T. Norris & Son
Maker's mark on the iron from
a Norris smoothing plane |
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| Industry | Manufacturing |
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| Founded | 1860 |
| Headquarters | Lambeth, then New Malden, Surrey |
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Key people
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| Products | Hand tools |
The firm of T. Norris & Son was one of the most prestigious makers of hand tools in England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and famed for the quality and gracefulness of its output, notably of its metal planes. Both wooden and metal planes made in Norris's workshop survive as do other edge tools. Some Norris planes, especially bespoke models, are highly prized by woodworkers and collectors.
Thomas Norris is recorded as a joiners' tool-maker in Lambeth, Surrey by 1861, living at 57 York Street. A works address at 23 York Road, Lambeth, is also given on some tools and on the cover of the c. 1908 price list. Thomas James Norris, the eldest child of Thomas and Eliza Norris is recorded as a tool maker in the 1881 census and again in the 1891 census; by the 1911 census, however, he is recorded as living at 3 Sycamore Grove, New Malden, Surrey, with a "personal occupation" of "iron plane making & repairs for joiners and cabinetmakers also general tool dealers".
It is not known when Thomas J. Norris set up his workshop in the grounds of his house in New Malden. David Russell suggests that this had happened by 1919.
Thomas James Norris died 3 July 1936 leaving an estate of £3640 13s 9d.
W.J. Yarranton worked as an apprentice at the Norris workshop from October 1939 when he joined as a 14-year-old boy until April 1943 when he volunteered for the RAF. When he left he recalls that he was given a reference signed by the director, a Mrs H. Norris.
According to the London Gazette, Helen Sellars Norris, the widow of Thomas was chairman of the company at the time of an Extraordinary General Meeting of T. Norris & Son Limited held on 31 March 1941 at which the resolution was duly passed that "the Company be wound up voluntarily". The Members' Voluntary Winding-up was to be reported at a General Meeting of the Members of the Company on 23 September 1941. The timing of change of ownership has yet to be clarified. It would seem, however, that she had taken charge of the business on her husband's death and that although perhaps no longer the owner of the firm in 1943 when Yarranton left, she was working on as a director after the firm had become Norris Planes Ltd.
Helen Sellars Norris died 8 March 1952 at Worthing.
The quest for full vertical and lateral control of the plane iron had been raging for many years. Leonard Bailey in Connecticut devised a system in 1867 that was to be adopted by Stanley. Charles Nurse in London invented a plane-iron regulator (patented 1889), a device that the firm of Norris & Son experimented with on its planes before Thomas James Norris created and patented an adjustment mechanism of his own.
Under patent 11,526 of 13 July 1913 Norris sought protection for his "Adjustment for Plane Irons". The 1914 Norris price list gives an outline explanation, whereas the HMSO report published in 1921 gives a full description of the mechanism.
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