The Tees Side Iron and Engine Works Company Limited Collection

BS/TSE/1. Corporate Records

The origins of The Tees Side Iron and Engine Works Company Limited can be traced to 1845 with the forming of a partnership between Edgar Gilkes and Isaac Wilson under the name Gilkes, Wilson and Company. These two eminent figures from Middlesbrough's history, who both held the position of town Mayor, set up an engineering company to tap into the burgeoning iron making industry in the region securing premises at Commercial Street in Middlesbrough. In 1865 they amalgamated the company with Hopkins & Co., Teesside Ironworks with the new combined concern going under the name Hopkins, Gilkes & Co., The Tees Side Iron and Engine Works Co. Ltd. The company prospered moving successfully into the building of bridges and similar structures, until a fateful association with the Tay Bridge disaster which resulted in the loss of 75 lives. The company had built and erected the steel girders and framework to the specification of the designer Sir Thomas Bouch; when the bridge collapsed on the 28 December 1879, an inevitable downturn in trade was experienced. Faced with such major problems, the company sought to restructure and attempted to secure new funding. This came in the shape of Wilson, Pease and Co. (later Pease and Partners) who, after investing in the company in 1889, sought to change the name that was still associated with the Tay Bridge disaster. The new name of Wilson, Pease & Co., The Tees Side Iron and Engine Works Co. Ltd was later shortened to The Tees Side Iron and Engine Works Company Limited. The company lurched from one crisis to another; finally a buyer was sought in 1895. After protracted negotiations the company was liquidated in 1896 and a new company, The Tees Side Bridge and Engineering Works Limited, under the leadership of Sir Christopher Furness bought the whole of the undertaking, assets and liabilities; transferring the plant and machinery to a new site down river. Source: Tees Side Bridge: The Rise, Fortunes and Dissolution of a Private Company by Thomas R Tighe, Aug 1980, B.S.C Teesside