William Bentall
1776 - 1836
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William
Bentall invented the Goldhanger Plough while living at Cobbs
Farm Goldhanger in the late 1700s. It was so efficient that other local farmers
asked him to make one for them. The ploughs were initially made by the local
blacksmith, but William Bentall soon opened a small foundry and smithy on land
opposite his farmhouse as demand grew. His plough became well known around the
world for over a century and had the named the 'Bentall Goldhanger' cast into
the iron casing, as shown on the left here...
and here are some early
photos of the plough in use... ( select a photo to enlarge and zoom in )
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at Rochford in Essex |
a Goldhanger plough at work |
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a Goldhanger plough at work in 1930s |
a land girl ploughing in WW-2 |
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However
he did not patent the design and the Warren Ironwork on the Maldon Causeway and
others produced imitations using the “Goldhanger” name.
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In 1795 William Bentall became a manufacturer of
agricultural machinery based in Goldhanger and ceased farming. He realised
however that raw materials had to be imported and finished products shipped out
by water and rail, and Cobbs Farm was not the ideal location, so in 1805 he
located his works on the banks of the recently opened Chelmer and Blackwater
canal at Heybridge, just three miles away. Raw materials could then be brought
directly up the canal in lighters to the new works.
the Goldhanger Plough doesn’t appear to have been
significantly different to other ploughs of that era, but one of the reasons
Bentall’s plough was so successful was its modular design and construction
using separate replaceable parts with nuts and bolts, so that the plough could
be repaired by the farmer without the need to transport it to a blacksmiths.
Bentall developed the technique for mass-production of large strong nuts and
bolts to be able to mass-produce the ploughs.
The innovations continued and in the year following
the move to Heybridge William Bentall introduced the first steam powered
threshing machine followed by many other agricultural implements. William
Bentall never took out patents on his designs but relied on customer
satisfaction to ensure the continued success of his products. The Bentall name
stood for quality and his factory always ran at maximum capacity. In 1836
William Bentall was succeeded by his son Edward Hammond Bentall and
subsequently by several generations of the Bentall family. In order to
safeguard the expanding business in 1839 the company began trading under the
name of E.H.Bentall & Co. and in 1841 a patent was taken out for an "improved Goldhanger plough" to protect the product against imitations. . .
The success of the Company can be seen from an
extract from sales documents...
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here is a Bentalls Illustrated Catalogue from 1885
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this Essex Show on the Causeway in Maldon in the
early 1900s with a row of Goldhanger Ploughs in the foreground...
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here is a site drawing as it
was during WW-2...
and here is a lithographic
drawing of the warehouse by the canal and a photos of “The Towers” family
home...
At its peak just before WW1 the company employed
around 700 people, and many of these were accommodated in houses provided by
the Company adjacent to the factory. The first workers houses were built as
long ago as 1815 when William was still managing the business. This terrace of
red-brick cottages, now listed, were built in the Holloway Road, near The
Square and opposite the family main residence and offices at the time, which
much later became the Benbridge Hotel. . .
In the 1920s the Bentall’s agricultural engineering
company at Heybridge acquired two WW-1 hangers, which almost certainly came
from Goldhanger. They were re-erected on the Bentall site, but was never
effectively used and became known by the workers as “The White Elephant”. They
was removed and replaced by a new foundry building in 1949...
Also in the 1920s in memory of their son who was
killed in the war the family acquired the former Sergeants Mess building from
the Goldhanger Flight Station site and installed it in Heybridge Basin as St
Georges Chapel where it remains today...
In 1961 the company was taken over by the Acrow group
of companies which itself went into receivership in 1984, so the business that
was founded nearly 180 years ago was finally closed down. However, one of
todays agricultural companies still has past links with Bentalls and the
Goldhanger Plough.
From. . . www.bentallrowlands.com/about-us/history . .
Bentall Rowlands Storage Systems
Limited
can trace its origins back to the industrial and agricultural revolutions that
sent waves of influence around the world. In the middle of the 18th century,
William Bentall, an Essex agricultural engineer, designed the famous Goldhanger
plough. Its design was so state
of the art it remained in production until 1947. Over the years the Company
passed from father to son - always innovative - always successful. Patents and
designs followed rapid succession and by the late 19th century it had even
diversified into the design and manufacture of yachts and motor cars. The
Company grew and developed, exporting its products throughout the world. In
1961 the Acrow Group acquired the Company and rationalised it to concentrate on
coffee machinery, bulk storage and handling equipment. In the early 1980s the
Bentall companies were sold and moved to Scunthorpe. In 1988 the new company
acquired Rowlands Engineers and amalgamated its bulk storage and handling
business with that of Bentalls, all manufacturing being at the Scunthorpe site.
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extract from. . .
http://unlockingessex.essexcc.gov.uk
Monument Name: Goldhanger Iron Foundry SMR Number:
15303
The Goldhanger foundry was established by W. Bentall
in 1808, but had closed by 1815 when Bentall moved the foundry from Goldhanger
to Heybridge. Foundry field lies immediately east of Cobbs Farm and to the
south of Maldon Road, and is recorded on the 1841 tithe map (ERO/D/CT 150) as
field 132. Although no structural evidence survives the foundry was probably
sited toward the north of the field beside the road. The field has not been
excavated but has potentially important deposits of a short lived early
nineteenth-century foundry comprising footings, foundations, working floors and
furnace beds. This is of one of the earliest iron foundries to be established
in Essex. The short period of operation and lack of subsequent development
suggests the presence of significant and potentially schedulable archaeological
remains.
The
location of the Foundry Field is identified on both the 1820 Tithe Map &
Awards and the 1838 Tithe Map Tithe Awards. In both Awards listings it is entry
132. In both the owner is given as Henry Coape and the occupier
(farmer?) as James Wood. In the 1838 Tithe Awards it is listed as:
The field is
identified on English Heritage maps of listed sites, and a 1805 map show a
small building in the north-east corner of this field. . .
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A report of an
Archaeological Evaluation of Cobbs Farm lands undertaken in 2009, recorded..
. . .Goldhanger Iron Foundry was formerly located to
the east of the site (EHER 15303). The foundry was established by W Bentall in
1808 but closed by 1815 to move to a site in Heybridge, the location shows
potential for important archaeological remains of an early iron foundry. . .
In 1820 the date
of the earlier Tithe Map & Awards, Cobbs Farmhouse, or homestead was recorded as in the ownership of Henry Coape
with the occupier as James Wood, so presumable William was living in
Heybridge by this time. However, in the same Tithe Awards document, William
Bentall is recorded as being the owner of thirteen cottages in Goldhanger
Parish, including a carpenters shop and the Pit
cottages, which were being used as the village school
at that time. They were still listed as in his ownership in Tithe Awards of
1838, which was two years after his recorded death.
These local newspapers advertisements would indicate that William continued to be the occupier and proprietor of property at Goldhanger until his death. . .
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In 1815 William Bentall had an iron chest made for St Peters Church, which remains in the Church today,
and later his son Edward presented a set of iron gates to the Church also in
recognition of the Company connections with the village. . .
There have been other links between the Bentall
family and Goldhanger. Second Lieutenant Earnest Hammed Bentall Bentall, son of
Edmund and Maude Bentall, served in WW-1 and was killed in action. His family
purchased the former Sergeants Mess hut from Goldhanger
aerodrome site, moved it to Heybridge Basin and commissioned it as St
Georges Chapel in memory of their son. It has a fine stained glass window at
the east end dedicated to their son. At the same time the Company acquired a
redundant WW-1 aircraft hanger, which most probably came from the nearby
Goldhanger aerodrome and May & Butcher who purchased many of the
building from the site and sold them on. It was re-built on the Bentall factory
site, but was never apparently used and became known as The White Elephant. It was finally removed and replaced by a new
foundry building in 1949.
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These two advertisements appeared in of a local newspaper adjacent to each other on the same day in 1850. Both refer to the Goldhanger Plough, and both claiming to have made improvements. . .
and from the 1851 Great Exhibition and the 1855 Paris Inventors Exhibition catalogues...
...the “self-registering dynamometer” plotted the horse-power/torque on a
disc as the device was pulled along a field!
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Here is a newspaper report
of a ploughing match held in Goldhanger in 1841. At the time Mr Steadman was
the farmer at Hall Farm. The Prize winners had used
Bentall and Warren ploughs...
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Over the years several
Goldhanger ploughs have been preserved locally. . .
- Maura Benham
had one in her garden in Goldhanger
- Cyril
Southgate also had one in his garden in Goldhanger
- There was one in the Maldon & District
Agricultural & Domestic Museum at Goldhanger
- One can be seen at the Museum of Power at Langford
- There is one at in the Chaff Room the Cressing
Temple Barn.
- There is one inside the Parish Church at Layer
Marney
- There is one in the Weald & Downland Museum in
Kent
- A plough was offered for sale at Chappel, Essex in
2008 for ₤200
- Others remain in private hands locally
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Cyril and Eileen with their
Goldhanger Plough |
the plough at the Museum of
Power |
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Goldhanger Plough in Layer
Marney Parish church |
in the Weald & Downland Museum |
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a Pagetted impression of a
Goldhanger Plough built into the Village School as part of the 1986 extension |
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There are also Warren
Goldhanger Ploughs held locally, which are very similar in appearance . . . |
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“God Speed
the Plough”
mugs, tankards and plates, etc. were popular with the farming community in
Victorian times and earlier, and the images of ploughs could well have been
based on the Goldhanger Plough which was the most well known of its type in
those times. There are many examples still around... |
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Even in 1930 it seems it
was still good enough for the
locals. . .
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Beryl Claydon book
entitled: Heybridge in
the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, published in 2012, devotes
33 pages to the history of the Bentall family and the Company, from which some
of the information on this page has been taken.
In 2025 documents appeared
on the web that revealed some interesting close links between the Bentall family of Goldhanger and
Heybridge, the Lott family of Willy
Lott's Cottage, Flatford, the Constable
family of Flatford Mill and the Crick &
Freeman family of solicitors in Maldon. The following publications
were written by Brian Lott who is a direct descendant of the Lott family...
These 3 PDF files contain about 320 pages and
include many family photos. Here are some short extracts...
“The
Bentalls of Bentall Hall in Shropshire trace their family history back to the
12th century. In the 16th century two Bentalls moved from
Shropshire to Halstead and married two protestant sisters. They became active in
the wool trade and, when that declined, William Bentall
(1758-1787) moved to Goldhanger where he had a farm and an iron foundry. He
died aged 29 and his son also William
(1782-1846), a talented musician, took on his father’s farm when he was only 19
and married Mary Hammond. It was their eldest son, Edward
Hammond Bentall (1814-1898) who took over his father’s iron foundry
business when he was 22 and developed it into the family agricultural machinery
business E.H. Bentall & Co. of Heybridge making the family fortune. He
married Susanna Woodgate in 1846 and lived at The Towers, Heybridge. He became
Liberal MP for Maldon and designed the first ‘modern’ racing yawl (120 ton) of
which there was a model in the Science Museum. In 1861 he became Captain of the
1st Essex Volunteer Corps, largely made up of Bentall family,
friends and employees, and arranged for the construction of a drill hall and
rifle range at Heybridge Basin. In 1806 William designed and manufactured his
first steam-driven threshing machine. With his wife Mary Hammond (d.1839) he
had seven children.
In
1846, he developed Bentall’s Broadshare Plough of which 14,000 were sold in
eight years. He lived at The Towers, Heybridge, was Liberal MP for Maldon, was
founding Commodore of the Blackwater Sailing Club and designed the first
‘modern’ racing yawl (120 tons) of which there is a model in the Science
Museum.
William Rufus Bentall (1822-1905) married Ann Durrant Lott (1824-1904) of the
Valley Farm, Flatford in 1847 when he was 25 and she 23; they had three
children, all born at Flatford. Although William Rufus was born at Heybridge in
Essex he probably grew up in Boxted Hall where the family were living there. As
a young man, William Rufus had served a milling apprenticeship at Ardleigh
Lower Watermill, alongside Stephen Durrant Lott, Ann’s brother, from the Valley
Farm at Flatford, and they became life-long friends.
Together
with Stephen Durrant Lott,
William Rufus Bentall became joint owner of Flatford Mill which the pair bought
from Abram Constable in 1846.
[Abram was John Constable’s brother]
They paid 2000 guineas for the Mill with all its equipment, two millers’
cottages and the brick-built residence where Abram and his sister Mary had
lived. The 1851 census shows William and Ann Bentall living at Flatford Mill,
across the lane from the Valley Farm. William was Master Miller and Merchant at
Flatford where he, Ann and their 3 children were to remain until the mid-1860’s
when he gave up milling and moved back to Heybridge to manage the very successful
iron foundry of his older brother Edward Hammond Bentall.
Thomas Lott and his wife Emily née Bentall. Emily was born on 8
Feb 1830 in Heybridge and died in Maldon in 1902 aged 72. When William and Ann
Bentall moved to Heybridge, Ann already had family living there. There had been
a second Lott-Bentall marriage at Walton le Soken parish church on 16” August
1854. William’s youngest sister, Emily Bentall, had married his wife’s younger
brother, Thomas Lott (1832-1924). Thomas Lott had then become Farm Steward at
The Farm, Heybridge, owned by his wife’s older brother E.H. Bentall, a position
he held throughout the remainder of his working life. In 1867, Ann Bentall and
Thomas Lott were joined in the Heybridge area by their youngest sister, Fanny
(née Lott), whose husband, Alfred C Freeman, was a solicitor in Maldon just
across the Causeway over the River Chelmer”.
Here
is a simplified family-tree based on one in the documents... (select to enlarge)
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