Butterley Ironworks
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| Ltd | |
| Industry | Engineering, Oil, Nuclear engineering |
| Founded | 1790 |
| Founder | Benjamin Outram |
| Headquarters | Ripley, Derbyshire |
| Products | Cranes, Fabrications, Structures |
| Parent | Former Hanson plc subsidiary |
| Divisions | Cranes, Structures, Fabrication |
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Footnotes / references Founded as Benjamin Outram and Company |
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The Butterley Company was an English manufacturing firm founded as Benjamin Outram and Company in 1790. Portions of it existed until 2009.
This area of Derbyshire had been known for its outcrops of iron ore which had been exploited at least since the Middle Ages. After the Norman Conquest, nearby Duffield Frith was the property of the de Ferrers family who were iron masters in Normandy.
In 1793, William Jessop, with the assistance of Benjamin Outram, constructed the Cromford Canal to connect Pinxton and Cromford with the Erewash Canal. In digging Butterley Tunnel for the Cromford Canal, coal and iron were discovered. Fortuitously, Butterley Hall fell vacant and in 1790 Outram, with the financial assistance of Francis Beresford, bought it and its estate.
The following year they were joined by Jessop and John, the grandson of Ichabod Wright, a wealthy Nottingham banker who was betrothed to Beresford's daughter and who owned the Butterley Park estate.
In 1793 the French Revolutionary Wars broke out and by 1796 the blast furnace was producing nearly a thousand tons of pig iron a year. By the second decade of the next century the company had expanded with another works at Codnor Park in Codnor, both works then having two blast furnaces, and output had risen to around 4,500 tons per year.
Outram died in 1805 and the name changed to the Butterley Company, with one of Jessop's sons, also William, taking over.
In 1814 the company produced the iron work for Vauxhall Bridge over the River Thames.
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Wikipedia