Edmund Morewood & John Henry Rogers
Industrialists
George Edmund Rogers born circa 1847
Marriage of Helen Morewood Rogers in 1879
Edmund Morewood was born on 29 September 1812 at Newington Green, London, the second son of George Morewood a prosperous Russian merchant. Edmund, who started school at a very early age, attended St Paul’s School and proved to be a bright pupil, gaining first prizes in every class. His mother was Ellen Pierpoint, daughter of John Barrow of Basinghall Street, London.
Whilst still young he was Articled in his grandfather’s office. His grandfather, John Barrow, was head of the old established firm of Solicitors, Barrow, Vincent and Plumbley, of Basinghall Street, London.
When his Articles were completed, Edmund decided there was no future for him in the Law and accepted his older brother George’s offer of a partnership and joined him in New York, America. His other brother, Alfred, took his money to London and started a successful merchant business trading with New York.
From a very early age Edmund Morewood had been interested in chemistry, mechanics and general science; whilst in New York he continued researching his favourite subjects and, around 1838, he considered the idea of coating galvanised tinned iron and decided to return to London to study the subject further at the Polytechnic Institute. Whilst Edmund was at the Polytechnic he met George Rogers and they formed a partnership, Morewood and Rogers. Both young men had little capital but what they lacked in money they made up with enthusiasm.
After several setbacks the partnership patented a number of new processes and were generally accepted as being the founders of the galvanised iron industry.
Other companies took out licences under their patents but success was not instant and there were many trials and tribulations along the way.
Morewood and Rogers established their galvanising works in Stratford, East London, followed by works at Wolverhampton and Birmingham in 1843. The partnership became a family relationship when George Rogers married Edmund Morewood’s sister, Helen Pierpoint.
George and Helen, who was six years older than he was, married on 16 July 1846. George (born 8 December 1815) and Helen Pierpoint (born 7 December 1809), had three children, a daughter and two sons; George Edmund Rogers who was probably born around 1847 and John Henry Rogers who was born in 1849. John Henry Rogers was only 12 when his father died.
The galvanising industry took an upward trend from 1851 when gold mining in California and sheep farming in Australia needed galvanised products in large quantities. Although Morewood and Rogers had no personal connection with Birmingham, from 1854 their company appears in local trade directories as "Morewood & Rogers, patent galvanised iron works and sole patentees of galvanised tinned iron and plumbic zinc, 11 Broad Street, Easy Row and Steelyard, Upper Thames Street, London."
The partnership prospered for the next few years until George Rogers died aged 46, on 8th February 1861, having been an invalid for a number of years.
During 1863 George and Helen Pierpoint’s two sons George Edmund Rogers and John Henry Rogers attended Rugby School. By this time Helen was a widow, living at 4 Eldon Place, Hillmorton Road, Rugby, where she had probably moved in order for her sons to qualify as Foundationers (i.e. living locally) who would be eligible for free schooling.
George Edmund Rogers born circa 1847
George Edmund Rogers who had entered Rugby School with his brother in 1863, was a day pupil in Town House (William Webb Ellis’s old house). He left Rugby School in 1865 and later became a Lieutenant in the 3rd Hussars from 1869-1880 and a Major in the 1st Dragoon Guards between 1880 and 1883. From 1894 he became Vicar of Southwater, Horsham, Sussex, having been ordained as a minister.
John Henry Rogers was a day pupil at Rugby School from 1863-66 and was also in the same Town House as his brother. Given his Rugby football skills it is sad to note that he left school one year before the first ‘Foreign Match’ (i.e. with players from outside the school). When George and his brother John left Rugby School their mother seems to have moved from the district.
Following George Rogers’s death, Edmund Morewood became involved with others in works at Baglan and Briton Ferry. By 1869 he also became involved in the local tinplate industry, and he became a partner in the Yspitty Tinplate Works at Bynea.
The company Morewood and Rogers continued to trade in the Midlands area and local trade directories record that the company had moved to Wiggin Street, Birmingham. Edmund Morewood seems to have sold his interest in the firm he had established with George Rogers to concentrate on the expanding South Wales industries.
After finishing his education John Henry Rogers joined his uncle, Edmund Morewood in business and together they made plans to establish the South Wales Tinplate Works at Machynys, also known as Morewood’s.
From 1871-1887 Edmund Morewood and his nephew John Henry Rogers leased Llangennech Park House, from Edward J Sartoris MP, the new owner of the mansion that had previously belonged to Richard Janion Nevill and his son William Henry Nevill. There was also an American connection since Sartoris was son-in-law to President Grant having married his daughter Nellie.
John Rogers did not live with his uncle at Llangennech Park but preferred to live nearer the South Wales Tinplate Works, so when John Simmons Tregoning junior moved out of Highfield House Rogers moved in.
On 24 October 1877 John Henry Rogers married Eliza Mary Maclaran, daughter of Rowland Maclaran of Cilfig House. The wedding was a grand affair and the ceremony took place at the newly built All Saints Church in Goring Road. The ceremony was conducted by Vicar David Williams and the marriage was witnessed by no fewer than six relatives: Helen M Rogers (the groom’s sister); S J Maclaran; Marian C Maclaran (the bride’s brother); Edmund Morewood (the groom’s uncle); Rowland Maclaran (the bride’s father); Helen Pierpoint Rogers (the groom’s widowed mother, sister to Edmund Morewood).
Although at first the couple and their family lived at Highfield House – which had been renovated around 1872 – they must have decided that a larger house was needed when they moved to Glyncoed which had been built near the site of Caemawr Cottage, the former home of Arthur Raby junior, at Furnace.
Highfield House
Before he died at the age of 74 on 25 August 1887 Edmund Morewood had retired from business, but he continued to visit the Machynys Works, which in its heyday employed about 1,200 workers. Morewood never married and is buried at Llangennech Churchyard close to where Richard Janion Nevill lies.
John Henry Rogers, Morewood’s nephew, who had become managing director of E Morewood and Company, continued to run the vast business enterprises successfully. Morewood’s had already developed important business interests in America so it was no surprise that following the McKinley Tariff of 1891 and the resulting depression in the tinplate trade, John Henry Rogers moved to America for a short while where he established a successful tinplate works.
The Gas City, Indiana, Trade Directory of 1892 published the following:
"On June 9, 1892, Messrs E Morewood & Co., of Wales, chose GAS CITY as the most suitable site for the establishment of an immense tinplate, steel making and foundry plant, after a thorough inspection of all the principal manufacturing towns in the Indiana Gas Field.
This firm is the inventor of the improved Tin Plate Machines, by which nearly the entire product of the Welsh mines is now being manufactured.
Its principal works have heretofore been located at Llanelly and Swansea, the plant at the former place consisting of thirteen mills, and the latter of seven mills. At both these Welsh works the firm has completely appointed Siemen’s Steel Plants, and was for many years the only company of Tin Plate manufacturers making its own steel.
At the Llanelly works there are also extensive Foundry and Engineering Annexes, from which both the Morewood Works and other leading Tin Plate manufactories are supplied with special patented machinery. The firm of E Morewood & Co., makes the celebrated 'BV' brand of Tin Plate, and the 'P.T.I' Ternes, recognised in the trade for years as the best produced. The new establishment at GAS CITY will consist of a twenty-mill plant, covering fifty-two acres of land fronting directly on the Pennsylvania Railroad and represents an expenditure of one million of dollars, and constitutes the largest Tin Plate Plant in the world, and will give employment to two thousand skilled workmen.
No other concern of such importance has, as yet, entered the Indiana Gas Field.
In connection with the Plate Mills, a complete Steel Manufacturing Plant will be added, together with a large Foundry for casting rolls, massive bed plates and other castings necessary to the equipment of the mills; and besides manufacturing finished Tin Plates the establishment will supply other works in the United States with Black Steel Plates and Steel Billets, as well as with Plate-making Machinery. All of the buildings will be of the most substantial and permanent construction of stone, brick and iron, and the work of erection is now being pushed forward rapidly.
Mr J H Rogers, Chairman of the Tin Plate Makers’ Association of Wales, and managing partner of E Morewood & Co., Welsh works, has personal charge of the erection of the whole plant."
The information above was kindly provided by Patricia Chapman, Vice-President of the Gas City Historical Society, Indiana, who commented that she was "proud that Gas City had the world’s largest Tin Plate factory in the World."
Note Gas City Indiana was established when an underground natural gas field was found in 1887.
On March 21 1892 The Gas City Land Company filed articles of incorporation, and five days later Harrisburg (a small hamlet), was merged in Gas City. On April 4, 1892 the Post Office Department established a Post Office at Gas City, and an enumeration showed about 150 residents.
The Morewood Tinplate Mill was opened in Gas City, Indiana, on 28 June 1893, and Rogers, who was the Superintendent, is said to have held Church meetings in the annealing room of the factory. He was also said to be instrumental in establishing the Protestant Episcopal Church in Jonesboro and Gas City, Indiana.
Indiana State Gazetteers for 1894-95 record The Morewood Company, Gas City, tin and terne plate manufacturers, with J H Rogers President and C M Stuart Secretary. The town of Gas City was described as being three years old. The Morewood Company was said to have the largest plant for the manufacture of tinplate in the United States, which when fully completed would employ over 2,000 workers. During this period many Welshmen emigrated to America to work in the developing tinplate industry.
In 1894 John Henry Rogers’ only son John Edmund Morewood Rogers, entered Rugby School as a boarder in Whitelaw House (where the author Arthur Ransome also lived). He only remained at Rugby School for one year, leaving in 1895 when his address was given as Glencoed (sic), Llanelly – his father John Henry Rogers having moved from Highfield House to Glyncoed (near the former home of Arthur Raby), when Edmund Morewood died.
In February 1898 the South Wales Works went into liquidation with the loss of hundreds of jobs and when it re-opened some months later, it had been sold to Richard Thomas and Co, with an entirely new management.
Following the closure, Rogers decided to retire and he and his family left Llanelli to live in London. Ownership and occupancy of their residence at Glyncoed, passed to the Nevill family.
The following year on 22 March 1899, the business interests of E Morewood & Company of Gas City, Indiana, were transferred to the American Tin Plate Company.
Llanelly Guardian
14 August 1879
MARRIAGE at Llangennech of Miss Helen Morewood Rogers of Llangennech Park to Mr Nelson Moore Richardson of Swansea.
Mr Edmund Morewood was present and Mr & Mrs J. H. Rogers.
Llanelly Guardian
13 September 1900
GLYNCOED On Thursday afternoon at the Thomas Arms Hotel, Mr John Francis Auctioneer offered for Sale that Pretty Local Residence “Glyncoed” which was for some years the home of Mr J. H. Rogers.
The bidding started at £2,000 and rose to £3,300. There being no better offer the property was withdrawn.
Messrs Roderick & Richards were Solicitors for the Vendor.
The Llanelly Mercury & South Wales Advertiser
Thursday 26 April 1894
Messrs Morewoods Works in America
Two More Mills to be Sent Out
We learn that the plant for two mills is now being shipped to America by the firm of Messrs Morewood and Company for their tinplate works at Gas City, Indiana. The plant has been manufactured at Llanelly. The fact is certainly not encouraging to Llanellyites as it clearly points to a belief by the firm that tinplate making in the States can be made a success either with or without the tariff.
Note
The 'tariff' referred to was the McKinley Tariff imposed in 1891 by America on imports of tinplate to protect their own emerging tinplate industry. This import tax caused havoc with the Welsh export trade because at that time local tinplate works were heavily dependent on the American import market.
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