H. H. Martyn & Co.

Other names: H.H. Martyn and Co. Ltd. (from 1900)

Active: 1888 - 1971

Function: Sculptors, monumental sculptors, carvers, gilders and modellers.

History or description: Herbert Henry Martyn founded the company in 1888. It began as a firm of stone, marble and wood carvers specialising in gravestones, memorials and ecclesiastical decoration. In 1898 Herbert took on two partners in the business, his son Alfred William Martyn and Henry Arthur Dutton.

On 28th May 1900, the partnership of H. H. Martyn and Co. was reformed and became a limited company. Herbert took a less active role in its management, the bulk of this passing to his son Alfred William and Henry Dutton. Over the next decade Martyn's diversified into decorative plaster work, joinery, cabinet making, wrought iron work and castings in bronze and gun metal. Later still the company became involved in the production of stained glass and pressed steel.

By 1920, H.H. Martyn and Co. was employing over a thousand men at its Sunningend Works in Lansdown, and it remained the largest employer in the Cheltenham area for many years. The company had premises in many cities, including London, Glasgow, Manchester and Newcastle-On-Tyne (see the Irish Builder). In 1934, the firm was acquired by the London furnishing company, Maples, and in 1971 declining demand compelled it to cease trading (annual general meetings continued after that date, since the firm remained in existence).

During the First World War H. H. Martyn & Co. sub-contracted work on aircraft from 1914. In 1917 the boards of Martyns and the Aircraft Manufacturing Company formed the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company (later the Gloster Aircraft Company) to carry on that branch of business at the Sunningend Works. Later the manufacture of car components and car assembly was also undertaken. The Gloster Aircraft Company was established in new premises in Hucclecote by 1930, but during the Second World War the production of aircraft components was resumed at Sunningend by H. H. Martyn (Aircraft) Ltd.

Other associated companies based at the Sunningend Works were the Cheltenham Manufacturing Co., a subsidiary of H. H. Martyn & Co. formed in 1936 to undertake furniture manufacture, Meigh High Tensile Alloys Ltd., and the Gloster Coach and Sheet Metal Co. Ltd.

Further information about the company's history to be found on the National Archives site http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/A2A/records.aspx?cat=040-d5922&cid=-1&Gsm=2008-06-18#-1 accessed 13 January 2010 and in Whitaker (1985)

Citing this record

'H. H. Martyn & Co.', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/organization.php?id=msib6_1232025346, accessed 29 Jan 2023]