Robinson Thwaites was a nineteenth century mechanical engineer and mill-owner in Bradford

Bradford

Bradford lies at the heart of the City of Bradford, a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, in Northern England. It is situated in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Leeds, and northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897...

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. His father, Thomas Thwaites, was a master plumber. Robinson trained as a plumber to follow in his father's business and started to practice as a plumber.
But instead, by 1848 he founded the Vulcan Iron Works

Vulcan Iron Works

Since Vulcan was the Roman god of fire and smithery, the name was an obvious choice for an iron foundry or mechanical engineering works in the nineteenth century, both in England, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and in the United States.-England:...

 at Bradford, as shown in an 1858 lithograph in the Illustrated Commerce Guide. His firm, Robinson Thwaites and Co, later (1862) Thwaites and Carbutt, and (in 1880) Thwaites Brothers, acquired a high reputation for its machinery used in the production and manufacture of iron and Bessemer process

Bessemer process

The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly...

 steel.

For example, in 1877 Thwaites and Carbutt supplied a rolling mill engine for the Eston Ironworks of Bolckow, Vaughan and Co. It had a 36 inch (91.44 cm) bore, and a 54 inch (137.16 cm) stroke.

The pioneering engineering work of Thwaites and his partners is evident from the numerous patents they took out. One was for improvements to steam hammers.

Another, taken out by Robinson's son William Henry Thwaites with help from Edward Carbutt

Sir Edward Carbutt, 1st Baronet

Sir Edward Hamer Carbutt, 1st Baronet was an English mechanical engineer who was President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a Liberal politician....

 was for mine ventilation equipment.

Thwaites' work as a mechanical engineer was continued by three of his sons, Thomas Hirst Thwaites, Arthur Hirst Thwaites, and Edward Hirst Thwaites, all of whom became engineers in the firm. A fourth son who also worked at the Vulcan Iron Works, William Henry Thwaites, died aged 32. His eldest daughter, Mary Elizabeth Thwaites, married the Chief Clerk to Bow Street Magistrates' Court

Bow Street Magistrates' Court

Bow Street Magistrates' Court was the most famous magistrates' court in England for much of its existence, and was located in various buildings on Bow Street in central London close to Covent Garden throughout its history.-History:...

, John Alexander (chief clerk)

John Alexander (chief clerk)

John Alexander was Chief Clerk to Bow Street Magistrates' Court, then called Bow Street Police Court , and simultaneously, as was then the custom, Editor of the Police Gazette in England from 1877 until his retirement in 1895.John Alexander was born in Wooler, Northumberland, son of country...

.

The company grew from a firm of "3 seniors, 50 men and 6 boys" in 1851 to "130 men and 13 boys" by 1871. The company continued in production until at least 1914.