| AdminHistory | Eliza Tinsley, born Eliza Butler, in Wolverhampton in 1813, was the daughter of Benjamin Butler, a maltster and later a publican at the Golden Fleece, Dudley Street, Wolverhampton. She came from a long line of clergymen and lock makers from the Willenhall area. Eliza married Thomas Tinsley on 1st January 1839. Thomas was an established nail maker with his own business.
Thomas Tinsley died in June 1851. Eliza took over the running of not only her husband's company but also her father-in-law's business as well, as he had died in 1849. The two companies later became one. She ran the company successfully and it became the largest chain and nail making company in Staffordshire with warehouses in Bromsgrove, Catshill, Dudley, Old Hill Sedgley, Stourbridge and Wolverhampton. At the time of the 1871 Census she is recorded as employing 4,000 people. In 1872 she sold the business, but the company continued to trade under the name of Eliza Tinsley & Co. She died in 1882. The Eliza Tinsley Group is still a going concern in the West Midlands today (2005). |