Coventry Society member, Malvern Carvell, recently purchased a watch made in Coventry in the late 1860s/early 1870s by Adam Burdess. Malvern set out to find out more about its maker, his life and work. Malvern writes….
Adam Burdess (1824-1892) was born in the small mining village of Hetton, near Kelloe in County Durham to Adam and Jane Burdess and was baptized at Houghton-le Spring Parish Church on 15th August 1824. At the time his father worked as a pitman in the nearby colliery. By 1841 the family were living in the village of Wingate, situated on the Durham Road between Kelloe and Castle Eden. The family consisted of Adam, his parents, an older brother, James and two younger sisters, Barbara and Mary Ann.
Adam went to work on the railways as a locomotive engineer and fireman and was travelling long distances around the country. On 30th April 1849 he married Martha Pemberton (1824-1899) at St Mary’s, Lambeth. They gave their address as 35 John Street, Lambeth; Adam is listed as an engineer whilst his father is shown as a carpenter, deceased. Martha was born in South Stoke, Moulsford in Oxfordshire to Samuel (an agricultural labourer) and Jane. One of Martha’s brothers, also called Samuel, worked for the GWR and was also lodging in Lambeth around the time of their marriage.
The 1851 census shows Adam and Martha living in Castle Street in the village of Neithrop, just north of Banbury, where Adam is described as a locomotive fireman. On 13th July 1855 he applied for his first patent (no. 1604) relating to an oil feeder for lubricating machinery. At the time he was living at 763 Old Station, Rugby (This was specifically engine drivers’ accommodation). Adam and Martha then came to Coventry, where Adam first appears in January 1857 when he took on the licence of the Lamb and Flag at 147 Spon Street from William Payne.
Their only child, Martha Jane, was born the following year and was baptized on 3rd February 1858 at St John’s Church, Fleet Street. Adam is listed on the baptismal record as a publican. However. this was not his sole interest – whether he already had an interest in watchmaking prior to coming to Coventry or whether he saw this as a business opportunity. I can’t tell, but in 1858 he set up a business making watches and working on other railway related designs.
In 1860 he applied for another patent (No. 2223 – relating to improvements to railway brakes – 14th September 1860) and in October 1861 he relinquished the pub to concentrate on the business, transferring the licence to William Reilly. However, he was declared bankrupt in June 1862 – at that time he was living at 65 Mount Street. He continued to trade as a watchmaker and was released from bankruptcy in October 1864.
The business subsequently thrived and by the late 1860s had already produced several thousand time pieces. Adam Burdess was primarily a designer and innovator and in 1869 he took out a patent for a new type of watch, which was wound by a lever rather than the traditional key. His invention (Patent No. 2286 – 28th July 1869) was driven by a desire to make a watch that could be used by locomotive engineers and fireman and was therefore sturdy enough to cope with the requirements of the railways, but was easy to wind and set. Over the next 20 years Burdess went on to produce well over 10,000 lever watches aimed primarily at the railway industry.
In the mid-1870s he had a number of apprentices in training with him and he had a rather unusual way of dealing with any misbehaviour or absences. He would issue a summons for the apprentice to appear in court. When the chastened boy was stood before the magistrates, he would then withdraw the summons on the condition that the boy promised not to do it again. Initially this method rather displeased the Magistrates, who considered it a waste of the court’s time, however when Adam would pay the court costs in full, they were happy to allow the practice. Between 1875 and 1877 I have found at least five apprentices dealt with in this manner – Francis Hewitt, Henry Whitehead, Alfred Deakin, David Pill and Arthur Cole.
In 1869 he also commissioned the building of a new house on the corner of Holyhead Road and Dover Street. This parcel of land was put up for building in 1868 by Henry Brown, auctioneers. Dover House was built on the east side of the street specifically for Adam Burdess and was completed in June 1870.
As well as watches, Adam was also developing other engineering designs and in 1875 he filed a new patent (No. 329 -27th January 1875) for “Hanging Brake Blocks” for railway vehicles. This design attracted much attention in both the UK and US.
Also, around this time Adam brought a young partner into the business. Arthur Townsend (1856-1909). Arthur was born in Foleshill, the son of William and Lucy Townsend, silk ribbon weavers, originally from Bedworth. Arthur trained as a clerk (I’m still trying to find out where). He also attracted the attention of Adam’s daughter, Martha Jane, and the two were married in January 1880. Adam had also moved into property investment around this time and had acquired some properties in Holyhead Road as well as at the western end of Middleborough Road. Arthur and Lucy moved into one of these properties, Claremont Villa, where they went on to have four children Arthur Burdess, Frank Pemberton, Evelyn Lucy and Hilda Marion before Martha Jane tragically died on 6th May 1886 at the age of just 28.
As stated earlier, Martha Jane had been born in the Lamb and Flag and had very much grown up together with the business and it looks like she was quite heavily involved in the watch making process. She seems to have been extremely gifted and attended Cow Lane Chapel and Sunday School; she was also an accomplished piano player, whilst her father played violin.
Through the late 1870s and early 1880s there are a number of reports of Adam and Martha Jane performing together at Sunday School fundraising concerts. As well as supporting the Chapel and Sunday School, Adam also made significant donations (2 guineas each) to Indian Famine Relief, the Society for the Relief of Poverty for Operatives and the St John’s Church Restoration Fund). Also, by 1879 Adam was on the committee of the Coventry Liberal Association and in 1880 he was put up to stand as councillor for the Spon Street Ward and was duly elected.
From council minutes his style seemed quite abrasive. In a discussion of the flooding issues in Spon Street in 1882, he forthrightly put forward his opinion that the proposed scheme was a waste of time and would merely move the problem further downstream. He withdrew as a councillor in 1883 but was persuaded to stand again and served a second term between 1888 and 1890.
Meanwhile in the early 1880s his attention had moved elsewhere and Adam and Arthur began making bicycles and tricycles under the name “Sterling”, from their works in Court 47, Spon Street. Adam filed at least five new patents relating to improvements to the safety bicycle and tricycle – one of these was for “pivot brakes” which looks to be an adaptation of his earlier hanging brakes for railway vehicles.
By 1891 the business had outgrown the Spon Street works and they were looking to build a new factory just to the North between Spon Street and Dover House, however this does not appear to have gone ahead as Adam died soon after and the old works together with all the equipment was sold off in 1893. The freehold of the works was retained by Adam’s estate and was sub-let to the Merlin Cycle Co. of Birmingham (owned by William Ivy Rogers (1863-1935) formerly a manager at Tangyes; William also later established The Electric Picture Palace in Hertford Street) The works were later occupied by Templer and Ranoe (stop valve manufacturers of Thames Ditton) until it was sold in 1907.
Adam Burdess died on 14th August 1892 leaving a personal estate valued at £9,800 11s 1d (around £1 million today).
Following Adam’s death, Arthur and his four children moved in with his mother-in-law at Dover House, whilst continuing to run the watchmaking side of the business. The “Sterling” brand name appears to have been acquired by the “E.T. Hooley” group of business and became involved in the share speculation scam of 1897 (as ”New Sterling”). The cycles continued to be marketed worldwide with the tag line “Built like a watch” until the business was ended when the fraud was uncovered in 1900-1901.
Martha Burdess died in 1899 but the business continued to be run by Arthur who was later joined by his eldest son Arthur Burdess Townsend. (Arthur had matriculated from the Coventry Technical Institute in 1902 as one of the top pupils in Applied Mechanics and Machine Construction and Drawing). His other son Frank Pemberton had trained as a bank clerk and was working for Lloyds Bank. Evelyn Lucy married Sydney Bird, the son of Alderman Frederick Bird, the famous Coventry Chemist, whilst the youngest daughter, Hilda Marion, married John Blackhall, from Inverness. John was also a bank clerk working for Lloyds Bank – they later moved to Tamworth and then Solihull, where John was Bank Manager for a number of years.
Following Arthur Townsend’s death in 1909, Arthur B went to work for the Coventry Ordnance as a foreman/manager and after WWI worked for Armstrong-Whitworth as a travelling service engineer; in 1921 he was in Openshaw, Manchester and in 1939 was in Sheffield. He died in Sheffield in 1947. Arthur B’s eldest daughter Rhona married Sir Stanley Harley who went on to become the Managing Director of the Coventry Gauge and Tool Company. Frank P continued to try to run the watchmaking business whilst also working full time at Lloyds Bank in Earlsdon. In 1916 Frank faced a bankruptcy hearing, but was able to avoid this and continued to struggle on with the business into the 1920s. By 1939 Frank is simply listed as an “insurance agent”, living in Sunderland where he died in 1952.
Following Arthur’s death, Dover House was sold to Edward and Sarah Ann Turrall and was renamed to “Dunsmoor”. Edward was a director of the coach lace and trimmings firm of Dalton and Barton until his retirement in 1909. Edward died in 1911 and Sarah Ann in 1913 and the house was put up for auction in 1913 but failed to sell – it was not until 1916 that it was bought becoming the Dunsmoor Maternity Home in 1917. It was also the headquarters of the Coventry Crippled Children’s League from the early 1920s on and in the early 1930s became part of the Paybody Foundation, which ran the children’s convalescent home in Allesley and the clinic at 55 Holyhead Road. During WWII it was known as the Coventry Infant Welfare Centre and then in the 1950s was the Paybody (Orthopaedic) Clinic. The building was compulsory purchased in August 1962 and demolished to build the ring road.
