The instrument-making firm of Casartelli was a leading specialist firm which made, improved, and sold scientific and engineering instruments. The firm operated in England during the 'golden decades' of her industrial power. The firm was one of the first specialist instrument firms to be established in mid nineteenth-century Manchester and they quickly established a second facility at Liverpool, which like Manchester, was a leading British industrial centre in the second-half of the nineteenth and early years of the twentieth century.
The origins and development of the firm, their long continuous history of making precision instruments, and global export of their products, and the demise of product lines, provides an opportunity to observe how the industrial and economic conditions of the second half of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries presented opportunities for developing niche markets in instrument manufacture, company expansion, and eventual closure.
According to the donor, the instruments were purchased by his father, Edward Keppel Mansfield (1903-2000) a Manchester born and South American trained cloth and fabric merchant. Edward used the instruments when he joined the firm E.S. Henry, a South-American fabric testing and wholesale firm. His son, and the donor of these instruments, John Mansfield, who was taught testing procedures by his father, acquired the instruments from Edward and has spent the last 49 years in the same industry, working in a variety of non-managerial (testing) and managerial roles with fabric-based companies around the globe. His last position was with the Sydney based firm Stoddarts Fabrics Agencies, where he used the instruments until recently. The donor has decribed the range of fabrics at Stoddarts as catering for ladies wear "in the middle to lower range" of fabric. It is unknown when Stoddarts were established, however John Mansfield is due to retire from the firm in 2005. It is uncertain at the time of acquisition (February, 2005) if the firm will continue or be closed.
The Firm of Casartelli and their Instruments.
Joseph Casartelli was born in 1823 in Tavarnerio near Lake Como in northern Italy. His family emigrated to Liverpool in 1834, when Joseph was 11. In Liverpool, the family meet Luigi Casartelli, another member of the family, who had established a barometer and thermometer making and retail business. It is possible that the young Joseph was introduced to and studied instrument-making as Luigi's apprentice. Joseph quickly learned the trade and excelled at it so much so that by the age of 22 he had approached his uncle, Antonio Giovanni, to form a business partnership on the basis that they purchase Luigi's business. In this they were successful, as Luigi was wanting to sell the business and so it was that Joseph Casartelli and Antonio Giovanni went into partnership for the next six years at 20 Duke Street, Liverpool, where they promoted themselves as 'Optical, Mathematical and Engineering Instrument Makers'.
In 1851, the year of London's Great Exhibition of All Nations in the Crystal Palace, and when England generally was regarded as the premier industrial nation in the world, Joseph withdrew from the partnership with Antonio and moved to Manchester where he purchased Joshua Ronchetti's instrument-making business. Ronchetti's father and grandfather had come from the same Italian village as Joseph Casartelli, so ties through old and new Italian networks were important as when Joseph married Joshua's sister, Harriet. The Liverpool branch of the business did not immediately cease and traded until 1933 under the name of A. Casartelli & Son of Liverpool.
Joseph Casartelli expanded the Manchester business and became an important name for the manufacture of optical, surveying, and engineering instruments. He expanded his business activities substantially in the late 1850s with the purchase of Joshua Ronchetti's chemical business in Clayton, Manchester. The chemical works was owned and managed by Joseph until about 1868 when he sold it to Hamor Lockwood, a successful Victorian industrialist.
In Manchester, Joseph was involved in many civic projects. For example, he sent rainfall measurements from his recording station at his Ardwick home to the local press continuously from 1853 until 1881. His instrument making work was recognised by his election as a member to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in January 1858, which was, at this time, one of the leading Lit. and Phil. societies for the advancement of scientific and technological investigations in the world.
As well as making instruments, Joseph Casartelli developed a niche trade in instrument improvements. In this regard, the industrious, innovative, and business-like Casartelli, patented his improved steam-pressure gauges, pyrometers (an instrument used for measuring high degrees of heat, as caused by electrical resistance, expansion, and radiation phenomena), instruments for testing the lubrication qualities of oils, and the miner's dial.
Joseph's first child, Joseph Henry Casartelli, was born in 1862, when his father was 39. At the age of 20, Joseph Henry, joined his father in the instrument-making business, which in 1882 was established at 43 Market Street, Manchester, but before occupying the Market Street site, Joseph Casartelli acquired a small workshop in Robert Street, Cheetham, Manchester in 1877 and remained there for the next 5 years when he moved to more spacious premises in Clarence Street, Manchester. All of this moving-of-premises activity over a short period of time and each time to acquire more room in which to successfully carry on his business, strongly suggests that the firm was filling orders to a high degree and that the business was running on the profitable side of the financial ledger.
By the mid-1890s, the Market Street facility had become an expanded and busy centre for making, testing, and selling a variety of instruments. Eyesight testing and the supply of spectacles were practised there, and the testing was provided without charge. Instruments made at Market Street included metrological, surveying, and engineering instruments such as Casartelli's 'Improved Engine Indicators', which were in demand throughout England and her industrialised colonies.
Father and son joined in a business partnership in 1896 and they were known as Joseph Casartelli and Son. The son, Joseph Henry, married Ethel O'Connor in 1898 and bore him 4 children. The father, Joseph, who had done much to establish the business, died in March 1900, aged 77. The business was carried on by Joseph Henry, the son. In 1905, another move saw the firm move to Hayes Yard, Garrett Street, Manchester where they traded profitably with mining and manufacturing firms in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cumberland, Durham, and South Wales, and maintained a global export trade.
The firm remained in Garrett Street for the next 17 years, after which they moved to 18 Brown Street, Manchester. This was to be the final move for Joseph Henry, as one of his children, Anthony Francis Casartelli, succeeded his father in managing the firm, most likely in partnership with his brother, Joseph Daniel Casartelli, and thus establishing the next generation of owners and managers of the Casartelli firm.
In 1929, the Manchester firm purchased the Liverpool branch of the business, which had been in the hands of Anthony Casartelli and Sons since 1845. However, the financial difficulties of the Great Depression forced the Liverpool branch of the firm into liquidation and closure in 1933, after 88 continuous years in the instrument--making and retail business. Part of the business was purchased by the liquidator on behalf of William Eagles Ltd., bottling machinery manufacturers of Bury Street, Pendleton. Although owned by William Eagles, what was left of Casartelli survived until 1966 making surveying and textile instruments. In 1966, the firm moved to Liverpool Street, Salford, however William Eagles Ltd then made the decision that there was no longer the demand for surveying and textile instruments to justify devoting the staff and space for their manufacture. Eventually, in 1989, the Casartelli firm ceased trading, thus bringing to a close 144 years of continuous operation in making and selling scientific and engineering instruments.
The Casartelli instruments for the Collection.
The three Casartelli instruments for the collection, the Universal Yarn Assorting Balance, the linen prover/folding cloth counting glass, and the Portable Cloth Balance (Type C), were made at the 87-89 Rochdale Road and 2 Ludgate Hill, Manchester premises. The firm was established in Ludgate Hill in the early 1950s. The instruments thus date from the period 1950-1966, the last date being the end of textile instrument manufacture by the firm.
According to the donor, the instruments were purchased by his father, Edward Keppel Mansfield (1903-2000) a Manchester born and South American trained cloth and fabric merchant. Edward used the instruments when he joined the firm E.S. Henry, a South-American fabric testing and wholesale firm. His son, and the donor of these instruments, John Mansfield, who was taught testing procedures by his father, acquired the instruments from Edward and has spent the last 49 years in the same industry, working in a variety of non-managerial (testing) and managerial roles with fabric-based companies around the globe. His last position was with the Sydney based firm Stoddarts Fabrics Agencies, where he used the instruments until recently. The donor has decribed the range of fabrics at Stoddarts as catering for ladies wear "in the middle to lower range" of fabric. It is unknown when Stoddarts were established, however John Mansfield is due to retire from the firm in 2005. It is uncertain at the time of acquisition (February, 2005) if the firm will continue or be closed.
References
N.A. (1881). Manchester of Today: Business Men and Commercial Interests. London.
Wetton, J. (1990-91). 'Scientific Instrument Making in Manchester (1790-1870)', Manchester Memoirs (Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society), Vol. 130, 63-67.
The curator would also like to thank Julian Holland, Curator, Macleay Museum, Sydney University, for sharing his knowledge of the instrument making trade in late Victorian England.
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