Woodall-Duckham Ltd
Woodall-Duckham Ltd was a gas engineering and retort manufacturing firm which designed, erected and repaired coal carbonisation plants for the gas and coke industry. It was founded by Colonel Harold W Woodall and Sir Arthur McDougall Duckham in 1911 as The Woodall-Duckham Vertical Retort and Oven Construction Company Limited. These two had previously operated a partnership from 1903 following their registering of a patent for a vertical retort and had installed their first commercial plant in 1906.
In 1920 a holding company, Woodall-Duckham (1920) Ltd was established. This oversaw a number of other companies including Arthur Duckham & Company, which handled administration operations, and Woodall-Duckham Vertical Retort and Oven Construction Company (1920) Limited, which took over the assets of the 1911 company and acted as the group’s operating company. By 1928 the group had acquired two further subsidiaries The Thermal Industrial and Chemical (T.I.C.) Research Co Ltd and Liquid and Solid Fuels Ltd.
In 1929 Woodall-Duckham produced and installed the first coke over to use the Becker System and during the 1930s it had installed equipment at various sites. In 1940 it acquired The Koppers Coke Oven Company Ltd.
In 1948 Woodall-Duckam Ltd was incorporated as a public company and replaced Woodall-Duckham (1920) Ltd as the holding company for the group. Woodall-Duckham Vertical Retort and Oven Construction Co. (1920) Ltd would continue as the operating company, although it would be renamed the Woodall-Duckham Construction Company. In 1958 a high-pressure division would be established within the operating company.
By 1959 the Woodall-Duckham group was made up of Woodall-Duckham Construction Company Ltd, W.J. Jenkins & Company Ltd, Woodall-Duckham (Australasia) Pty Ltd, The Stourbridge Refractories Company Ltd and United Fireclay Products Ltd. Two years later it would include Nordac Limited, Ames Crosta Mills & Company Ltd, Woodall-Duckham Construction Company Ltd, United Fireclay Products Ltd, The Stourbridge Refectories Company Ltd, W.J. Jenkins & Company Ltd and Woodall-Duckham (Australasia) Pty Ltd.
In 1973 Woodall-Duckham Ltd became part of the Babcock and Wilcox Group.