Frederick Braby & Company (Limited)

FREDERICK BRABY & Co. (Limited), Eclipse Iron Works, Petershill Road ; and 47 to 51, St. Enoch Square, Glasgow.

    Distinctly prominent among the many industrial institutions whose vigorous and ever-continuing development have contributed so much to the building up of Glasgow’s industrial celebrity the firm of Messrs. Frederick Braby & Company (Limited), of Eclipse Iron and Galvanizing Works, well deserve to be ranked. The busy industry of this enterprising house has endowed it with an international renown in the centres of commercial and manufacturing activity, and we gladly seize the opportunity offered us of making known the modus operandi of this great exponent of one of Glasgow’s most conspicuously successful manufacturing enterprises.

    The business of Messrs. Frederick Braby & Co. dates back in its foundation to the year 1839, in which year Mr. Frederick Braby commenced business in London in connection with the engineering, iron building construction, and general contracting. The Glasgow business, commenced originally at Garngad Road, was transferred to its present location, Barnhill, in the year 1880. Here, under the capable management of Mr. W. H. Luther, one of the partners of the concern, is carried on a business whose fame is universal and whose operations in their own particular department are conducted on a scale of magnitude hardly paralleled, and certainly not surpassed, in the voluminous annals of iron manufacture on the Clyde. In addition to the Eclipse Iron and Galvanizing Works the firm also control establishments at London (Euston Road, known as the Fitzroy Works) ; Deptford (the Ida Works) ; Liverpool (Hatton Garden).

    The manufactures which the firm have specialised in so marked a manner include every description of galvanized iron and zinc roofing, corrugated iron sheets, and a great variety of goods in zinc, tin, iron, and lead adapted to the universal requirements of civilised society. The firm are contractors to Her Majesty’s Admiralty, to the Dockyards, to the Woolwich Arsenal, to the Liverpool-Mersey Dock Board, to the Surrey Commercial Docks, the leading Railway Companies of the United Kingdom, and most of the Indian and Colonial lines of railway. The Eclipse Works are most suitably situated, and it would be impossible to discover within the United Kingdom a more thoroughly equipped establishment. The position is centred in the very heart of the Scottish coal and iron industries, a location which conduces greatly to a diminution in the cost of production by the near proximity of all necessary material. Every convenience also exists for the ready transport and shipment of goods. The River Clyde is within easy access, while railway sidings put the works into direct communication with all the principal railway systems of the Kingdom. The offices comprise a remarkably handsome and well-appointed suite, while the works present just those features of perfect equipment and attention to every preliminary detail which denote the able and effective administration by which the affairs of the concern are characterised.

    Entering the very commodious stores, we find immense stocks of raw material, including such items as hoop and sheet iron, zinc, and other metals. The galvanizing shop covers an area of 340 by 160ft. Here the preliminary stages of manipulation are carried on. In an adjacent shop smaller goods are manufactured, such as buckets, gutters, spoutings, ridges, etc. The process of galvanizing is conducted by dipping the sheet iron, after pickling, into a bath of molten zinc. The annealing department is another highly important section of the Eclipse Works. Here the brittleness of the sheets before galvanizing is removed and the iron rendered plastic as copper. Messrs. Frederick Braby & Company’s facilities for annealing are so perfectly developed that it is estimated seventy tons can readily be annealed in each furnace per week Another notable department is the corrugating shop, in which will be found all the most recent appliances for imparting the necessary corrugations to the various sheets treated.

    Hardly less interesting are the machine shops, the blacksmiths’, tinsmiths’, and bucket making shops, where a large staff is continually employed. Steam power is largely availed of throughout the works, and the immensity of the annual output may be gauged from the fact that from 350 to 400 hands are regularly engaged in the various departments of the Eclipse Works. Among the other specialities of the firm — all of which may be inspected at the offices and warehouse, St. Enoch Square — may be noted the “Empress” steel bath, a valuable contribution to the requisites of a household. Various other kinds of baths are displayed, including the “Fitzroy”, the “Economical”, and the “Acme”. Many other features deserve to be specialised here had space permitted ; we must content ourselves with the remark that, to properly appreciate the many articles of utility that Messrs. F. Braby & Co. are constantly producing, a visit of inspection to their extensive works is necessary. Among the host of articles for which the firm have such world-wide celebrity may be mentioned,, however, tubular iron barrows, cattle troughs, perforated zinc furnace pans, hot water cylinders, verandah friezes, fencing wire, wine bins, bell tubing, sanitary pans, chimney cans, and smoke curers.

    The firm obtained for their manufactures the highest awards at Cape Town, 1877 ; Paris, 1878 ; gold medal at London, 1884 ; silver medal at Calcutta, 1883-4 ; gold and silver medals at Amsterdam, 1883 ; a bronze medal at London, 1885 ; and gold medals at Liverpool, 1886, and at Edinburgh in the same year. Messrs. Frederick Braby & Co. have long enjoyed a first-class reputation for all their manufactures, the latter always being found to be of the best material and of the most substantially executed workmanship. The house can be said to have reached the highest attainable point of excellence in these manufactures, and the great success which has been achieved bears ample testimony to the enterprise and honourable methods which, from its earliest inception to the present day, have always been among the most prominent characteristics of the firm.

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