Gimson and Company were founded in 1840 by Josiah and Benjamin Gimson on Welford Road in Leicester. The company were listed as Engineers, Ironfounders, Boiler Makers & General Machinists. They later moved to Vulcan Works, Vulcan Road, Humberstone Road, Leicester.

Expansion

Between 1876 and 1878 a new works, Vulcan Foundry, was developed beside the Midland Railway mainline. The site covered three and a half acres, the foundry shop was 180 ft by 62 ft. It had a workforce of 350 men and all lifting was done with steam hoists and travelling cranes.

Boot and shoe machinery

Gimson became a major manufacturer of machinery for the footwear industry. The company sold its subsidiary the Gimson Shoe Machinery Company to the British United Shoe Machinery Company in 1930.

Products

Stationary steam engines, passenger and goods lifts, boot and shoe machinery, agricultural machinery.

Preserved steam engines

Woolf compound rotative beam pumping engines; Single-cylinder condensing rotative beam pumping engines of 1879; Horizontal single cylinder; Wall-mounted vertical single cylinder lift engine;