Joseph Adamson (1843-1921) and Henry Booth (1818-1899) founded Joseph Adamson & Company in Hyde in July 1874. Adamson was born in Shildon, County Durham, and was the nephew of civil engineer Daniel Adamson, a founder and first chairman of the Manchester Ship Canal Company. Joseph Adamson’s father was an engine driver and later a coal merchant in Doncaster in Yorkshire. In 1858 Adamson was apprenticed at his uncle’s business, Newton Heath Boiler Works outside Manchester, where he became foreman in 1863, managed the works and technical drawing department from 1865, and from 1867 to 1873 was responsible for commercial and technical management. During this time Adamson gained a good deal of experience in the development and improvement of boilers and their constituent components and materials.

Henry Booth was born in Ashton-under-Lyne, then outside Manchester, and was a partner in the Daisyfield Colliery prior to setting up his business of boilermaking with Joseph Adamson. The new company leased a site near a railway line and canal in Hyde, to the south of the city of Manchester. The firm’s first orders came in December 1874, to produce two Lancashire boilers for a firm in London and to repair a third at a site in Leigh in Lancashire. The workload, and consequently the workforce, varied during the first five years of business, but by the late 1870s the firm was employing an average of around sixty men and were producing their first boilers made partly from steel rather than entirely of cast iron. Although steel was not a new material, its properties were not fully understood, and its use in high-pressure boilers was still under development. Almost all the boilers produced were steel by the mid-1880s, however. In addition the company was also making several types of domestic iron products, such as water heaters and roof components.

Sales of boilers increased throughout the 1880s and 1890s, with an increasing number going for export. The firm built several different designs and modified a number of them for customer’s requirements. Henry Booth withdrew from his partnership in the company in 1887 and retired to Southport, where he died twelve years later. Several improvements were made to the company’s premises over these years, with older buildings being enlarged or demolished and new offices and an overhead crane being installed. Electricity was increasingly used for power and lighting, the company being one of the first in Great Britain to use electrical equipment in their works. Adamson’s also began to produce cranes after Joseph Adamson saw them used in North America. Adamson cranes were almost all electrical overhead models, and soon became a popular and reliable addition to their business. Their early cranes could lift between 10 and 75 tons, and were built by a workforce of around 140 men on the shop floor alone.

Joseph Adamson was now a member of several engineering institutions and his company employed his sons Daniel and Harold, who began to progress in their knowledge of the business. Work also started on producing Perkins’ boilers after Adamson had paid some of the costs of A. M. Perkins’ patent, though this was not a terribly successful venture. 1898 was a good year for the business, when it sold 115 boilers and twenty-seven cranes, in addition to hundreds of ends for boilers for the refurbishment of older units. Only around a fifth of the company’s products now stayed in the north-west of England, with the remainder travelling further afield or going for export.

By the beginning of the twentieth century the factory was six times larger than when it first opened in 1874, and around 270 men were employed in an increasing number of specialised trades. The production of cranes enabled the company to quadruple its profits over the five years to 1900. Boilers were becoming stronger and working at higher pressures due to improved designs and the use of steel, but as a consequence they were more complicated to make, heavier, and relatively expensive. Around a third of the boilers were sold to engineering concerns, with smaller numbers going to utilities, mining, textiles, and iron and steel works. The Admiralty bought several units for use in torpedo boats and destroyers.

Daniel and Harold Adamson became partners in their father’s firm in 1902, and several improvements were made to the site and the machinery used by the firm over the years leading up to the First World War. The first part of the twentieth century was not a good period for the company, as the general economic situation was poor for many engineering firms. The improved machinery enabled Adamson’s to offer larger or more specialised products, but overall sales fell dramatically during this period. Both crane and boiler sales fell from dozens of units to single figures in some years and the workforce dropped to just over 100 men as a result. Daniel Adamson made moves towards a possible merger with other firms, but nothing ever came of his investigations.

Technical development of their main product, the Lancashire boiler, was somewhat slow considering that many were being replaced by newer water-tube boilers, and it was only crane production that kept the company’s finances in a reasonable state. Adamson’s began to make a variety of smaller items again in order to increase turnover, including furnaces, vulcanising pans and tar stills. They also built sea-mine casings and tin crushers that flattened tins and buckets for easier disposal.

Joseph Adamson died shortly after the First World War and his two eldest sons became partners in the company. In 1925, Harold Adamson sold his stake to his brother Daniel who became sole owner. Daniel then filled the role his father had previously occupied, becoming president of both Manchester and national engineering and civil engineer societies. He also wrote papers and was presented with awards and honorary degrees in connection with engineering. His sons, George and another Joseph, managed the business following Daniel’s death in 1930, and converted the firm to a limited liability company in 1935. Co-operation in the production of cranes was also started during the inter-war years with The Horsehay Company who were based in Shropshire.

Previous contact with the North American market led to the formation of a joint company with the Alliance Machine Company of Ohio in 1938, who specialised in the production of machinery for handling metal in steel works. Following the Second World War the company began to renew many of its buildings and to expand on land adjacent to its premises. Several new workshops and a new crane-erecting bay were built on a site that now covered around fourteen acres.

Cranes that could lift up to 300 tons were now being built and facilities for the heat treatment of large pieces of metal were installed. Both Adamson’s and the Horsehay Company had directors sitting on both boards as links became closer, and soon all crane production was concentrated at the Shropshire company’s site. The 1960s and 1970s saw many engineering firms in increasing difficulties and Adamson’s was little different. George Adamson’s son John became managing director in 1970 and sought alternative products to the boilers and cranes that had been the firm’s mainstay for so long. This initiative was not successful, and after a period of losses the family sold their controlling interest in the firm to management consultants. After several further years of losses Edgar Barlow, a previous company secretary, devised another rescue package for the company. This improved the economic position of the company and Barlow acquired a controlling interest in 1985.

Two companies bearing the Adamson name then existed on the site: Adamson (Dished Ends) Limited made dished and flanged ends for boilers and large vessels, and Adamson (Heat Treatment) Limited engaged in shot blasting, painting and heat treatment processes. Many of Adamson’s former buildings were let to other companies. The firm went into receivership in October 2001.