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Robert Renton Gibbs
The search continues for information about the firm of Renton Gibbs & Co.
The webmaster would welcome contact from any family member, friends
or ex-employees of the firm who could provide additional information or
photographs pertaining to either the family or the firm. This is a story
about an important Liverpool firm, with 100 years of history in the
heating and ventilating industry.
CIBSE October 2006
with acknowledgements to,
Derek Roberts
The British Library
Liverpool Daily Post Newspaper
for their assistance and information.
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Robert Renton Gibbs 1846 - 1935 was born in the Spring of 1846 in Sheffield Yorkshire, the third son in the family of six children of William Henry Gibbs a Woollen Draper and Tailor from Peterborough Northants, and his wife Isabel Gibbs from Edinburgh Scotland. The children were then sadly orphaned at a young age. His grandfather who then became his guardian, brought Renton up and organised his education, and later when Renton had reached working age, his grandfather encouraged him to enter into an apprenticeship in engineering. In 1861 at the age of 14 he was working as a tailors apprentice and still living with his widowed mother in Sheffield, but his keeness to become an engineer soon led him into the new industry of heating and ventilating.
When Renton considered himself suitably competent as an engineer he moved to London and worked there for a firm of heating engineers. Renton was a very inventive employee, creating improvements and inventions to heating systems but although he enjoyed working for this firm, he was not entirely satisfied with the manner in which they treated his inventions. So it was inevitable that on one of his business trips, and this one happened to be to Liverpool, that he saw the opportunity to set up his own company there. So in 1868 at the young age of 21 years, he purchased an office in Lord Street, rented a workshop in St James Street from a Mr Minton and called his new firm Renton Gibbs & Co. This decision now gave him the opportunity to attract business on his own account and put into practice his inventions and improvements. Renton married his
first wife Sarah Ann Dawson in 1865 in London. They
had two sons, the first William, born whilst they
lived in London and the second son Robert, born in
1870 after the family had moved back north to settle
in Liverpool. Sadly his wife Sarah Ann died at a young age in the summer of 1880 when they had returned to live in London. Her death left Renton a widower at a young age looking after the welfare of their 3 sons. This sad event most likely was the reason that prompted him to return to Liverpool. He married again, to his late wife’s sister Alice Dawson and they had a second family with 3 girls Minnie, Elsie and Florence. |
The Mill Street works,
the address that became synonymous with the firm of
Renton Gibbs, was bought in 1876. He considered
these works to be the best of the buildings in that
area of Liverpool that was otherwise full of empty
corn sheds. Looking towards the future success of
his firm he invested hundreds of pounds in buying
and installing machinery, and also erecting new
offices at the Mill Street premises.
After establishing the firm in 1868, by 1871 the Census records Renton still at the comparatively young age of 24, as having his own firm manufacturing heating apparatus and employing 4 men and 2 boys. The firm continued to expand and by 1881 it employed 32 men and 11 boys. In the census of 1881 Renton has now titled himself as a Heating and Ventilating engineer with his son Robert Edward Gibbs also joined the firm as a H&V engineer.
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Renton
Gibbs
& Co appears to have specialised in
manufacturing and installing the High Pressure Hot
Heating (HPHW) system that was originally designed
and Patented by Angier March Perkins in 1831. Many
photographs taken inside the Mill Street works
show the large number of heating furnaces, spiral
furnace heating coils and hydraulic tubing that were
manufactured and then stored ready for the
installation of the Perkins HPHW systems.
 Screwing threads on to hydraulic tubing. Note the semi-circular ends to the benches which are the formers that create the spiral coils which then become the furnace coil. 
  EXTRACT FROM THE BUILDER MAGAZINE 26th APRIL 1890  The Spanish Connection
The list of buildings in Spain in which they installed the heating systems, prior to 1898 is impressive.
1. Bank of
Spain (21 systems)
Madrid
2. El Senado (House of Lords) (6 systems) Madrid 3. El Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) (2 systems) Madrid 4. Excmo. Senora Marquesa de Perinat (Residence) Madrid 5. Senres, Moretones y Hermanos Madrid 6. Excmo Senor Marques de Villamejor (Residence) Madrid 7. Senr. Don Jose Xifre (Residence) Madrid 8. Excmos. Sres de Soriano (Residence) Madrid 9. Senr Donfrancisco (Residence) Leon Castille Research carried out by the Heritage Group has not as yet been able to establish the connection that enabled the firm to make the necessary business contacts to install so many heating systems in such a variety of prestigious buildings in Spain, and why they had a representative established there. In 1898
the firm produced a list of their installations
that ran to several hundreds of premises including
every type of property, Banks, Conservatories,
Churches, Factories, Mansions, Institutions,
Offices, Public Buildings, Railway Stations,
Schools and Hospitals etc. throughout the country. Visits to many of the churches named in
the list located along the border between England
and Wales have so far failed to find a complete
heating system. The only confirmed Renton Gibbs
(Perkins) heating system that has been discovered is
at the National Trust property of Arlington
Court in north Devon. This system still
has the original furnace installed with the Gibbs
company shield shaped nameplate. 
Robert Renton Gibbs was one of the founding members of the IHVE, and is one of the names given in the 1899 first list of Members. His address is given as residing in Elgin Drive, Liscard, Cheshire. Renton died on the 21st June 1935 at
Gorse-mount, Gwernymyndd, Mold in Flintshire aged
89. His Will was probated in London on 27th
January 1936, in the sum of £3879. The beneficaries
were Frederick William Melville Roberts telegraph
clerk and Joseph Alfred Whitby retired Manager.
Stanley Crane an employee who joined the
Liverpool branch of the firm as an office junior in
1940, recalls that his first impression of the firm
was, "he didn’t think the furniture had been
changed since the founding of the firm".
The firm reached its centenary in 1968. This was celebrated locally by a full-page historical article appearing in the Liverpool Daily Post, in which many local and national H&V manufacturers and suppliers congratulated the firm on achieving its first 100 years. |
