Twyford Bathrooms

Twyford Bathrooms

Type	Private (subsidiary of the Sanitec Group)
Industry	Bathroom fittings
Founded	1849
Founder(s)	Thomas Twyford & Thomas William Twyford
Headquarters	Alsager, Cheshire, England
Products	Sanitaryware
Website	http://www.twyfordbathrooms.com/

Twyford Bathrooms is a manufacturer of bathroom fixtures based in Alsager, Cheshire, England.

History

Thomas Twyford and his son Thomas William Twyford established what we now know as Twyford Bathrooms in 1849 in Bath Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. The worldwide demands for new sanitaryware soon required the building of an all new factory in 1887 at Cliffe Vale, Stoke-on-Trent. This was the first purpose built bathrooms factory in the world.

Today it is owned by the Sanitec Group, which is the largest European manufacturer of sanitaryware.^[1]

In 1999, Twyford Bathrooms were made holders of The Royal Warrant of Appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Company Timeline

1680 Joshua Twyford - born 1640 - died 1729 (89) was the first Twyford to make commercial pottery near Shelton Old Hall, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Specimens of his work can be seen at the Potteries Museum in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, including a salt glazed stoneware teapot inscribed ‘Sarah Twyford’.

1729 Joshua Twyford died. The precise date production ceased at Twyford’s original factory is not known, but the Twyford family continued potting in the district with a possible a lapse of a generation.

1827 Thomas Twyford was born.

1849 Thomas Twyford established two factories where washbasins and closet pans of an elementary nature were made. The first was his Bath Street Works in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. The factory still exists but the street has been renamed Garth Street. The second was his Abbey Works in Bucknall, Stoke-on-Trent. Twyford commenced exporting to America, Russia, Australia, France, Germany, Spain and many other countries.

1849, 23 September – Thomas William Twyford was born. He was born in Hanover Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.

1870 The "Annus Mirabilis" of the water closet. 1870 was the start of thirty years of massive growth of the Twyford company and a flood of sanitary invention.

1872 Thomas Twyford died. Thomas William, at the age of just 23, took over the running of the blossoming company.

1883 Thomas William Twyford introduced the first all-ceramic, free-standing, one-piece,washout, pedestal closet. The Unitas. This incorporated the WC pan with an integral trap as one piece of pottery without the need for a surrounding wooden cabinet. The Unitas was exported throughout the world and the name itself is used to this day in the Russian language to mean toilet.

1887 Twyford’s Cliff Vale factory was built as a "model" factory. The new factory’s toilet facilities and systems of ventilation were treated by Government Inspectors of Factories as a pattern for the whole of Staffordshire. Every workman had his own opening window.

1889 The first washbasins with combined overflows introduced by Twyford.

1896 Twyford formed into a Private Limited Company.

1901 Twyford built a factory in Ratingen, Germany, but vacated it in 1914 during the First World War. It was not reoccupied by Twyford but the Keramag company was established and produces sanitaryware at the factory to this day. Keramag is a member of the Sanitec Group.

1919 Twyford became a Public Limited Company.

1921 Thomas William Twyford died. He was recognised as a leading pioneer in the application of principles of hygiene to sanitary appliances. He became known as "The Father of British Bathrooms."

1929 A new, silent, black-and-white movie film showing the sanitaryware processes was commissioned as a marketing tool by the new Twyford management.

1945 Reconstruction of Etruria Works started and the first tunnel kilns installed.

1953 The Cliffe Vale Fireclay factory was reconstructed (it suffered bomb damage during the second world war.)

1956 Construction at Alsager, Cheshire, of a vitreous china factory was started on a 52-acre (210,000 m²) site. The first stage was completed in 1958.

1960 Twyford commenced manufacture of vitreous china in India, with Hindustan Sanitaryware & Industries Limited.

1962 Twyford established a factory in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

1970 Twyford commenced manufacture of vitreous china in a new factory located in Melbourne, Australia.

1976 A £5 million expansion scheme for the Alsager vitreous china factory completed.

1992 MB Caradon invested £13 million in a new National Distribution Centre and new head office, showroom and administrative block on the Alsager site, which became the largest single unit devoted to vitreous china production and distribution in Europe. (The site at Alsager now covers 70 acres.)

1999 Twyford’s 150th birthday

2001 January HSBC sold Twyford Bathrooms to the Sanitex Corporation of Helsinki, Finland. Sanitec is Europe’s largest producer of Ceramic sanitaryware in Europe and is quoted on the Helsinki stock exchange. Twyford Bathrooms was re-established with the Twyford, Doulton and Royal Doulton brands of bathroom products.

2001 Twyford introduced the first British made, specially designed, valve operated toilet suite to the UK market. The View suite.

2005 Twyford brand logo is redesigned

2007 Twyford’s Sola range completely overhauled and the Rimless Pan launched

2007 Twyford Galerie Flushwise – the dual flush 4 litre and 2.6 litre water efficient suite launched and wins the Water Wise Marque award.

^[2]

2010 The company's parent group Sanitec, announced the closure of the Alsager factory in July 2010, with all manufacturing moving to factories outside the UK.^[3]

2011 Production halted after 162 years, the factory in Alsager, Stoke-on-Trent was closed making way for a Sainsburys, however the offices remain.

2012 Planning permissions proposed for Sainsburys supermarket is refused^[4] due to the impacting nature of surrounding businesses. In October 2012 Twyfords Bath Street Works in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent is finally demolished. Sadly on 28 December 2012 Twyfords Garner Street or "Etruria Works" sustains an enormous fire, with many of the businesses in the last original Twyfords industrial units being affected.

External links

• Twyford Bathrooms
• Waterwise

References