Industry
19th Century Rotherham was one of increasing industrialisation in the town and borough of Rotherham. The Walker Brother's Iron and Steel businesses were closed in the 1820s but this did not spell disaster but opportunity. Many of the works were taken over and run successfully by former employees. The iron and steel trade expanded onto larger sites just outside the town like Parkgate and Templeborough. A wide variety of goods were made, household items like spades and shovels, industrial items like paddle wheels shafts, military goods like cannon, right up to massive bridges like the Southwark Bridge produced by the Walkers.
To house the workers needed for the works there sprung up large estates of small, often badly built housing on areas that had been meadows and fields.
The Rotherham Directory for 1837 lists the following manufacturing firms – Eleven maltsters, Seven nailmakers, Seven rope and twine makers, Six blacksmiths, Five iron manufacturers, Five wheelwrights, Four steel converters, Three sawmills, Three iron founders, Three fork makers, Three whitesmiths, Two boat builders, Two manufacturing chemists, Two tanners, Two worsted manufacturers, Two glass manufacturers, One flax spinner, One seed crusher, One starch manufacturer. There were forty-five inns and twenty beer houses, hence the eleven maltsters.
The 1887 Rotherham Directory also lists agricultural implement makers, boiler makers, stove grate makers, chain manufacturers, file and spring makers, hoop makers, spade and shovel makers, steel rollers, brass founders, brewers (I take this to means firms rather than individual maltsters), and earthenware manufacturers. Public Houses and beer houses had increased to sixty-five apiece - that was a hundred and thirty places to drink in town.
See also the page onsite about Trade & Industry in Rotherham in Rotherham.