PlayGround

Walker & Loach Ltd


Established	1840
Founder	Thomas Walker
Adress(es)	Old Priory, Great Charles Street (till the 1880s) Erskine Street, Vauxhall, Birmingham
Operations	Sheet metal pressing and tinplate factory
Production program	Metal cabinets, storage boxes, lanterns & oil cans
Brief history (till 1960)	1840 Established by Thomas Walker. His son Albert joined later. 1880 Thomas Loach joined the company in contributing previous experience in the weighing scales and lamp manufacturing industry
Status 2021	Inactive - closed in the late 1950’s

Oil can history	According to current research items manufactured were not sold under the own name. They carried mostly the brand name of either the wholesaler or customer they have been contract manufactured for. Most prominent examples are the MAC-STAN stamped oil cans with flexible spout and references to two patents from the early 1920’s (see pictures and documents below). In addition to the above stamp some oil cans and other items produced carry a „Made in England“ logo as shown to the right. Although it is not 100% confirmed this stamp to be solely used by Walker & Loach I found at least one other (non-Mac-Stan) oil can that appears in their catalogue that carries solely this logo (see pictures below).
Oil Cans


Patents	The MAC-STAN stamp mentions two patents: # 107166-16 # 188591-22
	# 107166-16 (granted June 21st, 1917 to Hector Mac Farlane)
	# 188591-22 (granted November 16th, 1922 to William John Dawes)
Catalogue page(s)	Mac Stan Oiler
	Poker Oil Can
	Cycle oil can
	Sewing machine Oil cans
	Pump and gravity feed oiler
Adverts	Mac-Stan Oilcans
Adverts	Poker Oil Can

Thanks to:	Martin, the great-grandson of Thomas Loach. He provided his research results and most of the documents shown and has given permission to publish them here.
Further references	His website