Heenan & Froude

Heenan & Froude was a United Kingdom-based engineering company, founded in Newton Heath, Manchester, England in 1881 in a partnership formed by engineers Richard Froude and Hammerley Heenan. Expanded on the back of William Froude's patent for inventing the water brake dynamometer, their most famous creation was the 518 feet (158 m) high Blackpool Tower.

After service on developing the East India Railway (EIR), Hammersley Heenan returned to England and purchased the engineering company and works of Woodhouse and Co. in Newton Heath, Lancashire. In 1881, he went into partnership with former EIR colleague Richard Hurrell Froude, forming Heenan & Froude Ltd. In 1883, after the death of his father William Froude, Richard inherited the rights to his father's patents, including that for the manufacture of the water brake dynamometer.

From its base, the company undertook a number of significant late-Victorian era engineering projects, including supplying and constructing the steelworks for Folkestone Pier (1887) and in the same year supplying a 1,600 feet (490 m) girder bridge to Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado (EFE) the national railway of Chile. The company developed two designs of steerable torpedo, the first to the design of Colonel Lay which were demonstrated to both the Admiralty, and the second to an Australian design. In 1882 Heenan & Froude were appointed structural engineers to the Blackpool Tower, supplying and constructing both the main tower, the electric lighting and the steel front pieces for the aquariums.

After purchasing a factory in Birmingham, West Midlands in 1902, the company greatly expanded after incorporating and moving its headquarters to Worcester in 1903. By then a general purpose engineering company, they made: exhaust and mine ventilating fans; colliery and mining plant; belts, conveyors and elevators; sawing machines; bench chains; water dynamometers; spherical, horizontal and vertical engines; patent water boilers; bridge and roof iron work; and refuse destructors.