What's new
What's new

Oldest British foundry closes soon. Made the Liberty bell and Big Ben's bell

Spud

Diamond
Joined
Jan 12, 2006
Location
Brookfield, Wisconsin
Oldest British foundry closes soon. Made the Liberty bell and Big Ben

Oldest British manufacturer and foundry. Whitechapel Foundry cast Big Ben & Liberty bell

Whitechapel Bell Foundry - Wikipedia

Whitechapel Bell Foundry to ring in new era as owner sells site | Business | The Guardian

Bell tolls for world's oldest foundry - which made Big Ben and the Liberty Bell - despite attempts to keep business afloat with Downton effect
Listed in the Guinness World Records as the oldest manufacturing firm in Britain, the company was formed in 1570 in the reign of Elizabeth I.

Wonder why they never diversified/branched into casting other industrial products. The pics and storefront make it look like a small niche/boutique family business.
 
Last edited:
Oldest British manufacturer and foundry. Whitechapel Foundry cast the bell used in Big Ben

Whitechapel Bell Foundry - Wikipedia

Whitechapel Bell Foundry to ring in new era as owner sells site | Business | The Guardian

Bell tolls for world's oldest foundry - which made Big Ben and the Liberty Bell - despite attempts to keep business afloat with Downton effect


Wonder why they never diversified/branched into casting other industrial products. The pics and storefront make it look like a small niche/boutique family business.

When I read the first link then I think the main reason for selling is the property price in London. They have also diversified over the years. I also can't help but wonder how much time was devoted to training new employees to what must have been skilled work for that type of manufacturing.

The foundry will close in May 2017, after nearly 450 years of bell making and 250 years at its present site. The building is to be sold, and the current owners Alan and Kathryn Hughes are looking to find a buyer for the business which could continue operation at another site.

The business has had to adapt throughout the centuries and in modern times, with new churches being built less frequently, produced handbells, doorbells and even responded to a surge in orders from the USA for table bells following the popularity of the BBC period drama Downton Abbey, with a third of its sales going overseas. In 2013 the foundry launched an online shop selling house bells, musical instruments and other personalised merchandise. The large bell business has been largely unaffected by periods of financial depression partly owing to the fact that from enquiry to completion an order takes on average 11 years. During the second world war the foundry was used as a munitions production line where they made casings for the Ministry of War.


whitechapel foundry london - Google-sogning


Sigh. Sometimes the price for "progress" feels too high.
 
Last edited:
"If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know....."
 
a lot of small foundries closed cause newer pollution control laws. sure air is cleaner but jobs are lost.
.
you just cannot weld a 3 or 4 55 gallon barrels and make a cuploa blast furnace burning coke coal without pollution control equipment any more. induction furnaces are expensive to buy and operate
.
i have even seen a big walk in sand blast cabinet removed cause epa says that sand is contaminated with lead paint, cadmium plating, etc. i am sure even foundry sand contaminated with lead from bronze is considered a problem. lead and zinc and other metal fumes being inhaled by workers is no longer allowed. coal has arsenic, mercury other bad stuff in coal ash
.
really environmental laws cause large price increases which many customers looking for cheaper prices shop from other countries. there is a reason the extremely bad air pollution in Shanghai China clears up after plane gets at least 200 miles away from city. China makes over 50% of world wide steel production and they got the air pollution to prove it
 
From the link:

"However, quality craftsmanship takes time. The average time from enquiry to order is 11 years, and the longest commission in the foundry’s history took 100 years to produce"

Ummm,
Whaaaat??? AVERAGE TIME OF 11 years?
Wow.
 
From the link:

"However, quality craftsmanship takes time. The average time from enquiry to order is 11 years, and the longest commission in the foundry’s history took 100 years to produce"

Ummm,
Whaaaat??? AVERAGE TIME OF 11 years?
Wow.

I am guessing it has to do with a full order book .
 
From the link:

"However, quality craftsmanship takes time. The average time from enquiry to order is 11 years, and the longest commission in the foundry’s history took 100 years to produce"

Ummm,
Whaaaat??? AVERAGE TIME OF 11 years?
Wow.

Maybe that's why they closed--they didn't build inflation costs into their contracts. If they agreed to cast an item for $1,000 in 1916, they should charge $22,176.97 in 2016.

OK, 100 years was just one commission. The average time was 11 years. So if they quoted $1,000 in 2005, they should charge $1,237.73 in 2016.

That was using this US dollar inflation calculator: Inflation Calculator | Find US Dollar's Value from 1913-216

Here's one for the pound: goods costing 1,000 pounds in 1915 cost 9,272.27 pounds in 2015. Looks like the UK has done better with inflation than the US over the long run. But not the short run, here's the 11-year calculation: 1,000 pounds in 2004 cost 1,384.92 in 2015.

Source: Inflation Calculator | Bank of England

If they didn't build inflation into their pricing that might explain things.
 
I'm finding it interesting that most (?) regard it as closing. From the links in the OP I got the impression that it was more a question of changing the location as the present owners want to sell.

I regard it as similar to an airport being built, more and more houses get built closer and closer to the airport and, before you know it, there are complaints about aircraft noise. A foundry isn't the cleanest environment so that could be a logical explanation.

Billund, Denmark - Wikipedia

I live 15 miles from Billund. Legoland was built right next to the first airport. The new airport is 2 miles outside the town.
 
Gordon, you can't see Big Ben from the London Eye - it's inside the Queen Elizabeth tower. Cf post #5.

George

Oh damn LOL You're right but I could see the time and hear it :cheers:

Wonder how many look at the clock and think "Big Ben" knowing that it is in fact the bell that's "Big Ben"?
 
They weren't set up to fullfill customer requests (large bells) fast enough to pay the bills.

FYI the 11 year time span comes about because a chuch here typicaly requests a quote then starts fund raising for the purchase. Hence it does not happen over night!!!

Reason there selling is the property there on is worth multiple times more than there ever going to make selling chunks of shaped metal. Add in the costs of being based in the capital, delivery restrictions, pollution restrictions and above all the cost of workers you can move this place to a out of town industrial unit and make millions of profit instantly! Workers pay can half for the same std of living too!
 
Property prices particularly in London and the southeast is leading to many factories being redeveloped which is pc talk for smashing down and building rabit hutch houses.
In my area the schools and hospitals are overloaded but in the last five years two schools and two hospitals and a park have been flattened to build more houses too many people too soon
 
Owners getting old, offered millions for the site, feel like retiring, no one in the family wants to take over or could afford to buy the site and business? Same old, same old. The UK has let thousands of famous companies fade and die since the war. Apathy, stupid politicians, out-moded thinking. Anyone who saw "The Troubleshooter" with Sir John Harvey Jones will remember the incredible sloth and obtuseness displayed therein.

The pity is that now Asia is rising and wants those brand-name consumer goods that have the cachet of being made in Britain and Europe, but most of British manufacturers are gone or are just names owned by the Germans, French, Indians, etc.

A few years back I visited one of last woolen mills on the Borders; it had been sold to the Koreans a few weeks earlier!

Last one out, turn out the lights! :hole:
 








 
Back
Top