A Story Worth The Telling
Webster and Horsfall has influenced world history in a subtle but remarkable way. It was founded before the age of steam. Its manufacturing processes and its products have been central to the developments of the Industrial revolution. It has served the mining, food, surgical, construction and telecommunications industries. All is recorded in its extensive archives
Power at Hay Mills
Throughout its long history, the company has followed the development in power sources; from water-power to electricity and gas. For the first half of the twentieth century the company produced their own electricity and gas at Hay Mills; a century later there is now a...
War and the Home Front at Hay Mills
The company’s long history means that it has continued trading throughout much social and technological change; through economic difficulties; as well as through many periods of war. It is inevitable that this history will include direct and indirect links to the...
Hay Mills Family Histories
John Webster (1687-1757) John, the founder of the business in 1720, was born in Normanton-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire. He was the second son of Thomas Webster, who was born in London but moved to Normanton after 1680. John’s great-grandfather, William was a London...
The Atlantic Telegraph Cable
A wealthy American entrepreneur, Cyrus West Field (1819-1892), dared to dream of creating a Transatlantic Telegraph Cable between the United States and Europe. Since the first successful commercial cable between Dover and Calais in 1851, submarine telegraph cables...
Manufacturing Innovations
Manganese Crucible Steel John Webster, the founder of the business, began as a stockholder of bar iron and a retailer of iron and brass manufactured goods. Much of his stock of nails, fish hooks and pins were made from wire and Webster began drawing his own wire at...
A Birmingham Company
Although Joseph Webster and James Horsfall entered into partnership in 1855 to become, Webster & Horsfall and then, 40 years later amalgamated with Latch and Batchelor the origins of the business can be traced back to the 1720s. The names of Webster, Horsfall,...