William Drury Lowe, Denby Terra Cotta, W. H. & J. Slater, Denby

First I would like to thank Nigel Aspdin, who is a direct descendant of William Slater, founder of W. H. & J. Slater for providing me with photos & information about his family for this post, which covers the three companies that occupied the same brickworks on land at Denby, Derbyshire from around 1856 to 1982. 

 William Drury Lowe/Denby Brick, Tile & Terra Cotta Works

William Drury Lowe (1826 - 1906) who was an industrialist & local land owner in the Denby area, owned several collieries as well as a brickworks. He established his brickworks to produce the bricks required for the sinking of his New Denby Colliery in 1856, with both the colliery & brickworks being situated between Smithy Houses & Denby Bottles. (see 1881 map below). The first Denby Colliery is recorded as being sunk on the same site in 1839.

  © Crown Copyright. Reproduced by permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1881.

Also to note on this map is the Denby Iron Works which was built in 1860 on land leased from William Drury Lowe by William & George Dawes, Iron Masters in Elsecar, Barnsley. William Drury Lowe lived at Locko Park, Spondon, Derby & up to 1747 his descendant John Lowe had lived at Park Hall before purchasing Locko Park, hence the Lowe family owning this land in Denby. Park Hall is shown at the top of this map & after 1747 was let as a farmhouse.

Although I have a photo of a brick stamped with William Drury Lowe's initials, I think that the bricks made for the sinking of the colliery would not have been stamped & the example that I have was produced after 1864 & I cover that part of the works history shortly. After the completion of the building of the colliery William Drury Lowe leased his brickworks to Hugh Stewart, who is listed in Harrison Harrold's 1860 edition as the owner of the Denby Terra Cotta, Brick & Tile Works. This entry & the half page advert below from the trade directory states that the Works was lately worked under W.D. Lowe Esq. So that begs the question was it Lowe or Stewart who named the works ?

Denby Terra Cotta Works near Denby found at a reclamation yard in Spondon.

Stewart rev. Denby photographed at the Silk Mill Museum, Derby.

Added 26.8.17. 
Photographed this Stewart example in John Baylis's collection in Birmingham. The reverse of which (Denby) was virtually unreadable.

We next find in Kelly's 1864 edition that the Denby Colliery & Firebrick, Drain Pipe & Tile Works is listed at this works with William Drury Lowe esquire as proprietor, John H. Sharpe & Benjamin Pym as agents & R. Coe, bailiff. So one can only assume Hugh Stewart had given up his lease or it had ended & Lowe was running the works once again. Also in Kelly's 1864 Brick & Tile Makers section is the listing of W.D. Lowe, (G. Shenton agent), Belper Wharf, Whitemoor, Belper. This address may have been the offices for the company or from where Lowe's coal/bricks were sold & distributed from ?

Photo by Richard Bull.

It is thought this D. C. Co. brick stands for Denby Colliery Co. as per Kelly's 1864 entry when the works was owned by William Drury Lowe.  

Photographed by Frank Lawson at the Silk Mill Museum, Derby.

W.D.L. represents the initials of William Drury Lowe. 

Photographed by Frank Lawson at the Silk Mill Museum, Derby.

Denby - reverse of WDL.

We next find that William Drury Lowe then leases his brickworks again on the 1st of January 1869, this time to James Greenfield & Hugh Stewart & the pair are recorded as the proprietors of the Denby Brick, Tile & Terra Cotta Works. The same named company as when Stewart was previously at the works. Greenfield & Stewart ran the works for only five years because in 1874, the works was then leased again by the Drury-Lowe family this time to W. H. & J. Slater & the history of this company is covered in my next entry. It's strange that Stewart was involved at this works for two periods of around five years, unless that was the length of the leases & it may have not been his short comings of not being able to successfully run a business ? 

This brick is only stamped Denby & has the N reversed. This style of the lettering infers that it is an early named example made in the 1860's & as such was made by either Lowe or Stewart. 

Nigel Aspdin has sent me the images below from a booklet of the Bye-laws at the Denby Brick, Tile & Terra Cotta Works & he has recently deposited this booklet, to join other papers already deposited, in connection with Slater's Denby Brickworks at the Derbyshire Record Office in Matlock, where they can be  viewed by members of the public. [Catalogue reference: WH & J Slater Ltd, quarry owners, brick and terra cotta goods manufacturers, Denby: notebooks relating to factory management and sales, catalogues and misc papers 1871-1965 (D5197, D5263/6)]

So woe betide you if you break the Rules ! 

Nigel Aspdin has also informed that, although he does not have any information regarding the lease taken out by Greenfield & Stewart on the Denby brickworks, he has said W. H. & J. Slater then took over the site & buildings from Greenfield & Stewart in 1874, again as lease holders from the Drury-Lowe Estate & I write about the Slater's Denby Works after writing about the beginnings of the Slater Brothers family business which was founded in Derby.

W. H. & J. Slater

Derby Works

Brothers William, Henry & Joseph Slater were members of a family who were originally builders in Derby, with their yard on Uttoxeter Old Road & operating there between 1860 & 1895. The builder's side of the company was later to become Walker & Slater & then Gee Walker & Slater, but without any involvement of the Slater family. As well as being general builders, the company built many new houses & larger properties. Their largest contract in 1880 was to build the Belvedere Road Workhouse in Burton when trading under the name of Walker & Slater. The building was designed by J.H. Morton from South Shields & built at a cost of £43,000. It was opened on the 23rd of October, 1884 by the Chairman of the Board of Guardians, Major Bindley. The Company also built Holy Trinity Church in Derby around 1904.
The entry in the Brick & Tile manufacturers section of Kelly's 1864 Trade Directory records W. H. & J. Slater at Uttoxeter Old Road, Derby, but the brick yard was actually on Slack Lane. Then in the 1876 to 1881 editions the brickyard is now listed at Slack Lane & the builders yard at Uttoxeter Old Road. The Slaters also lived on Uttoxeter Old Road. Only the Uttoxeter Old Road address is then listed in Kelly's up to the 1895 edition. 

We then find in the 1899 edition the Derby entry is Vernon Street. Nigel has informed me this was where William Slater, Nigel's Great Grandfather & nephew to William Slater founder of W. H. & J. Slater, built his family home & company office around 1895, together with a small stock yard where local builders could purchase the odd pipe, gully or chimney pot which had been made at Denby. The sale of the odd item continued right up to the closure of the Denby works in 1982. Larger orders were despatched by rail & then later by road from Denby. So I am taking it that the Slack Lane brickworks had closed by 1895 & production had been fully transferred to Denby by this date. The ownership of W. H. & J Slater had been passed down to Nigel's Great Grandfather William Slater by 1895 & William was the son of John Slater, who was brother to William, Henry & Joseph Slater. It appears John was not involved in the running of Slaters.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

William's house & stock yard on Vernon  Street, Derby around 1904. Today Nigel & his family reside in this same house built by his Great Grandfather William, but without the stock yard.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

William Slater's 5 children, standing L. to R. Harry J, Alice Elisabeth, Beatrice & William. seated Evelyn.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

William Slater, partner in W. H.& J. Slater with his daughters at Vernon Street.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

William's daughter, Beatrice in her father's Vernon Street stock yard around 1905. 

Map added 28.3.16.
With just finding an 1886 OS map, surveyed in 1882 of the Uttoxeter Road area of Derby. I can now show the location (2 options) for the Slater Brothers brickworks on Slack Lane.

© Crown Copyright. Reproduced by permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey. Published 1886, surveyed 1882.

As the only reference to the Slater Brothers brickworks from trade directories is Slack Lane there is the option of either the blue works or the pink works. If they were at the pink works which is my preferred option in 1881, the blue works was owned by Bemrose & Son.

So these are the brick makers who are recorded in Kelly's 1881 edition & I have put them to the six works shown on the 1882 map above, some I am sure of, the rest I have given options.

Pink works / Slack Lane - either Slater Brothers or Bemrose & Son.
Blue works / Slack Lane - either Slater Brothers or Bemrose & Son.
Yellow works / Slack Lane - Richard Bennett (son of Thomas).
Purple works / Rowditch - Henry Leese.
Green works / Parcel Terrace - Dusautoy & Co.
Orange works / California Works, Stockbrook Lane - Dusautoy & Co. 
I also have to note that there may have been two yards on this orange site as I have found that James Kent is listed in Kelly's 1876 & 1881 editions as brickmaker on Stockbrook Lane.

When the next Ordnance Survey map was revised in 1899 & published in 1901,  the pink (Slater), blue (Bemrose) & green (Dusautoy) coloured brickworks had closed & were no longer shown on this 1899 revised map.

I have now added this Slack Lane, Derby brick to the post as a possibility of it being made by W. H. & J. Slater at their Derby works. Although I do not have proof of this fact I have found named examples made by all of the other brickmakers who operated in Derby with the exception of Bemrose & Son, so there is the option that Bemrose made this brick instead. It's a pity that it does not have the name of the maker on it's reverse.

Denby Works

Photos by Adrian Watson.

 Photo by MF courtesy of Nottingham City Museums & Galleries.

Slater white brick.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

1910/20's glass plate slide of the kilns at Denby.

W. H. & J. Slater's works in Denby, made bricks, sanitary pipes & wares between 1874 & 1982, but the company were primarily manufacturers of sanitary pipes, chimney pots, other terra cotta ware and salt glazed ware. Nigel has informed me that bricks were produced only in small quantities for in-house & local use. They did not use their bricks in their colliery next door. Most were unfired bricks which were used for packing the kilns to ensure good heat flow around the pipes etc being fired & to brick up the kiln entrances. Afterwards these bricks would be used to build garages & outbuildings at the works. Nigel has a outbuilding wall built of these bricks at Vernon Street & the bricks have ghosting white marks on them, were sanitary ware etc had stood on them during firing.

Many thanks to Keith Gregson for sending me this photo. The cart has the works address of Smithy Houses, hence Nigel thinking this photo was taken around 1890 & this date is confirmed by the company's advert which appeared in Kelly's 1886 directory. 

Kelly's 1886.

Copyright © North East Midland Photographic Record. All rights reserved.

Outside the Denby clay mine in the 1930's.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

View of pipe & brickworks from Denby Colliery in the 1930's.

 © Crown Copyright. Reproduced by permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1900.

1900 map showing the location of W. H. & J. Slater's Denby pipe & brickworks.

Copyright © North East Midland Photographic Record. All rights reserved.

Works Motor vehicle with a steam driven lorry behind, photo taken in 1935.

Front & rear of Slater, Denby.

As previously mentioned, in 1874 the Slater Brothers took on the lease on the Denby brickworks from the Drury-Lowe Family carrying on the business of brick & terra cotta makers from Messrs. Greenwood & Stewart. 
The Company of W. H. & J. Slater is listed in Kelly's 1876 edition as brickmakers in Denby & then in all editions up to the last available directory in 1941. The Denby works flourished with Geoffrey Slater Aspdin as Managing Director & Victor Sydney Smith as director, both running W. H. & J. Slater from the end of WW2 to when the works closed in 1982. After which the land which the brickworks had been built on reverted back to the Drury-Lowe family. 

Commemorative brick celebrating King George V Jubilee.

Copyright © North East Midland Photographic Record. All rights reserved.

1935 photo of a Thomas Fawcett of Leeds brickmaking machine.

Commemorative brick celebrating King George VI Coronation.

Copyright © North East Midland Photographic Record. All rights reserved.

Down draught kiln in the 1950's.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Kilns now converted to gas, circa 1970's.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Sign board welcoming you to the Denby Works, circa.1960/70's.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

W. H. & J. Slaters Works, circa.1960/70's.

Photo by Peter Crewe. Copyright © North East Midland Photographic Record. All rights reserved.

With the kiln doors bricked up, this was possibly the last fire up in the summer of 1981.

More photos of this brickworks can be seen at this link, Slater's Brickworks, Picture the Past. & the P. t. P. photos in this post have been reproduced with the permission of the Picture the Past website. http://www.picturethepast.org.uk

Slater's Stone Quarries

The three brothers also owned two stone quarries, Horsley Castle Quarry & Coxbench Quarry, to which I have found two references, one in Kelly's 1876 edition as W. H. & J. Slater owning a works at Horsley Castle, Coxbench. The other reference states that William's father had farmed land at Castle Farm, Coxbench which was next to the quarry & that William had acquired the quarry by 1889 & carr[ying] on the business of Brick & Tile Manufacturer, Stone Merchant & Quarryman at Derby, Denby and Coxbench all in the said county of Derby.

© Crown Copyright. Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey 1880.

Map of Coxbench Quarry in 1880, also shown is Castle Farm worked by William's father.

Photo from the Les Green Collection.

Coxbench Quarry circa.1905.

Photo from the Les Green Collection.

Coxbench Quarry circa.1905. William Slater is in this photo, he's the very distinctive man with the white beard & wearing a bowler hat.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Slater family & friends, taking a picnic at Coxbench Quarry.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Coxbench Quarry circa.1910. William, seated with the white beard. Son's Harry, 2nd from the left & William jnr. 3rd from the left.

Geoffrey Aspdin, Managing Director of W.H. & J. Slater Ltd, 1945 to 1982

Nigel has supplied me with photos & information relating to his father during WW2, so here is his story.

During WW2 Nigel's father, Captain Geoffrey Aspdin of the 5th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters was a POW in Siam (Thailand) & was involved in the making of bricks for the Burma to Siam Railway. Geoffrey had studied clay technology in Stoke-on-Trent in the mid 1930's before joining the family firm of W. H. & J. Slater just before the war & this knowledge became invaluable during his time in Siam. After the war he rejoined the family firm & was appointed Managing Director until the works closed in 1982.

 Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

These next three photos show the three sides of a souvenir brick plaque made by CPL D. Bennett, one of Geoffrey's men out in Thailand. Geoffrey brought this brick plaque home after the war. It depicts a Sherwood Foresters cap badge & it says Tamuang, Thailand. 

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Plaque reads :- CPL Bennett's

1/5 Sherwood Foresters

POW Singapore

1942

Thailand 

1944

 Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Nigel is not sure what Tatters refers to, whether it may relate to Cpl. Bennett's nickname or perhaps a brick working party or a specific brick yard or kiln ? Cpl. D. Bennett also came from Derby & lived on Cavendish Street.

 Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Photo of Geoffrey holding Cpl Bennett's brick plaque.

Photo from the Nigel Aspdin Collection.

Nigel has informed me that this was one of the bridges which may have been built by his father's men over the River Kwai. The railway started in Bangkok,Thailand & it's aim was to get the Japanese a rail route across the west coast of neighbouring Burma to aid the invasion of India. 

If you are researching the Slater's of Derby & Denby, Nigel has sent me a very comprehensive list of his forebears who worked for the Company. So If you wish to Get in touch, I will send you a copy, post haste. 

Once again I would like to Thank Nigel & everyone else mentioned in this post, who has help me bring this information to the Web.


Added 4.2.2020.

In 2016 Nigel Aspdin sent me these three photos asking if I knew what these salt glazed slabs of clay / bricks were all about which he photographed while on a stroll around Openwoodgate, east of Belper with his dog. I had to reply that I did not have a clue, but said they may have originally been used to line a kiln with. 

Fast forward to January 2020 & out of the blue I received an email from Paul Hardstaff who was asking me if I was related to his Grandad, Bernard Fretwell, a potter at Denby Pottery.

"I am grandson of Bernard Fretwell who was a potter at Denby and lived at the sideways-on house just above Bowler Street, Marehay. His father, Herbert, originated from a small famiiy colony of 3 terraced cottages just north of the old level crossing in Marehay. I grew up in the area with all the adventure one could desire available around Fords Pit, Godbers Lum, Whiteleys and Devil's Wood."

"As an incidental, given your interest in bricks, you might like to know that a lot of less formal buildings  eg. out-buildings, yard walls etc in the area around Denby Pottery were made using pottery glazing bars. Glazing bars were pallets of lower grade pottery clay on which pots were stood to be fired in the kilns. They were re-used time and again until their surfaces were a bit too uneven from hardened dribbled glaze for the pots standing on them to be stable. At about 2 feet long, 9 inches wide and 2 inches thick, glazed, waterproof and  thoroughly baked, they were a very useful by-product."

I then sent Paul, Nigel's photos & this was his reply.

"Yes, Martyn, I confirm that these are glazing bars from Denby Pottery, photographed here making a very satisfactory boundary wall between a garden and the jitty behind it. Most of the pottery's produce was plain glazed brown, green, or blue, hence the eventual military camouflage of the bars from the glaze dribbled on to them."

"If anyone wants to see more, they should go to a new street called "Poppyfields" behind the Holly Bush pub on Brook Lane, Marehay, and take the footpath across the field towards Derby Road. They will find walls and a couple of out-buildings made from them."

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Poppyfields,+Ripley/@53.0393178,-1.4048774,134m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48798d557d10c017:0xf8667a3ba4a745a3!8m2!3d53.0401513!4d-1.4071536?hl=en

So there you have it, an answer to a four year old question sorted & Nigel has been updated. As to me being related to Paul's Grandfather, I replied saying that my family were from Huthwaite & were mainly coal miners & as far as I knew had no connection to Marehay, but you never know.