William
Marshall
Engineer
Born:
1810
Died: 1881
William Marshall was an agent for a Manchester millwright in St.
Petersburg. He returned to England
and founded The Britannia Works at Gainsborough in 1848. By 1885 the works occupied a 16-acre site and employed 1,900
men. The ‘Britannia Ironworks’
moved to its final location by Central Station in 1856.
It grew in size until it dominated the town covering 16 acres and
employing 3,600 people. It was a
general agricultural engineering works producing traction engines,
steamrollers and other heavy vehicles.
In
1876 he was one of the founding members of the Gainsborough Building Society and
encouraged his workers to buy their own houses. The houses in the streets behind Eastbourne House were built
for his workers. The houses along
Marlborough Terrace were for the foremen. Eastbourne
House itself along with the others in this terrace were built with funding
partly from Henry Marshall, William’s eldest son.
During the First World War it employed 5,000 men making shells, tanks, guns and planes. During the Second World War it produced naval guns, anti-aircraft guns, multi-barrelled pom-poms and 17 pounders for the Navy and Merchant fleets. It also secretly built X-craft submarines.
