The career of Edward Bagnall Dimmack as an ironmaster 1835-1875 is complex and full of vicissitudes
The iron and coal industry evolved fast, there were rapid technological innovations and enormous new markets opening at home and round the world. On top of that the capital and investment needed was huge and the risks of failure and bankruptcy were commonplace.
Edward Bagnall Dimmack’s father Jeremiah Dimmack had gone bankrupt in such ventures in 1822 when Edward was only 14 years of age. However, Edward’s career certainly started well with booming markets and huge profits to be made. As far as can be seen his earliest partner was Thomas Firmstone. Seemingly starting as Iron Merchants, they went on to control a number of blast furnaces for iron ore, usually with adjacent coal pits. These were located both in Staffordshire and South Wales.
Thomas Firmstone was one of the five sons of Joseph Firmstone, who died in 1830. Based in Highfield Staffordshire, the Firmstones originated from Broseley, the epicentre of the iron trade. In subsequent years they ended up in South Wales and retained iron and coal works there. The early firm Firmstone, Dimmack and Co has to be seen as part of a Firmstone enterprise.The configuration was soon to change to Dimmack, Thompson and Firmstone.
In 1851 a new venture The Pontypool Ironworks and Tin Plate Co was also formed controlled by partners Dimmack, Thompson and Firmstone (sic). In 1852 Thomas Firmstone dissolved his interest in the partnership. Edward Bagnall Dimmack carried on with his brother-in-law John Thompson who had been in Manchester and then with Joseph Firmstone, Thomas’s older brother.
However, from 1852 things started to get more difficult and there are a myriad of changing partners, dissolutions and attempts to avoid bankruptcy, The key partnership of Dimmack, Thompson and Firmstone was itself also dissolved in 1856 (London Gazette, 26 Dec) and Edward Bagnall Dimmack’s remaining interests appear to have been folded into the new Parkfield Ironworks Co that was run in partnership with his son-in-law Henry Marten, the water engineer.
This involved selling off in 1856 of the Pontypool Ironworks and Tinplate company, representing the residual interest in south Wales.
However, the Parkfield Ironworks Company which was running 5 blast furnaces in the Bilston area was laden down with debts. Writs were issued for the bankruptcy of Edward Bagnall Dimmack in September 1859 – some of it for guarantees made by the partnership Dimmack Thompson and Firmstone.
A huge £400,000 rescue package was contrived by Henry Marten but seems to have ended the iron making careers of both Edward Bagnall Dimmack and John Thompson.
Sources and Notes
- Graces Guide to British Industrial History
- University of Birmingham holds a portfolio of papers relating to the firm MS37/1 (unseen)
- Title deeds including abstracts of title, leases, conveyances, agreements, schedules, and associated papers relating largely to the affairs of three clients of Benbow, Tucker and Saltwell: Edward Bagnall Dimmack, John Thompson and Henry John Marten. Listed below, in approximate chronological order, are the different partnerships/businesses with which they were involved whose affairs are represented in the papers.
- Pontypool Iron Co [formerly the Pontypool Iron and Tin Works], Panteague, Monmouthshire. Partners: Edward Bagnall Dimmack, John Thompson, Joseph Firmstone, and John Kenyon Blackwell. Partnership active during the 1850s. Papers include copy and draft leases for lands, mines and properties leased in 1852 from Capel Hanbury Leigh, of Pontypool Park, Monmouthshire, copy mortgages, releases, minutes of agreement, articles of agreement, deeds of indemnity and deeds of dissolution of the partnership between Dimmack, Thompson and Firmstone in 1856, and deeds relating to the sale of the company to Abraham Darby, Thomas Brown, Joseph Robinson, and Frederick Levick in 1857.
- Parkfield Coal and Iron Works Co, Sedgley, Staffordshire. Partners: Dimmack and Henry John Marten. Partnership active during the 1850s-1860s. Papers relate to matters including the purchase of additional mines, works and lands including the Millfield Iron Works, the financial status of the company, and its sale to Thomas Rose and J. R. Whitehead in 1865. Papers include abstracts of title of the Parkfield Coal and Iron Works, copy conveyances and assignments, prospectus and proofs, copy settlement on the marriage of Marten and Frances Ann Dimmack [daughter of Edward Bagnall Dimmack], 1854, and draft agreements for securing the repayment of advances, 1854-1865.
- Coalbrook Vale Iron Works [Blaenau Gwent]. Partners: Dimmack and Thompson. Partnership active during the 1850s and 1860s. Papers include agreements, 1854-1865.
- Bradley Iron Works, nr Bilston, Stafford. Partners: Edward Bagnall Dimmack and John Thompson. Partnership active during the [1850s-1860s].
- Somerford Colliery, Willenhall, Stafford. Partners/shareholders: Edward Bagnall Dimmack, John Thompson and Henry John Marten. Partnership active during the 1850s and 1860s. Papers include conveyance, copy mortgage, and memorandum of agreement, 1864-1868.
- South Staffordshire Coal and Iron Co. Managing Director: Henry John Marten. Papers include prospectus, [1860s].
- Ebbw Vale [Coal] Co. Shareholder: Dimmack.
- In addition to title deeds relating to the specific companies with which Benbow’s clients were involved, there are also papers relating to associated legal affairs of the individual clients. These include papers relating to the bankruptcy of John Thompson, and his bill of complaint issued against George Turner, Edward Bagnall Dimmack, and Jeremiah Dimmack [formerly in partnership as, or employed in, the Bradley Iron Works] to retrieve outstanding monies due from the Bradley Iron Works on the dissolution of Thompson’s partnership with Edward Bagnall Dimmack in 1856. In addition there are draft authorities, copy mortgages, draft creditors’ deeds, and deeds of assignment
- Note that there are several drafts and multiple copies of the same document.