The Wiltshire Foundry – Chaff And Cheese
[Chapter Ten in the book The Wiltshire Foundry, Warminster, 1816 – 1909 by Danny Howell, published by Wylye Valley Publications, November 1987.]
The making of agricultural implements always remained at the fore of the Wiltshire Foundry’s activities. Among the many thousands of items made were ploughs, horse-hoes, horse-gears, cultivators, scarifiers, harrows, rollers, sawbenches, sugar cane cutters, cider presses, root cutters and pulpers, hoists and pulleys. One speciality was an automatic creep feeder for sheep.
During the 1870s the foundry specialised in the manufacture of chaff cutters; the framework of which was constructed of wood instead of iron because the latter was liable to fracture. A commercial guide which referred to Carson & Toone’s chaff cutters noted: “The firm have made great improvements to these machines, they are in fact more than cutters, being sifters and cleaners as well; this is a very important point, as all breeders of stock know, and by the use of the special sifting apparatus and exhaust fan, the chaff is all cut to a uniform length, and all dust and dirt is extracted but the good wholesome seed is left. The stop and reverse gear is placed close to the hand of the feeder, and all working and cutting parts are fully protected in compliance with the new Act. Supplied with four knives, sifting, dusting, caving, elevating and bagging apparatus, there is not a more perfect machine of the kind made.”
A report of Warminster’s annual October Fair, in the Warminster Herald on Saturday 30th October 1875, mentions the names of several exhibitors of farm machinery, including Carson & Toone, John Wallis Titt, and Reeves of Bratton, etc., noting: “The show of agricultural implements and machinery was more extensive than usual. Messrs. Carson and Toone exhibited chaff-cutters for steam and hand power, one and two-horse gears, turnip cutters, root pulpers, corn crushers, ploughs, harrows, automaton lamb creeps, &c., &c.”
Another speciality, made famous by Carson & Toone, was a cheese press available in ten different sizes. Single, double and triple models were produced, all of which pressed the cheese with a series of weights hanging on a chain that passed over a grooved pulley at the end of a lever. This method, originally invented by Carson & Toone, proved so successful that, according to the firm’s publicity material, it was quickly copied by all cheese press makers.
In a letter published in the Warminster Journal on Friday 16th January 1970, Mr. Alfred H. Dutch (probably a descendant of the family who ran a foundry on the corner of Boreham Road and Smallbrook Road, Warminster, up until 1872) of Frome, wrote: “My grandfather, Henry Dutch, was an engineer with Carson & Toone. In 1870 he apprenticed his son (my father) Henry Thomas Dutch to Messrs. Carson & Toone and I have the indentures in my possession. They are dated 21st November 1870 and bear the signatures of William Hugh Carson and John Vidler Toone. I am over 70 but I can remember hearing how my grandfather used to set up the lathe which cut the centre thread for the cheese press. I believe they called it the cheese thread. The actual cutting was so slow a process, in those days, that grandfather would find other jobs to fill in the time whilst waiting for the lathe to cut from one end to the other. From Carson & Toone my father went to the widely known firm of Hindley’s at Bourton in Somerset, where quite a number of Carson & Toone’s men progressed. In 1878 he represented Hindley’s at the Paris Exhibition. Similar to Hindley’s in Somerset, John Wallis Titt and Carson & Toone were the pride of Wiltshire in those days.”
Carson & Toone promoted their products at the Paris International Exhibition as this news item from the back page of the Warminster Herald of Saturday 9th March 1878 shows: “PARIS INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION. Many of our readers must have seen with interest the pictures in the Graphic of Saturday last, illustrative of the forthcoming Exhibition. The fine building in the Champs de Mars is now beginning to fill up, the Commissioners having fixed the 31st of this month as the latest for the admission of the various contributions. We are glad to know that our town will not be without its representatives in a building certain to attract so large a number of visitors from all parts of the world; Messrs. Carson and Toone having accepted the offer made to them as far back as February 1877, of a stand in the department for Agricultural Machinery, and have just finished the few specialities of their manufactures selected for that purpose. Having seen their ‘Stand’, as arranged on one of the floors of their workshops, we may be excused for looking on them with a little partiality as ‘native productions’, and for saying that they are very creditably got up, and we think not unworthy of a place amongst exhibits of a similar class, not only of our own, but also of all civilised countries. The painting, which is pleasing and effective, is the work of our townsman, Mr. J. Neat. We may add that for the next two or three days, previous to packing, these articles will be open for the inspection of any one who, being unable to visit Paris during the year, may yet like to see a small fraction of the coming Exhibition”.
The Wiltshire Foundry – Postscript
[The fifteenth and final chapter in the book The Wiltshire Foundry, Warminster, 1816 – 1909 by Danny Howell, published by Wylye Valley Publications, November 1987.]
Inglebury, the house at 22 East Street, Warminster, where William Carson Toone and his family lived prior to emigrating, no longer exists. Writing in 1970, Mrs Mary Hatton remembered: It was a very nice grey stone double-fronted house. There were several cottages at the end of Carson & Toone’s lane, all gone now, and I know that the descendants of one family who lived there are still in Warminster but I doubt if they know as much as I remember about Carson & Toone. William Toone was a tall man with a pointed beard. I remember him clearly. He had three children, William, Ellie (Ella) and another boy much younger whose name I forget. I spent many happy hours in that home with Ellie. When the Toones emigated, the house was bought by a man named Faulkner who turned it into a sort of store selling mostly toys”.
Henry (Harry) Summers Faulker opened his ‘Fancy Bazaar’ in June 1904. He was declared bankrupt to the sum of £243 0s. 7d. in September 1908 but continued to trade for some while afterwards. He is listed in Kelly’s Directories as a ‘stationer & c.’ at 22 East Street, in 1907, 1911 and 1915. The property was later used by Ernest Stiles for the sale of drapery and furniture, and the business was enough to warrant its own workshops, making bedding, at the Market Place. Trading as George Bush & Co., Stiles is listed in Kelly’s Directory for the first time in 1923. Bush & Co.’s shop and a couple of neighbouring cottages were demolished after 1968 when plans were announced for the building of a new post office behind the present GPO. At the time of writing (September 1987) the site is still awaiting redevelopment, although the estate agent’s signs which have been erected on the site for some time have now got “Under Offer” placards fixed across them.
Following the demise of the iron foundry, Carson’s Yard became the home of the town’s Electric Light Station, installed in 1922. This operated until the National Grid system was introduced and this, of course, eventually closed down all the old electricity generating stations nationwide. Until February 1987 the sign of the old electricity station was still to be seen on one of the buildings (R.J. O’Brien’s electrical workshop) at Carson’s Yard. It read: “Warminster Electric Supply Company Ltd., site of Generating Station. Engineers – Edwards and Armstrong Ltd., Head Office: Cainscross, Stroud, Glos. Tel Stroud 179. Estimates free for all classes of electrical work.” The sign is now in safe keeping at the Warminster Dewey Museum, having been handed over by Mr. O’Brien.
Next to the former Electric Station, is a long tall building running north to south. This became Bond’s Machinery Warehouse. W.H. Bond trading as W.H. Bond (Machinery) Ltd., Warminster, was a machinery merchant and engineer. He is listed in Kelly’s Directories for 1935 and 1939, and also in the West Wiltshire Directory (published by the Wiltshire Times and News) in 1949 and 1951. His private address is given as 10 Woodland Road, Warminster.
In 1954 the warehouse was taken over for the storage and sale of building materials by Hudson & Martin. They also operated a showroom at George Street, and traded from both premises until 1964 when they moved to their present depot on the corner of Fairfield Road and Imber Road, Warminster. Ronald William Bone, a carpenter and joiner, of 47 Boreham Road, Warminster, then used the building (the former warehouse at Carson’s Yard). He died on 17th February 1982, aged 71, and was buried at St. John’s Churchyard. Between December 1983 and April 1985, part of the building was used for the sale of pet fish and aquarium sundries [Old Barn Aquarium] by Phil Wilson and Tim Johnson. Phil Wilson later ran the Pet Centre at 5 George Street, Warminster, and the long tall building at Carson’s Yard is now empty and something of an eyesore.
Apart from two or three buildings currently in use for car or domestic electric appliance repairs, Carson’s Yard today is a redundant backwater of derelict properties and a shabby reminder of its former prosperity. An anonymous letter published in the Wylye Valley Life magazine in February 1987 sought information as to why this part of Warminster is known by some residents as Carson’s Yard. It began: “From time to time I visit a business situated in Carson’s Yard. A stranger to the town looking for it might wonder where the place is because no official name plate is there to tell him. Who was Carson?” The letter prompted the suggestion that this almost forgotten area just around the corner from the busy Market Place be officially signposted. The idea seemed logical, because although some residents, particularly the senior ones, are aware that a man named Carson took over an iron foundry here over 150 years ago, newcomers to the town and other people are not in receipt of this knowledge. The Town Council, loquacious as ever, discussed the matter at some length before deciding in their ‘wisdom’ not to erect a street name-plate. Perhaps, in the future, when the Town Council is comprised of new faces, we may see a street sign placed at Carson’s Yard as a token memorial to the man from Galloway and his family, whose combined business acumen added much to the commercial life of Warminster during the 19th century.