county of Hampshire in England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Modwen Properties</span>

St. Modwen Properties Ltd. is a British-based property investment and development business specialising in the regeneration and remediation of brownfield land and urban environments. It is headquartered in Birmingham and has a network of four regional offices across the UK. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by The Blackstone Group in August 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darracq and Company London</span> Anglo-French automotive/aero-engine manufacturer)

STD Motors, formerly Darracq & Company, was a French manufacturer of motor vehicles and aero engines based in Suresnes near Paris. The French enterprise, known at first as A. Darracq et Cie, was founded in 1896 by Alexandre Darracq after he sold his Gladiator Bicycle business. In 1903 Darracq sold the business to A Darracq and Company Limited of England, taking a substantial shareholding himself.

Joseph Booth & Bros was an English company notable for making cranes used in large construction projects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clément-Talbot</span> British motor vehicle manufacturer

Clément-Talbot Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturer with its works in Ladbroke Grove, North Kensington, London, founded in 1903. The new business's capital was arranged by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, shareholders included automobile manufacturer, Adolphe Clément, along with Baron Auguste Lucas and Emile Lamberjack, all of France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stanley Clarke (businessman)</span> British businessman (1933–2004)

Sir Stanley William Clarke, CBE, DL was an English businessman, property developer, horse racing enthusiast, and philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hill, Evans & Co</span>

Hill, Evans & Co Ltd were vinegar manufacturers based in Worcester, England. Founded in 1830 and at one time the world's largest producer of vinegar, the works closed in 1965.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abbey Panels</span>

Abbey Panels Ltd., originally The Abbey Panel & Sheet Metal Co. Ltd., was a Warwickshire-based coachbuilding company founded on Abbey Road, Nuneaton in 1941, initially assembling Supermarine Spitfires for the ongoing war effort. The original partners were Edward Loades, Les Bean, Bill Woodhall and Ernie Wilkinson. As the business grew they expanded to Old Church Road, Coventry before having their main manufacturing plant on the well known Bayton Road Industrial Estate in Exhall. In 1967, Ted Loades listed the business on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and it became known as Loades PLC, with Abbey Panels its main brand, alongside Albany Zinc (castings), Loades Dynamics (machining) and Loades Design . The company specialised in producing handmade prototype car bodies and did so for many notable car companies including: Bristol Cars, Lea Francis, Jaguar Cars, Rover, MG, Healey, Rolls-Royce, Buick, Lincoln, Volvo and BMW amongst others. They fashioned the bodywork of cars such as the Le Mans winning Ford GT40, numerous Jaguars, the original Mark I Land Rover Station Wagon, Jim Clark's Lotus 38 and Stirling Moss's 1957 Pescara Grand Prix winning Vanwall. They also produced many specialist parts for the aerospace industry, particularly for Rolls-Royce plc, such as the Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine duct of the Harrier jump jet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Automobiles Talbot France</span> French automobile manufacturer

Automobiles Talbot France was the French subsidiary of British automotive manufacturer S.T.D. Motors Ltd., established in 1920 after the merger of British automakers A Darracq and Company, Clément-Talbot, and Sunbeam Company. Automobiles Talbot manufactured cars in Suresnes, near Paris.

Robert Edmund Froude CB FRS was an English engineer, hydrodynamicist and naval architect who described momentum theory, both used in the systematic evaluation of propeller design efficiency and as components of blade element momentum theory.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 John Slater. "A Brief History of Heenan and Froude and its associated companies". Worcestershire Record Office. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  2. Heenan-Davies, Karen (2018). "Richard Hammersley Heenan: engineer and industrial magnate" (PDF). Heenan Footprints. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  3. "Richard Hammersley Heenan". 1820settlers.com. Retrieved 2 August 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Heenan & Froude". Miac.com. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Heenan & Froude". GracesGuide.co.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  6. Robson, Steve (30 September 2021). "Stunning plans to turn Castlefield Viaduct into urban park boasting secret garden". Manchester Evening News. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  7. Whelan, Dan (7 March 2022). "Work starts on first phase of £20m Castlefield Viaduct park". Place Northwest. Archived from the original on 7 March 2022. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  8. 1 2 3 4 "About Us". Froude Hoffmann. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
  9. "Fielding and Platt". Grace's Guide. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  10. "UK's first-ever Ford GT40: for sale". Top Gear. 9 January 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  11. 1 2 "St. Modwen - History". St. Modwen Properties. Archived from the original on 30 December 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2013.