Garrison Foundry & Engine Works
- Blackadder, Thomas & William, Engineers
- Blackadder Brothers
- Blackadder, Thomas & Robert, Engineers & Founders.
Sites & Monuments Record
| Garrison Place | SMR 674 | NS 888 802 |
Timeline
1851: Thomas Blackadder left the Carron Co and together with his brother Robert bought premises in the Garrison where their family firm became established as engineers, millwrights, iron and brass founders. Their father, also Thomas, had also been an engineer at Carron and the family had been in that trade since 1771.
1862: Robert and Thomas Blackadder were put in charge of the Burgh Weights. Parish Kirk Session had Thomas Blackadder & Sons turn the church bell. The foundry work was dropped to concentrate on the engineering aspects of the firm. In 1864 it exported a beam engine to the Dunedin Gas Works in New Zealand. Two sons entered the firm as engineers, one of them, William, became a town councillor (and died in 1893). A third son, Robert, left the business and emigrated to New Zealand where he established his own engineering business importing machinery. He died on a return visit to Falkirk in 1900.
1890s: It supplied machinery to collieries and brickworks. It now specialised in foundry plant and machinery, drilling and emery grinding machines, sheet iron bending and cutting machines, fettling machines, polishing machines, ladles, cranes, hoists, pattern boxes and core boxes for rain and soil water pipes. It also undertook repair work. Business was constant and in 1897 the yard was roofed over to provide more working space.
1930s: As well as maintenance work at foundries the company provided them with pipe patterns and core boxes. Engineering expanded into the motor trade and the Blackadder Motor Co was established
Falkirk Local History Society 