Gimson and Company

Gimson and Company were founded in 1840 by Josiah and Benjamin Gimson on Welford Road in Leicester. The company were listed as Engineers, Ironfounders, Boiler Makers & General Machinists. They later moved to Vulcan Works, Vulcan Road, Humberstone Road, Leicester.

The beam engine at Snibston

Gimson & Co builder's plaque on the cylinder casing of 'C' engine at Claymills Pumping Station

Expansion

Between 1876 and 1878 a new works, Vulcan Foundry, was developed beside the Midland Railway mainline. The site covered three and a half acres, the foundry shop was 180 ft by 62 ft. It had a workforce of 350 men and all lifting was done with steam hoists and travelling cranes.

Boot and shoe machinery

Gimson became a major manufacturer of machinery for the footwear industry. The company sold its subsidiary the Gimson Shoe Machinery Company to the British United Shoe Machinery Company in 1930.^[1]

Products

Stationary steam engines, passenger and goods lifts, boot and shoe machinery, agricultural machinery.

Preserved steam engines

Woolf compound rotative beam pumping engines;

• Four of 1885 at Claymills Pumping Station, Burton on Trent.^[2]
• Four of 1891 at Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester

Single-cylinder condensing rotative beam pumping engines of 1879;

• One at Snibston Discovery Park, Coalville, Leics
• One at Forncett Industrial Steam Museum, Forncett St. Mary, Norfolk

Horizontal single cylinder;

• 12"×24" of 1895 Snibston Discovery Museum
• Engine of 1899 at Hall & Woodhouse., Brewery, Blandford St. Mary, Dorset.

Wall-mounted vertical single cylinder lift engine;

• One at Abbey Pumping Station, Leicester

References

1. Leicester Evening Mail - 10 May 1930
2. Claymills.org, Claymills Pumping Station trust site

• GracesGuide.co.uk
• LE.ac.uk
• InternalFire.com
• Leicester Foundries 1845-1914 pp.63-68 Retrieved 27 April 2014.