Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains167,818 pages of information and247,161 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

of Napier Yard, Millwall, London, E.

c.1881Joseph Westwood, junior retired from his father's firm,Westwood, Baillie and Co, and took offices in London for a time

1883 On his father's death, Westwood set up new works with more modern machinery and appliances for constructing ironwork and steelwork of every kind, on the site of the old Napier Works at Millwall.

1883 Business established.

c.1882 Under his own name,Joseph Westwood, Junior started manufacturingHawksley's Patent Treads (see photo) at theNapier Yard (the location of the yard used to buildSS Great Eastern in 1854).^[1]

1891 Manufacturer of Hawksley's patent tread (see advert)

1897 Private limited company incorporated.

1901 Constructed 100 foot span steel bridge for the Umsindusi River crossing in South Africa.Photograph taken at the Napier Yard.

1905 Made gantry forStothert and Pitt crane for Durban harbour^[2]

1911 Constructional Engineers for the Railways.^[3]

1914 Bridge Builders and Constructional Engineers. Specialities: steel bridges and all kinds of steel constructional work, steel corrugated plates. Employees 700 to 800.^[4]

1922 Builder of steel bridges, steel constructional work, steel corrugated flooring for bridges, hydraulic pressed work,Hone's patent grabs.Lord Invernairn was one of the directors.

1946 Public company.

1961 Bridge builders and heavy constructional engineers, steel stockholders, grab manufacturers and storage equipment manufacturers. 350 employees.^[5]

1961 Fabricated a steel bridge to carry the main Eastern Region lines over an underpass near Clacton, as part of the modernisation scheme to electrify the lines between Chelmsford and Colchester. Main contractors: The Cementation Co.^[6]

1968 Built tunnel shield for the cargo tunnel at Heathrow.^[7]

Napier yard, after Napier gave it up, had been used to build SS Great Eastern in 1854 and was later occupied byMillwall Ironworks, Shipbuilding, and Graving Dock Company and then byPile and Co until 1888.

See Also

Sources of Information