Thomas Turton & Sons, Sheaf Works & Spring Works

[Ponytail]

Thos. Turton & Sons, manufacturers of steel, files etc., Sheaf Works & Spring Works. 

Sheaf Works originally built for William Greaves & Sons in the 1820's, occupied by Thomas Turton & Sons 1839.

Messrs. Turton & Sons are large manufacturers of files, saws, edge tools and also of steel railway springs. Their place of business called Sheaf Works is close beneath the ticket platform at the Victoria Station of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway approached from the south or east. The platform is situated right over the chief thoroughfare of Sheaf Works, intersecting it about the centre. The scene looking down from the railway platform is very striking, especially at night. The railway Viaduct is here very high, composed of open-arched masonry. One of the arches completely spans the road, the crown of which is at an elevation of about 30 feet from the base. The next arch on each side is used for a spring makers' shop. 

The works are very large. The canal which runs from Hull intersects them; and this is a great convenience, as the Swedish iron which they use in large quantities is carried from that port direct to the Works and landed there. 

Advertisements and text from Illustrated Guide to Sheffield, Pawson and Brailsford 1862.

 

Advertisement Melville & Co. Directory 1859

s09764  Dated 1858

 

Advertisement Melville & Co. Directory 1859

y03065

 

Railway Viaduct, derelict Sheaf Works & Canal Basin

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;t07271&pos=30&action=zoom&id=94994

Sheaf Works

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s32089&pos=31&action=zoom&id=104661

See more photographs on Picture Sheffield under Thomas Turton & Sons, William Greaves & Sons (former owners) Sheaf Works and Sheaf Quay P. H. (redeveloped as) 

[Ponytail]

Sheaf Works

Includes 1834 Fatal accident to 22 year old Edward Parkin; 1855 Fatal accident to 15 year old Samuel Turner. 

Nasmyth Hammers causing nuisance. In court Mr. Henry Cadman of Chas. Cadman & Sons, Canal Works V Mr. Fred. Thorpe Mappin proprietor of Sheaf Works. 

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

 

[Ponytail]

Robson's Directory 1839. 

Turton, Thomas & Sons, 1 Russell St., file and steel manufacturers. 

 

Whites Directory 1849. 

Turton, Joseph, file saw & etc. mnfr, h. 232 Broomhill. 

Turton, Thomas & Son, steel, file, saw, Railway spring &etc. manfrs, Spring Works, Russell Street and tilter and forgers, Upper Slack. 

Turton, Thos. Burdett. file &etc mnfr., West Lodge, Claremont Place.

 

Whites Directory 1852

Turton, Joseph, merchant & mnfr., (Thos & Son) h. 232 Brook Hill. 

Turton, Thos & Son, merchant and steel, file, saw, railway spring, cutlery &etc. manufacturers, Sheaf Works, Park  & Spring Works, Russell Street  and tilters and forgers, Upper Slack. 

Turton, Thomas Burdett, merchant and manufacturer (Thos & Son) h. West Lodge, Claremont Place. 

Turton, Wilfred Yewell, mnfr &etc (Thos & Son) h. Western Bank

Turton, William, merchant & manfr. (Thos & Son) h. Brixton, Surrey

 

Whites Directory 1856

Turton, Mrs., Joseph, merchant (Thos & Son) h. Wath. 

Turton, Thos & Son, merchants, steel, file, saw, railway spring &etc., manufrs, Sheaf Works, Park, tilter and forgers, Upper Slack

Turton, Thomas Burdett, merchant & manufr (Thos & Son) h. West Lodge, Claremont Place. 

Turton, Wilfred Yewell, (Thos & Son) h. The Elm, Ecclesfield. 

 

Whites Directory 1862

Turton, Thomas Burdett, Esq., h. West Lodge, Claremont Place., Glossop Road

Turton, Thos & Son, merchant and steel, file, saw, railway and coach spring &etc. manfrs, Sheaf Spring Works, Park and Cadman Street, Sussex Street. 

 

Whites Directory 1879. 

Turton, Thomas & Sons, merchts & manfrs steel, file, saw, railway spring, buffers, engineers tools &etc., Sheaf Works, Maltravers Road & Spring Works, Cadman Street, Attercliffe, 90 Cannon Street London EC. 

 

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/c/F164956

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/6494f837-349d-4055-b7df-fdb575916bf5

 

History of the Turton Family. 

https://www.chrishobbs.com/sheffield/thomasturton.htm

 

Advertisement dated 1927

 

[Ponytail]

West Lodge, Claremont Place, off Glossop Road. 

Link to Claremont Place, off Glossop Road

https://www.sheffieldhistory.co.uk/forums/topic/19682-claremont-place-off-glossop-road/

 

[Lysanderix]

Other engineering companies in Sheffield which may, at some time, have been related to said Thos. Turton ….Turton Bros and Matthews, Geo Turton Platts. Would be interesting to see if they were connected.

[Ponytail]

Upper Slack Wheel. 

Thomas Turton & Son are listed as working as tilters & forgers at Upper Slack Wheel in 1849, 1852 & 1856 Directories. 

Situated near the confluence of the Rivers Loxley and Don off Penistone Road. 

1850's Map

https://maps.nls.uk/view/102345217#zoom=6&lat=9462&lon=9814&layers=BT

 

Fairbank Map dated 1783 of Two Lock Lodge Closes with Upper & Nether Slack Wheels. 

The Slack Wheels.

"Early references do not distinguish the two wheels whose construction dates are unknown. A Slack Wheel is mentioned in a rental for neighbouring land in 1581."

Upper Slack

"In the 1794 list this Wheel had a fall of 6ft, with 16 troughs employing 13 hands..... In 1806, William Hoyle of Maltby bought both sites, described as Lock Lodge or Slack Wheels and by 1828 Upper Slack occupied by John Smith had two tilt hammers and probably two water wheels, with a potential of 12 hours work a day for six days a week. 

An advertisement for sale of shares in the freehold in 1834 described the Upper Wheel with a shear-steel forge, three working hammers, two tilts, blowing apparatus and a new grinding wheel. 

Further shares were advertised in 1844 and 1847. The Turtons were later owners of Upper Slack, followed by F.T. Mappin but at the time of the 1864 Flood, John Rollin was the one, claiming for the cost of the tilt standing idle."

"The Slack Wheels were fed from one weir, which survives, it is constructed in bays, of small pitched stones. The North end of the slope is overgrown and an island with trees has formed at the centre. At the south end, the entry to the goit survives, with a low level shuttle whose control is well maintained. Both dams and the tail goit from Nether Slack to the Don have been filled in. Buildings on the site of Upper Slack appear to respect the line of the former dam. The site of Nether Slack has been levelled."

Extracts from Water Power on the Sheffield Rivers, edited by David Crossley, with Jean Cass. Neville Flavell & Colin Turner. Published 1989 (The book contains more information about the Slack Wheels) 

 

Damage at Slacks Tilt (Slack Laithe Tilt) after the 1864 Flood

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;w00450&pos=1&action=zoom&id=45766

 

[Edmund]

22 hours ago, Lysanderix said:

Other engineering companies in Sheffield which may, at some time, have been related to said Thos. Turton ….Turton Bros and Matthews, Geo Turton Platts. Would be interesting to see if they were connected.

From Tweedale's "Steel City: Entrepreneurship, Strategy and Technology":

The Turton family (of Sheaf Works fame) in 1860 began operating a crucibIe furnace in Cross Smithfield. In 1871 the firm of Turton Bros. & Matthews was formed, when the Turton's links through marriage to the Matthews family (one of the town’s most prominent industrial dynasties) led to Thomas Bright Matthews joining the partnership. Already established as steel and filemakers, in the 1880's they began making shear blades and springs. They advertised coil springs by 1876 and in 1879 they transferred their steelmaking activities to Neepsend. In 1882 the firm acquired the web-section railway spring patent of the London engineer I. A. Timmis, and made a great success of producing it in the finest Swedish steel.  Meanwhile, George Turton (d. 1907), who had spent twenty-five years as a traveller for the steel and toolmaking firm of Ibbotson Bros, set up his own business in Savile Street in about 1878 to manufacture his patent railway buffer. In the early 1890's the firm became known as Turton, Platts & Co. Ltd., when the founder took William Platts (d. 1908) as partner.

 

[Lysanderix]

Thank you, Edmund.

[History dude]

What year did it close down?

[Edmund]

Padley and Venables Ltd. bought the Thomas Turton company in October 1999 which lead to the transfer of Crossbow rock drilling tools production to the Padley & Venables site on Callywhite Lane in Dronfield. This was followed in October 2001 with the transfer of the remaining manufacturing facilities and the ceasing of the Coil Spring production division 12 months later. Thomas Turton is now 'a trading style of Padley & Venables Ltd.', but retains its own identity and brand names.

[History dude]

I should have added the Works next to the Canal?  Sorry

[Edmund]

Stephenson, Blake & Co (typefounders and printing equipment makers) bought Turtons in 1920 and operated it as a wholly owned subsidiary.  In 1967 due to high business rates in Sheffield, the main board put in place a plan to buy a 12 acre site at Sheepbridge, Chesterfield, and relocated Turtons into a new factory there. Production was moved out of the Sheaf Works site in several phases commencing with Coil and Spring division in 1968. The Contractors' Tools division were still advertising their address as "Sheaf Works, Sheffield S4 7YL" in June 1987.