Foundries of Thornaby

Following on from Philip Moore’s photograph of the Motor Cylinder Department at Crosthwaites in the 1920s, is this ragged article showing that by 1966 Crosthwaites was closing down and the teams moving to the Bon Lea Foundry including 8 women to join the 25 woman already there. The Bon Lea would survive only another 10 years or so. The main photograph shows Margaret Armstrong. Kathy Wrightson a co worker was only 17. I wonder if any Bon Lea workers are still with us? I am researching Thornaby foundries for the Thornaby Lives project and would love to hear from them.

Image and details courtesy of Derek Smith.

9 thoughts on “Foundries of Thornaby

  1. While researching my family history I found mention of a Donald M. Robertson , who was assistant works manager at Bonlea Foundry . I do not know when he commenced his employment there .
    However he left in 1939 when he accepted an appointment as foundry works manager at the Thorncliffe works of Messrs Newton Chambers and Co., Sheffield.
    He was a Scot and he had previously worked at foundries in Falkirk , Stirlingshire , Scotland before going to Bonlea Foundry.

    Like

  2. My Grandfather worked as a moulder in a foundry in Thornaby. George Edward Smales was his name (b 1865–1930). I Would like to know which Foundry .

    Like

Leave a comment

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.