George Stothert (n.b. early on the name is sometimes rendered as Stoddard or Stodhert) moved to Bath in 1785 having taken over Thomas Harris's
ironmonger's business. He was an agent for
Abraham Darby I's
Coalbrookdale Iron Company, selling all types of domestic ironmongery. By 1815 they set up their own foundry as Abraham Darby had opened his own warehouse in Bristol. The company was now managed by his son, also George. In 1851 they exhibited a hand crane at the
Great Exhibition. In 1837,
Henry Stothert, brother of the younger George, set up an ironworks in
Bristol, first as
Henry Stothert & Co., then, joined by Edward Slaughter,
Stothert, Slaughter & Co. Slaughter had earlier formed Slaughter & Co. at his Avonside Ironworks, later and better known as
Avonside. This works produced some substantial iron engineering including a swivel bridge over the
river Frome, several of the first engines for Brunel's Great Western Railway and the
Bristol and Exeter Railway, as well as 14 engines for the Brighton and South Coast Railway. Stothert, Slaughter & Co. started building ships in 1844; this part of the business moved to
Hotwells in 1852 and by 1855 was a separate company under the management of Henry's nephew George Kelson Stothert (son of his brother John). By 1862 it had become
G.K. Stothert & Co. Robert Pitt became an apprentice with Stothert in Bath in 1834 to 1840. In 1840-41 he was working as a draughtsman for Stothert, Slaughter & Co. in Bristol but was back in Bath from 1841 to 1842 helping with the establishment of Stothert's Newark Street Foundry. In 1844 Pitt became a partner with Stotherts along with a second partner Rayno, sometimes referred to as Stothert, Rayno & Pitt, the firm was usually, simply, called Stotherts. In 1855 it became Stothert and Pitt, in 1883 a limited company and in 1902 the firm became a limited company This used an arrangement of compensating hoist cables to automatically keep the hook, and load, level as the jib was
luffed up and down.
Bulk handling cranes As cranes became more common in docks, and as ships became bigger, they also became more specialised. In 1927, Stothert & Pitt produced the first
bulk-handling crane. Rather than a simple hook that could handle a range of slung loads, this was a crane designed around the use of an integral grab. Working the grab requires extra cable or cables from the crane jib, so these are a whole specialised design. The first was to unload coal at
a power station in London. Another innovation was the
kangaroo crane. Rather than slewing (rotating) the crane to reach the delivery hopper on-shore, a kangaroo crane has its own in-built hopper beneath the jib, that slews with it. Dumping the grab contents into the hopper now only requires the quicker
luffing movement, without needing to slew.
World War I In July 1915 the company took over the construction of the
Pedrail Machine, an attempt to create an
armoured fighting vehicle for use on the
Western Front. The machine, designed by Colonel
R. E. B. Crompton, a consultant to the
Landship Committee, ran on a pair of pedrail tracks in tandem. It was intended to mount an armoured body on the chassis so that a party of troops could be carried across
no-man's-land. After the Landship Committee decided against the machine, the War Office transferred construction to S&P, with a view to completing it as a mobile
flame-thrower. The finished chassis was handed over to the Trench Warfare Department in August, but no further development took place.
World War II During
World War II the company built
tanks and
miniature submarines for the War Office and was a significant manufacturer of armaments. Stothert's also supplied the Royal Navy with cranes mounted on ships used for hoisting reconnaissance sea-planes from the water. The
Challenger tank was a development of the
Cromwell tank chassis, so as to take the more powerful
17 Pounder gun. Stothert & Pitt built this tank and designed various modifications. Lengthening the chassis from five roadwheels to six presented no difficulty for such an engineering firm, but designing armoured fighting vehicles was new to them and their efforts were not wholly successful. The new turret for Challenger carried the gun and its higher recoil well enough, but only by being nearly twice the height of other turrets for this chassis – making the tank a much easier target. The
A30 (Avenger) tank destroyer was a similar development of a 17pdr gun on the same lengthened chassis, but had an open-topped turret 2 feet lower than that of Challenger. During the development of Challenger, the prototype turret was first mounted on the even larger
TOG 2. and became part of the Clarke Chapman Group of Companies. Clarke Chapman was then subsequently sold to Rolls Royce. After several successful years Rolls Royce decided to concentrate on their core products and in 2000 Stothert & Pitt (Clarke Chapman) was sold to Langley Holdings. Stothert & Pitt moved from Bath to Bristol in summer 2008 to the
Bradman Lake offices on Yelverton Road in
Brislington, Bristol. Bradman Lake moved again in 2019 to Unity Road,
Keynsham taking Stothert & Pitt with them. Stothert & Pitt offer spares and aftermarket support for all its dockside and offshore cranes currently in operation.
Former works Stothert & Pitt's former Newark Works, now
grade II listed, was converted in 2022 into flexible working space for small businesses as part of the Bath Quays development. Its larger site was developed from 2011 into the Bath Western Riverside residential scheme. TCN UK currently owns Newark Works and provides modern meeting rooms and office spaces to entrepreneurs and businesses in Bath. Newark Works now operates as a "creative hub" for local startups and technology companies. == Model range ==