Bullers

BULLERS LTD, LONDON

BULLER, JOBSON & CO. LD. DUDLEY

Bullers was established in 1840 by John Buller in the village of Bovey Tracy in Devon, England. Shortly the company was moved to Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent and begin making ceramic insulators for telegraph lines. By 1868 Bullers was an established supplier of insulators and related hardware. In 1885 Buller purchased the metal foundry of Jobson Brothers (initially located at Dudly but at this time at Tipton in Staffordshire) and the company name became Buller, Jobson & Co. The company went public in 1980 under the name of Bullers Ltd. Bullers merged with Taylor, Tunnicliff & Co. in 1959 under the new name of Allied Insulators Ltd.

In 1842 Captain John Buller and J Devett purchased the Folly Pottery, in Bovey Tracy, Devon and started in business as the Bovey Tracy Pottery Company. Using Cornish clay and coal from Staffordshire and Somerset, they produced a wide range of ware including bed knobs and door furniture. As the business grew, it suffered increasingly from the cost of transporting coal to Devon, and so the owners decided to move the company to the Potteries to be at the centre of the pottery industry. By 1862 W W Buller & Co were trading in Joiners Square, Hanley and by 1865 the pottery had three bottle ovens. Bullers were one of the first companies to explore the new markets created by electrical power, and by 1868 they were supplying porcelain Insulators complete with Ironwork in large quantities. Many government contracts followed, and Insulators were produced for Australia, Africa, India, Canada and Hungary.

This early period focused primarily on telegraph Insulators, but Bullers were soon able to supply Insulators for many transport systems including the Metropolitan Railway, for London County Council Tramways. In 1883 the Buller-Harris partnership was established. In 1885 Buller purchased the metal foundry of Jobson Brothers (initially located at Dudly but at this time at Tipton in Staffordshire) and the company name became Buller, Jobson & Co. and in 1890 the company became Bullers Ltd. Expansion continued, and so the Hanley site soon became inadequate. From this, the decision was taken to build a new factory at Milton, then in the countryside outside the Potteries. Work started in 1917 and the factory was fully operational by 1920. Electrical porcelain was the mainstay of both factories.

In 1959 there was an agreement between Bullers Ltd and Taylor Tunnicliff to form Allied Insulators, which is still in business today.