Webb & Sons Bag Seal, Image & Found by Colin G.
23 x 20mm (raised circle 16.5mm diameter) found in the West Midlands.
Standard Webb & Sons Manure Seal.
See UKDFD 12719 - A lead bag seal of Webb & Sons, manure manufacturers (and seed merchants*). The seal is of the 'bulla' type, with a central hole through which the fastening cord is passed prior to stamping.
One side of the seal has the inscription, WEBB & SONS SALTNEY CHESTER (around), MANURE MANFRS (across in two lines). The other side has the inscription, REGISTERED TRADE MARK, around a crowned emblem, which has WEBBS across the top.
* Edward Webb and Sons, seed merchants of Stourbridge, took over the Saltney bone manure works of Proctor and Ryland c.1894. Webbs expanded the plant to such an extent that by 1910 it was Saltney's second largest business.
See also UKDFD 3142 and UKDFD 10265
Info supplied by sen:-
"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.
From: 'Late Georgian and Victorian Chester 1762-1914: The economy, 1871-1914: the limits of reorientation', A History of the County of Chester: Volume 5 part 1: The City of Chester: General History and Topography (2003), pp. 185-199.
