John Grundy Limited, heating engineers and ironfounders, was a company founded in TyldesleyFormer industrial town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester., Lancashire in 1857. John Grundy opened a foundry to manufacture heating apparatus. In the 1880s the company’s headquarters moved to London, but its works remained in Tyldesley.

Grundy family

John Grundy (1807–1893) was a grocer with a shop in Elliott Street, Tyldesley, near Manchester. At Tyldesley Top ChapelThe township of Tyldesley's first place of worship, built in 1789. where he was a churchwarden, Grundy experimented heating it using a stove, flues, chimney and ventilators and succeeded in warming it.[1] He decided to manufacture heating apparatus and set up John Grundy Ltd in Lower Elliott Street in 1857. He was granted patent BP 2949 for the apparatus in 1864, and other patents were granted for improvements made in the following years. A monument dedicated to him is sited near the gates of Top Chapel.[2]

Grundy’s son, also named John Grundy (1844–1913), was working in the family shop in 1861. After Grundy senior founded the heating company, father and son continued working in the shop, the census of 1871 lists them as flour dealers. By this time the company was successful, and changing the family fortunes.[2]

Grundy junior was living in Hackney, London by 1881, and later in the 1880s moved to a more fashionable area in City Road, Islington, which became the company’s head office. Now heating and ventilating engineers, the company opened showrooms and work premises in Torrens Street Islington, at 393a City Road, and at 57 Wigmore Street Cavendish Square in London’s West End.[2][3] In 1897 the Institution of Heating and Ventilating Engineers was incorporated, with John Grundy Jr its first president. The company produced iron castings for a wide range of purposes, including machine-tool beds for Churchill Machine Tool Co.[3]

In 1913 Herbert Grundy became managing director after his father’s death, and when the Great War started, the company was placed under government control and its production concentrated on munitions for the war effort.[3]

Products

Grundy’s warm-air stove heating apparatus was installed in several cathedrals and numerous churches and chapels throughout the country. The heating apparatus was produced at the iron foundry and works in Parr Street Tyldesley in 1886.[2][3] Grundy’s products included the Helios and Sirius smoke-consuming grates and the Hestia warming and ventilating stove.[4] The foundry also produced stoves, ranges, fire-grates, cast-iron pipes, fittings, radiators and ventilators.[2]

References

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  4. p. 12

Bibliography

Ferris, R. J. A Short and Varied History about John Grundy. 2005, http://www.hevac-heritage.org/victorian_engineers/grundy/grundy.htm.
Grace’s Guide. “John Grundy.” Grace’s Guide, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/John_Grundy.
Lunn, John. A Short History of the Township of Tyldesley. Tyldesley Urban District Council, 1953.
Roberts, Brian. Heating and Ventilation: Historic Building Engineering Systems & Equipment. English Heritage, 2008, https://content.historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/heating-ventilation/heatingventilation.pdf/.