Talk:Mather & Platt

M&P (Engineering) Limited.

• I've found lots of old photographs from Mather and Platt' process machine division, especially the onion peelers :) I will add some of the better ones to wiki with the hope of using one in this and/or other articles. I've added 1982 to the time-line, which was when Fraberry engineering bought the Process machinery division and formed M&P (Engineering), which is still going strong on Trafford Park. The Asia offshoot of this company still trades under the name Mather & Platt (Asia). I will add citations over the next few days. and I think M&P (engineering) might make a worthwhile article, they hold many patents for filling machinery and still produce the original design Mather & Platt Onion peeler.

Disclaimer

• I have never had any financial connction with Mather and Platt's. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:42, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Direction

Timelines. In my understanding, time lists are subsidary to an article and the main text should be in prose so I am reverting all of todays edits while maintaining the time list intact here so it can be reintroduced at a later stage. Timelines are something else. The article is difficult, as it refers to many different companies on many different sites. The references conflict and many lead back to Boschi. List format is breaking the references further. It is confusing in the least to start mixing information about concurrent companiues and site. I assume that we are following guidelines in Wikipedia:Writing better articles derived from WP:MOS. Featured article BAE Systems forms the model to which we can aspire, but more realistically Avro as a company history.

• The first priority is to get all the information onto WP- hence nothing should be lost, and why I have'nt done a straight revert.
• Copy edit my lousy typing and spag.
• To get the article in a format where it reaches B status ready for GA.

So can we just adopt a parallel approach during stage 1 and get further editor involvement for stage 3. --ClemRutter (talk) 12:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Timeline

• 1794: A map is published, showing the Salford Iron Works, Chapel Street, Salford, owned by Bateman and Sherratt.
• 1817: Peter Mather starts making textile machinery.
• 1829: By now only the Sherratts are active at the Salford Iron Works. John and Thomas Sherratt describe themselves as "brass founders, engine makers and iron founders".
• 1836: The Sherratts called themselves "iron founders, steam engine manufacturers, millwrights and hydraulic press manufacturers".
• 1836: Colin "Cast iron Colin" Mather and his brother started a small business, William & Colin Mather. It serviced the local textile bleaching industry by providing simple well-made rollers and equipment. They described themselves as "Engineers, machine makers and millwrights". They had a premises at 23 Brown Street, Salford.
  • Colin Mather had three sons, none of whom were destined to play a large role in the business.
  • William Mather, who had had little to do with the running of the business, had two sons, and his second son William Mather became the chairman when Colin retired. William Mather and John Platt travelled extensively in the USA and Russia expanding into new markets. Mather was also involved on public life and the advancement of education. He was the Liberal Member of Parliament for Salford in 1885 and later for Gorton.
• 1837: Thomas Sherratt dies.
• 1837: Platt takes over the Salford Iron Works
• 1839: The Salford Iron Works was leased to John Platt a machine-maker from Higher Broughton. Platt and his partner Yates continued Sherratt's business.
• 1845: John Platt leased part of the Salford Iron Works to William and Colin Mather. Mather and John Platt form Mather & Platt in Newton Heath in Manchester (UK)
• 1847: John Platt dies.
• 1851: Mather and Platt exhibit at the Great Exhibition as the Salford Iron Works; they took textile finishing equipment including a eight-colour roller printer for calico.
• 1853: John Platt's son William Platt forms the partnership with the Mathers, forming Mather & Platt. William Platt provide capital, land and casting skills; Colin Mather provided the new engineering solution.
• 1873: Professor Osborne-Reynolds designed a turbine pump that Mather and Platt improved. The centrifugal pump was essential to operating a bleaching kier, hence their interest. Later, it became the core product and it is the Pump division alone that survives in India.
• 1883: Mather & Platt obtain the rights to manufacture Edison’s electric dynamo and, as a result of improvements by Dr. John Hopkinson, the Edison-Hopkinson dynamo was produced. This lead to the formation of a electrical engineering division, the military work on submarine motors, and later involvement in electricity generation.
• 1883: Mather & Platt obtain sole rights outside the USA to manufacture the Grinnel's automatic sprinkler: cotton mills were very vulnerable to fire. These rights expired in the 1970s. The production of sprinkler systems for cotton mills led to the prominent water towers and flat roofs for water storage.
• 1899: Mather & Platt incorporated.
  • The firm was expanding and over the years acquired neighbouring properties such as Drinkwaters Mill and whole streets such as Foundry Street.
• 1894: A agreement was reached to close Union Street and demolish two rows of cottages for the new "erecting shop" which had the splendid name of the Klondyke.. Further expansion was impossible. The need for space was partially caused by the acquisition of three important new products described here.

20th century

• 1900: Mather & Platt erect on the present Park Works site an administration building, two storeys high. That is the start of moving to and developing the Park Works, Newton Heath, SJ873998 53°29′42″N 2°11′35″W site, joining with Dowson, Taylor & Company Limited, to form Mathers Platt Ltd. The site measured 50 acres and was alongside, and with direct access to, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway.
  • The first machine shop was originally the Machinery Annexe of the Paris Exhibition of 1900. Mather & Platt's staff dismantled it and shipped it to Manchester via the Manchester Ship Canal, then re-erected it.
  • The site expanded over the years, eventually incorporating a research laboratory, an iron foundry and a sports ground.
• 1940: Mather & Platt's start manufacturing in India with a factory at Kolkata
• 1959: Mather & Platt's set up a second manufacturing unit set up at Chinchwad, Pune
• 1978: Mather & Platt's changes its share holding pattern to become an Indian company
• 1978: Mather & Platt's was taken over by the Australian-based company Wormald International. The Pump Department was later sold to the Scottish company Weir Pumps, which used the Newton Heath site until Oct 2008. Most of the original buildings have now been demolished but the foundry and main office building have survived

21st century

• 2005: Mather & Platt's becomes part of WILO AG, Germany
• 7 October 2008: The Westley Group (a £40m-turnover business with headquarters in Cradley Heath, West Midlands and employing 500 people on its four sites) buy the old stainless steel foundry at Park Works, Newton Heath from the Weir Group.
  • Westley group directors Rob and James Salisbury have a family connection with the foundry and renamed the site "Mather's Foundry". Their grandfather Jim Musgrave served an apprenticeship at Mather & Platt's from 1932, when he was 14. Mathers specialise in the supply of commercial and high-integrity castings in carbon steels, low alloys steels, CrMo steels, nickel alloys, stainless steels, duplex steels, super nickel and the ZERON® range. They supply bespoke cast products from a few kilos to 10 tonnes in weight to companies supplying the oil and gas, desalination, nuclear (N stamp), paper, rubber, chemical, and power generation industries.

Avro

• 1910: A. V. Roe & Company (Avro) is founded in Manchester by Humphrey and Alliott Verdon Roe.
• 1914: Outbreak of World War I: Avro rented part of the Newton Heath site so they could expand production.
• 1919: A new purpose-built factory for Avro was completed.
  • The Avro Avian designed by Roy Chadwick was built there, and later, parts for the Avro Lancaster bomber. When Avro left the site after World War II the factory was used as a storage depot by the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS). Today the building is used by various businesses for storage.

--ClemRutter (talk) 12:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Reversion

• I changed this matter into a fully timeline format again:
  1. To make it easier to find what happened when :: as before, things were described with the times mixed up and jumping about. I did not remove any information as far as I remember, except duplicate descriptions of the same events.
  2. Due to the amount of contradictory ref sources, I felt that I had to bring all matter about the same events near each other so that date/etc contradictions can be seen easily, until the truth about events can be sorted out.
  • (Please note spelling: "foundry".)
  • Or please discuss. I have incorporated in the timeline format the new matter that you added in these edits. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 15:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have a lot of sympathy with list format- but that is not the Wikipedia way. And it will just not get an article to GA or FA. I can see the point of embedding a list of the main points, so would hate to lose all of it. Often too, I will often start a stub as a list then re-edit it into prose. But here we have a History of W & C Mather, the History of Mather & Platt (partnership), the History of Mather & Platt, (Limited Company) the three divisions, the Indian company, at least three sites critical to Greater Manchester, History. My interest lies with all the Engine and Machinery Makers of the North West and our Textile Heritage I don't wish to spend time in pointless reversions. I can flag it up with the WPGM group for further opinions- and move on to Asa Lees etc. So if you wish to continue in the meantime, I suggest

• you look at the AVRO article or BAESystems to see the direction the article needs to take
• challenge any reference that doesn't stem from Boschi- the Jubilee book is an easier read with verifiable sources, but the Web History does have embedded quotes and between them you can get an idea of the truth- but he does make broad statements that are nonsense confusing the three companies. These untruths have infected article by future writes.
• Using these sources we need content on

• the three Manchester sites, including 1900 to 1938 when they were all operational
• the product ranges of each of the companies
• history of the company splitting
• financial details
• personalities ( I think most of this can be done by dissembling the sources)

• Further suggestions for a viable structure.

On top of that I plead guilty to appalling spelling- my fingers have a memory of their own! --ClemRutter (talk) 17:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Clem's approach here and find the argument that a timeline is more clear than prose to be flawed. For bare facts, maybe, but it was far too long and most of the history books you'll find will use paragraphs rather than bullet points. Nev1 (talk) 19:03, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I too agree with this summary and strongly. I don't think there is a consensus to have a timeline over prose here, which, is aligned to the guidance provided by the Manual of Style anyway. --Jza84 |  Talk  23:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• I find it much easier to search through a history when it is in timeline format rather than in school-derived "best essay format" forcing me to ferret through a mass of "varying the expression" and suchlike. If something is written for information, and not for literary effect, searching through it for information should be easy, and (here) with events in time order. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:13, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is a consensus to have a timeline. It is also discouraged by policy too, I'm afraid. You'd be better seeking a change to convention rather than on an article-by-article basis. I don't think there would be much support though - prose seems to have won preference. --Jza84 |  Talk  22:51, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The history of Mather & Platt Limited The book of the Jubilee 1958

https://sites.google.com/site/thebookofthejubilee1958/

The history of Mather & Platt Limited The book of the Jubilee 1958

https://sites.google.com/site/thebookofthejubilee1958/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.89.90.19 (talk) 13:01, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

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