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Ropes used to be made traditionally by making ropes on walks sometimes several hundred yards long. Strands would be laid out along the full length of the walk and twisted together tending to be a long process taking up many man hours. The race was on for someone to engineer a method to make the process faster, make the rop more uniform along it length but be able to do it in a smaller place. In 1794, Webster and Grimshaw built the first known factory at Deptford to make the first machine made rope.
Richard Fothergill invented the machinery in 1793 where it was developed and patented by John Grimshaw. The location at Wearmouth was perfect for importing of hemp and due to the great volume of shipping in the river a ready made customer base was on the doorstep. The business increased as the collieries and rail industry grew in the UK. Around the late 1830,s a three and a half mile rope was made without a splice to be used in the railway industry.
Wire Rope
At around this time, wire rope was just being developed. In 1840 Websters began producing wire rope having made modifications to the Grimshaw machine. Soon they would become one of the largest manufacturers supplying pits in Wales, the Midlands and Scotland. In 1892 the would produce a wire rope that weighed 25 tons and 6 miles long for use in colliery haulage at Whitehaven on the West Coast.
Other companies in the area such as Speedings and Craven of Roker and Dawson and Usher of Hendon road still had walks to enable manufacture. Speedings began when they took over the Smiths Ropery in 1860. One year before, in 1859 Glaholm and Robson would begin manufacturing wire rope for use in lifts , mining and even the cables on the Widnes Transporter Bridge. Using these cables to pull a large transporter car , people and cars would be able to cross the river. The strength of these cables meant that up to twelve vehicles or 300 passengers could cross in one load.