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Screws and fasteners

How Birmingham and Smethwick came to make most of Britain’s screws, nuts and bolts — from hand-made blunt screws to the American pointed screw at Nettlefold & Chamberlain, and on to GKN.

A cast-iron machine for turning and slotting wood screws.
photographed 2005. Birmingham Museums Trust via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Before the 1850s a wood screw was a blunt instrument. It was made largely by hand, and a carpenter had to bore a hole with a gimlet before he could drive it in.

The pointed screw

In 1854 John Sutton Nettlefold, who already made screws in Birmingham, bought the British rights to an American invention: a self-acting machine that fed in wire and turned out finished screws with sharp points, each its own gimlet. With his brother-in-law Joseph Chamberlain he built the Heath Street Works in Smethwick. Their sons, Joseph Henry Nettlefold and the younger Joseph Chamberlain, ran it.

Machines beat hands. Small makers of the old screws went under, and Nettlefold & Chamberlain dominated the British market by the mid-1860s. Chamberlain then bought up rivals until the firm held something close to a monopoly.

Nuts, bolts and GKN

Smethwick had a second great fastener firm. Watkins & Keen, at the London Works, was making about a third of the Midlands’ nuts and bolts by the early 1860s; in 1864 it merged into the Patent Nut and Bolt Co., with Arthur Keen as chairman. In 1880 Nettlefolds Ltd absorbed the Birmingham Screw Company, and in 1902 it joined Guest, Keen & Co. to form Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds. By 1914 GKN made over half Britain’s screws and about a quarter of its nuts and bolts.

The end of an era

In the late 1960s the Heath Street Works still covered 50 acres and employed about 4,500 people. The industry declined later in the century. The Midland Metropolitan University Hospital now stands on former GKN land, and a Nettlefold & Chamberlain screw machine survives in the Birmingham Museums collection.

On the map

2 places connected with Screws and fasteners. Tap a number for directions — some sites are private homes or gardens, so each place’s page says what you can see from the street.

11. Highbury, Moor Green — Surviving, Surviving but altered22. Heath Street Works (Nettlefold & Chamberlain), Smethwick — Site redeveloped
Map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Old map: Ordnance Survey six-inch, 1888–1913, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC BY 4.0). A dashed ring means the position is approximate; a shaded ring means only the general area is known.
  1. Highbury, Moor Green — Surviving, Surviving but altered · Directions to Highbury, Moor Green (opens Google Maps)
  2. Heath Street Works (Nettlefold & Chamberlain), Smethwick — Site redeveloped · Directions to Heath Street Works (Nettlefold & Chamberlain), Smethwick (opens Google Maps)

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Key dates

  1. 1834 — Nettlefold sets up a steam-powered screw works off Broad StreetAccording to Grace’s Guide, the London ironmonger John Sutton Nettlefold opens a steam-powered wood-screw works in Baskerville Place, off Broad Street, Birmingham. Garvin dates the move to Birmingham to about 1842.
  2. Autumn 1854 — Joseph Chamberlain arrives in BirminghamAged eighteen, Joseph Chamberlain comes from London to look after his father’s investment in the screw business. He takes charge of the firm’s commercial side from its Broad Street office.
  3. 1854 — Nettlefold & Chamberlain founded at Heath Street, SmethwickJohn Sutton Nettlefold buys the British rights to an American pointed-screw machine. With £10,000 from his brother-in-law Joseph Chamberlain, he builds the Heath Street Works in Smethwick, run by their sons.
  4. 12 April 1866 — John Sutton Nettlefold diesThe founder of the Nettlefold screw business dies in London and is buried at Highgate Cemetery.
  5. 1869 — Chamberlain becomes a partner; the firm buys Imperial MillsJoseph Chamberlain is made a partner in Nettlefold & Chamberlain, and the firm buys the Imperial Mills opposite the Heath Street Works for nuts, bolts, wire and nails.
  6. 1874 — Chamberlain retires from the screw tradeMayor of Birmingham since 1873, Joseph Chamberlain sells out of Nettlefold & Chamberlain to devote himself to politics. Garvin says the decision was taken in the spring; Grace’s Guide dates his departure to June.
  7. 1880 — Nettlefolds Ltd incorporatedThe screw business becomes Nettlefolds Ltd and takes over the Birmingham Screw Company’s St George’s Works across the canal from Heath Street.
  8. 1902 — Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds formedNettlefolds merges with Guest, Keen & Co. By 1914 the new company makes over half Britain’s screws and about a quarter of its nuts and bolts.
  9. 6 October 2024 — Midland Metropolitan University Hospital opens on former GKN landThe new hospital at Grove Lane, Smethwick, built on former GKN land near the old Heath Street screw works, opens to patients.

The full timeline →

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Sources and further reading
  1. Smethwick: Economic history, in A History of the County of Stafford, vol. 17, pp. 107–118 — M. W. Greenslade (ed.), Victoria County History, 1976
  2. Nettlefold and Chamberlain — Grace’s Guide, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History
  3. Nettlefolds — Grace’s Guide, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History
  4. The Life of Joseph Chamberlain, vol. 1: 1836–1885 — J. L. Garvin, Macmillan, 1932
  5. Bournville again: can a new Birmingham hospital recreate the Cadbury effect? — Clare Goff, The Guardian, 2017

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