Drury Brothers & Walker, The Don Tool Works, Mowbray Street

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Drury Brothers & Walker, self-acting tool makers and machinists, The Don Tool Works, Mowbray Street. 

Engineering Tools, & etc. 

By many persons, Manchester and Leeds are thought to be the only places where the manufacture of machinery and engineers' tools is carried on to any great extent and until the last few years this was the case. Latterly, however, in its rapid extension, Sheffield has taken up this branch of industry and promises to be a formidable rival to the places mentioned, there being already a large and increasing demand for the productions of Sheffield in these departments. In former times any one would have taken the word "tool" to apply entirely to an instrument which could be worked with the hand but with the wonderful growth of machinery, this definition of the term has become obsolete. The tool now to a large extent takes the place of the workman and may be of any size, weight or degree of intricacy. To follow out the construction and uses of these complicated implements is a very interesting task.

One of the manufactures in which this may be fully done is the Don Tool Works, Mowbray Street, belonging to Messrs. Drury Brothers and Walker. The great number of lathes and fixed machinery at work, moving in various directions and the network of bands crossing on every hand, are quite bewildering to the eye on first entering the workshops. We have endeavoured to give an a idea of the whole by illustration of part of the Works.

The forging shops and smithies are on the opposite side of the premises. Almost everything is done by self acting machinery. Thus in the manufacture of a lathe the bed is planed perfectly true and smooth on a planing-machine. The screw for it is cut in a screw-cutting lathe. The heads are bored true by a machine made for the purpose. All the holes are bored by drilling machines. The wheels and pulleys are turned in lathes. The key-gates are cut out by a slotting machine and other parts of it squared by shaping machines. 

All these tools are manufactured by Messrs. Drury Brothers and Walker, together with many others, including punching and shearing machines, which cut iron and steel of an enormous thickness as though it were lead; cutting and grooving machines, bolt screwing machines, circular saw tables, upright saw frames & etc. 

The other branch of trade carried on at these works is also a very important one. It includes all kinds of lifting- jacks for raising weights from 1 ton to 20 tons with ease, screwing tackle for cutting screws in iron, ratchet-braces for boring holes in iron, vices, cramps, flys, Hammers, spanners, & etc. 

Amongst the other large firms in the same line, we may mention Messrs. Easterbrook and Allcard and Messrs. Brooks. 

Advertisement, engraving and text from Illustrated Guide to Sheffield, Pawson and Brailsford first published 1862.

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Sheffield Flood Claim:

Robert Francis Drury, Ensor Drury and Joel Eaton Walker engineers and machine makers trading as Copartners under the style or firm Drury Brothers and Walker, Don Tools Works, Mowbray Street. 

https://sheffieldfloodclaimsarchive.shu.ac.uk/claimSummary.cfm?claim=7-5728

(Click on weblink then claim particulars) 

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Whites Directory 1862

Drury Brothers, machinists, engineers, smiths, and lathe and tool mnfrs., Don Tool Works, Mowbray Street. 

Drury, Ensor, tool mnfr. &etc., (Drury Brothers) h. East View, Broomhill. 

Drury, Robert Francis, tool mnfr &etc., (Drury Brothers) h. Upperthorpe Cottage. 

 

Joel Eaton Walker who was in partnership with the Drury Brothers at the time of the Flood, recorded in 1862 Directory:

Walker, Joel Eaton, patent sewing machine mnfr., (Hewett, Allott & Walker) h. Sunny side, Broomhill. 

 

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Don_Tool_Works

 

Advertisement Whites Directory 1879.

Whites Directory 1879. 

Drury Brothers, coach builders, wheelwrights and blacksmiths, 25, 27 & 29, Stevenson Road, Attercliffe.  

Drury, Ensor, hardware merchant and agent for Yorkshire Insurance Co., 2 Yorkshire Chambers, 2 1/2 Change Alley, h. Brook Croft, 2 Queens Road. 

Drury, Robert Francis, sworn confidential patent agent and registrar for designs and trade marks (Sheffield District Patent Office) tool mnfr and valuer, 2 1/2 George Street, Westcliffe 5 Whitham Road, Broomhill

 

1879, are both Ensor and Robert still involved with Drury Brothers? What happened to the partnership with Joel Eaton Walker?