William Smith
William was born in Kettering, about 1785, and had five sons:
- Henry Smith (1815-1859)
- Nathaniel (1814-1897)
- William (1819-1895)
- Robert (1821-?)
- Charles (1822-?)
The Smith family, as befits their name, were all connected with engineering.
As a young machinist from Kettering, Henry went to Stamford in 1837 and set up in his own account in the Sheep Market.
Nathaniel and Robert joined Henry in the Stamford works. The full extent of their involvement is not fully clear.
Robert is notable for founding the works band.
Nathaniel, like other family members, was very active in the temperance movement. He later took over an iron foundry at Thrapston and founded his own engineering dynasty.
Almost nothing is known about the fourth brother, Charles, only that he was described in the 1851 Census as a machine maker.
William (Jnr) set up an engineering works in his home town of Kettering. By 1849 his works, in Sheep Street, had become known as the Royal Iron Works. Here William, and later his son James, produced an extensive catalogue of agricultural machinery. Many were prize-winners. Among them was a 12-row steerable horse hoe, which won an award at the Royal Agricultural Society’s show in 1865. William retired in 1885.
Eventually, Kettering Borough Council acquired the site and in 1904 the old works were demolished. A free public library, museum and art gallery were then built on the site. This building is now Kettering Library.
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I can now add a little more history about Nathaniel Smith (1813-1897) of Thrapston. His father was in fact also a Nathaniel Smith, a cooper, and his mother was Mary. They were probably non-conformists so there is no obvious record of the family, except that the brother Charles Richard Thomas Smith (1822-1902) was born and christened in Kettering in 1822, and was reported to have a father Nathaniel and mother Mary. Sadly his mother died about the same time in 1822; the records are for St Peter and St Paul, Kettering. Nathaniel senior was a cooper, and in 1818 registered a patent for a winnowing machine. The Northampton Mercury reported that between 1818 and 1820 he had sold 30 machines from his premises in High St., Kettering.
From census, birth and death records we can chart the movement of Nathaniel junior to Thrapston. He was born in Kettering on 27 July 1813, married Ann Loak in Thorpe Melsor in 1836. From 1837 to 1841 they were in Broughton, where he was a cooper. From 1842 to 1852 they were in Stamford where he was a machinist. Then, in 1854, his son Alfred was born in Kettering, and thereafter his other children were born in Thrapston.
The brother William Smith (1819-1895), a whitesmith and machinist, was developing and building the winnowing machines and corn-dressing machines in Kettering, “invented by the late Nathaniel Smith”, presumably the father of the brothers, according to newspapers in 1847-49.
Robert was an engineer in Southampton in 1871, and he died there in 1876. Charles moved widely, as an engineer and engine fitter, to Birkenhead, Camberwell, and finally to Peterborough where he died in 1902. Henry married Caroline Cole in 1841 in Stamford, they had a son Alfred. After Caroline’s death in 1853, Henry married Jane Roe in 1854, and they had two sons.
I am descended from William Smith (1819-1895) of Kettering. He married Mary Keyston (1819-1898?) of Broughton. They had 10 children including James.
Thank you for the extra information.
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