Webb & Sons Seals, Image by StuE, Found by Allsopp.
Found in the Staffs Region.
The picture is of two Webb & Sons seals selected for the best markings out of 22 supplied by Allsopp (showing this to be one of the commonest bag seals about).
Both sides have a raised circle border. Inside one is a design based on an oval with an annulus overlying the top and bottom. The top annulus is crowned and also obscured by a ribbon showing the name WEBBS. The bottom annulus has the Prince of Wales feathers at its centre, a zigzag pattern in the ring (also visible in the top annulus) and pennants breaching the circles right and left. The centre of the oval has a stylised foliate design, this is contained within a pair of curved lines that have horizontal dashes between them and the outer oval and joined to it left and right by bars with scrolls at their outer ends. The inscription REGISTERED TRADE MARK surrounds the emblem. See the actual trade mark on which the seal was based. The other side has the inscription, WEBB & SONS at the top curving downwards and .SALTNEY CHESTER. curving upwards at the bottom. Between this is a dash dot dash design top and bottom with two lines of letters between - MANURE MANFRS (the last three letters being smaller and underlined).
History of Webbs from Grace's Guide to British Industrial History
"c1850 Edward Webb set up his business as a seed merchant in Wordsley, near Stourbridge.
1894 Edward Webb and Sons acquired and expanded Proctor and Ryland, bone manure works in Saltney, near Chester.
c1890-1900 The company had become the appointed seedsmen to Queen Victoria, and their seeds were well known around the UK.
c1910 William Webb, Edward's grandson, was now running the business.
1925 At Wychbold, Worcestershire, a seed testing ground was set up.
1937 Seedsmen and fertiliser manufacturers.
1960s Company merged with Bees, another seed firm and transferred to Chester.
2004 Unwins Seeds, which then owned the company, was acquired by Westland Horticulture based in Northern Ireland."
From A History of the County of Chester: Volume 5 part 1: The City of Chester: General History and Topography, C.P. Lewis, A.T. Thacker (Editors), 2003, as recorded on British History Online:-
""Saltney's oil industry seems to have peaked in the 1870s. The largest concern, the St. David's Works belonging to the Flintshire Oil and Cannel Co., was forced into liquidation in 1884 after the collapse of the cannel industry. The site was later annexed by its neighbour, the Dee Oil Co. By 1884 that firm employed 300 workers producing candles and a varied range of oils, but in 1913 the refinery was closed and all operations moved to Bootle (Lancs.). Rogers' British Oil Works, Saltney's third refinery, had closed by 1890, but the chemical industry remained important. The bone manure works of Proctor and Ryland was taken over c. 1894 by Edward Webb and Sons, seed merchants of Stourbridge, who expanded the plant to such an extent that by 1910 it was Saltney's second largest business."
