J. Stone & Co
J. Stone & Co was a British marine and railway engineering company based in Deptford in south east London, particularly noted for the manufacture of nails and rivets, Stone-Lloyd watertight ships' doors, brass ships' propellers, iron manhole covers, pumps, and railway carriage electric lighting and air conditioning systems. Stone Foundries and Stone Fasteners continue to operate in Charlton.
History
Josiah Stone established an engineering workshop in 1831, producing cast copper nails for the shipbuilding industry in nearby Greenwich. In 1842, with George Preston and John Prestige, he co-founded J. Stone & Co and relocated to premises in railway arches where he made hand pumps and manual firefighting engines. With the company's product range expanded to include rivets and other engineering items, the firm established a foundry in Deptford's Arklow Road in 1881, becoming a specialist in casting large copper propellers.The company's non-ferrous foundry moved to Charlton in 1917, and became J. Stone and Co Ltd in 1951. It produced 22,000 propellers for the Royal Navy during World War II, plus propellers and water-tight doors for RMS Queen Mary, RMS Queen Elizabeth and Royal Yacht Britannia. In 1963 Stone's marine propeller business merged with Manganese Bronze and manufacture moved to Birkenhead.
Stone Foundries still operates at Charlton in a plant established in 1939 to produce aluminium and magnesium light alloy castings mainly for the aircraft industry, having produced specialised alloy parts and aircraft propellers for the Vickers Viscount and de Havilland Comet. In 1982, Stone Foundries was acquired by Langham Industries.
In 1950 the Deptford works made rail and road transport products, nails, rivets and washers. In 1959 the firm became Stone Platt Industries. The Deptford factory closed in 1969, but production of nails and rivets continues at Langham Industries' Charlton-based Stone Fasteners.