Sankey Green Wire Weaving Company

Dates: 1922 until at least 1961

Location: Mill Lane, Sankey, Warrington and subsequently Grappenhall and then Thelwall

Specialities: woven wire cloth, industrial wire work and welded mesh

The Sankey Green Wire Weaving Company was founded in Sankey by David Kendrick – a former apprentice at Greenings – along with his business partner James Oaks in 1922.

Unfortunately the founder David Kendrick died of cancer in the 1940s and his widow, left with 3 children to support, was advised to sell David’s part of the business to his partner James Oaks. This led to such bad feeling between Mrs Kendrick and James Oaks that when Mrs Kendrick’s son finished school he was refused a job at the wire weaving firm his father had co-founded.

Ironically, given that it had been founded by an ex employee of the company, Sankey Green Wire Weaving Company was later bought out by Greenings and became one of its subsidiaries.

While at Grappenhall the Sankey Green Wire Weaving Company was situated near the Stanney Lunt Bridge, backing onto the canal. There they manufactured heating elements in flying gloves and flying suits that kept people warm in high altitude bombers.

Many years later the company relocated to Thelwall New Road, near Latchford Locks and on the opposite side of the canal from the Richmond Gas Stove works.

The former site of the Sankey Green Wire Weaving Company in Thelwall is now occupied by Knitwire Products.  

This article was written for the Wire Works Project 2020-2021, a National Lottery Heritage funded project aiming to highlight and celebrate the legacy left by the wire industry, which dominated Warrington’s employment structure for over 170 years, putting the town at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution.