Gimson and Company
Gimson and Company were founded in 1840 by Josiah and Benjamin Gimson on Welford Road in Leicester. The company were listed as Engineers, Ironfounders, Boiler Makers & General Machinists. They later moved to Vulcan Works, Vulcan Road, Humberstone Road, Leicester.
Expansion
[edit]Between 1876 and 1878 a new works, Vulcan Foundry, was developed beside the Midland Railway mainline. The site covered three and a half acres, the foundry shop was 180 ft by 62 ft. It had a workforce of 350 men and all lifting was done with steam hoists and travelling cranes.
Boot and shoe machinery
[edit]Gimson became a major manufacturer of machinery for the footwear industry. The company sold its subsidiary the Gimson Shoe Machinery Company to the British United Shoe Machinery Company in 1930.[1]
Products
[edit]Stationary steam engines, passenger and goods lifts, boot and shoe machinery, agricultural machinery.
Preserved steam engines
[edit]Woolf compound rotative beam pumping engines;
- Four of 1885 at Claymills Pumping Station, Burton on Trent.[2]
- Four of 1891 at Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester
Single-cylinder condensing rotative beam pumping engines of 1879;
- One at Snibston Discovery Park, Coalville, Leics
- One at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum, Forncett St. Mary, Norfolk
Horizontal single cylinder;
- 12"×24" of 1895 Snibston Discovery Museum
- Engine of 1899 at Hall & Woodhouse., Brewery, Blandford St. Mary, Dorset.
Wall-mounted vertical single cylinder lift engine;
- One at Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester
References
[edit]
- ^ Leicester Evening Mail - 10 May 1930
- ^ Claymills.org, Claymills Pumping Station trust site
- GracesGuide.co.uk
- LE.ac.uk
- InternalFire.com
- Leicester Foundries 1845-1914 pp.63-68 Retrieved 27 April 2014.