I. & I. WALKER Ltd, Effingham Mills, Rotherham, manufacturers of foundry requisites

The firm since 1917 traded in close conjunction with a Huddersfield firm producing similar materials, Henry Jessop and Sons Ltd. Only a few of the Jessop records survive and as they are closely integrated with the I. & . I. Walker ones they have not been listed separately

Records are open for consultation unless otherwise indicated

On abolition of South Yorkshire County Council on 31 March 1986, the records passed from South Yorkshire County Record Office, by agreement of the four South Yorkshire District Councils, to the custody of Sheffield Archives as lead authority. It was then transferred to Rotherham Archives.

The firm of I. & I. Walker dates back to 1831 according to a tradecard printed in the 1870s. It was founded by Charles Walker who began as a blacksmith like his father but then branched out into engineering and boilermaking, and later into grinding flints. In the 1851 census returns he was described as a blacksmith and was living with his family in Grimesthorpe. In the 1861 census returns he was established at Levitt Hagg near Sprotbrough as a charcoal, blacking, and flint merchant employing three men, and Isaac Walker, his elder son, was living nearby and working as a flint grinder. According to an account of the business in The Ivanhoe Review Vol.2 (1899) Isaac and Israel were taken into partnership by their father in 1859 (although at that date Israel was only 14 years old), in 1866 the business was moved to Effingham Works at Rotherham and in 1872 the partnership was dissolved because of Charles Walker's failing health and a new one formed with the present name of the firm. Certainly the tradecard mentioned above and dated 187- is for Chas. Walker & Sons, Rotherham, manufacturers of metallic oxide paint, charcoal and mineral carbon, blacking, coal and coke dust, flint and colour grinders. The firm continued to supply coal dust, graphite, blacking, plumbago and other products to the foundry industry. The decline of the foundry industry caused I. & I. Walker to look for an alternative business. It was decided to continue with the same product but to market the coal dust also in bulk for use as a fuel. This became possible through recent industrial research which developed a burner that operates on a mixture of powdered fuel and gas or oil