Warehouses and things …… along the Duke’s Canal ……… no. 4 … a pressure gauge, the Prussian family, and the Great War

Now when Andy sent over a second collection of pictures of the warehouses, factories and other “things” he encountered along the Bridgewater Canal, I was quite taken by this one.

And I suppose  I was minded to reflect on the contrast between the old and the new, but when Andy also rooted out a picture of the original building from the beginning of the last century I was drawn into the story of Schaffer and Budenberg, who relocated from Manchester to Woodfield Road by the canal in 1914.*

The company originated in Prussia, and was renowned for making high quality pressure gauges, thermometers, valves and manifolds. 

The company was founded in 1849 by B. Schäffer and his brother-in-law C.F. Budenberg, and six years later the firm opened a sales office at St. Mary's Gate in Manchester, and another Glasgow and in 1876 began assembling pressure gauges and other instruments in Manchester.

By 1896 they had moved into a larger factory on Whitworth Street under the direction Fred Budenberg.

“In the decades running up to the First World War and the race for naval superiority, products had to be made in Britain if the company wanted to sell to the British Admiralty. 

To cement this the company was registered as British in 1902, even though it was still almost completely owned and controlled from Germany”.**

And then ….. came the Great War, which resulted in the Government taking over the company, although Fred Budenberg, who had been born in Britain and whose two sons were in the British armed forces in France was directed to continue running the business until the duration of the war.

In 1917 he  bought the company back, with the proviso that all Board Directors were British born, and so the Budenberg Gauge Company Ltd. was formed and shares were held by a Public Trustee. 

Location; Altrincham

Pictures; the Budenberg Building, 2020, from the collection of Andy Robertson, and the Schaffer and Budenberg, Woodfield Road, circa 1914, TL3327, Trafford Life Times, courtesy of Trafford Local Studies Centre, https://www.artuk.org/visit/venues/trafford-local-studies-centre-6551

*Schaffer and Budenberg, Grace's Guide to British industrial history, https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Schaffer_and_Budenberg

** Budenberg Gauge Company, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budenberg_Gauge_Company