A selection of images relating to the Dowlais Ironworks, Cardiff, taken from the 'Album of Manufactures - Sections I to XI - Head, Wrightson & Co. Ltd., Engineers' - 1903 Edition. [1315] [499]

MESSRS. HEAD, WRIGHTSON & Co., LIMITED, the well-known proprietors of this establishment, are probably the most extensive Bridge Builders and makers of general engineering construction work in Great Britain. Other concerns are famed the world over for Shipbuilding, Marine Engineering, the Manufacture of Steel or Iron, and so on, but for the class of work for which they are specially laid out, no other firm in England, and perhaps only two or three others anywhere else, can vie with them.

HISTORY AND PERSONNEL OF THE FIRM. This important concern has grown from small beginnings, like many other of the now famous industrial establishments of the country. Its origin dates back to about the year 1840, when a small foundry was commenced by Mr. Skinner. That was at a period when South Stockton (now known as Thornaby-on-Tees) had just commenced its existence, the plans for a town on the Yorkshire side of the Tees having been laid out only two years previously. After various vicissitudes, the foundry passed into the hands of Messrs. Head and Wright, then to Head, Ashby and Co., and eventually - in the '60's - to Messrs. Head and Wrightson.