Nuneaton.
The works were established about 1830, by Mr. Peter Wager Williams, upon the site of what evidently had been very old pot works, but of which no record appears to exist. At first there were during Mr. P. W. Williams’s lifetime two distinct manufactories. One of these was next worked by his eldest son, Mr. John Williams, who sold it to his three brothers, Peter, Charles, and James, by whom it was carried on under the style of “Caroline Williams.” It passed by purchase into the hands of Mr. J. Rawlins, and was taken by “Messrs. Broadbent and Stanley Brothers,” by whom it was considerably extended. The other manufactory was carried on by Mr. Walter Handley, at whose death it passed to his son-in-law, Mr. David Wheway, at whose decease it was incorporated with the former one, and carried on jointly with it, by Messrs. Broadbent and Stanley Brothers. In 1871 Mr. Broadbent retired from the concern, and it is now carried on by Messrs. Stanley Brothers. The goods produced are terra-cotta vases, chimney-tops, &c.; coloured paving-tiles for geometric designs; garden-edging, ornamental ridging and all kinds of plain building and ornamental bricks; glazed sanitary and other pipes, &c. The firm has recently patented a process for the manufacture of malt kiln tiles, for which they have invented new machinery. They are made of the finest fire-clay, and are of very superior character to any others. The marls in this neighbourhood, from which these various goods are made, are varied, and on the ground worked by this firm alone about twenty different measures occur, and these are of divers colours and qualities. The works occupy nearly ten acres of ground.