The company was founded by William & Henry Parkes, and established in 1780 at the Clarington Forge site in Ince in Makerfield, near Wigan, then in Lancashire.

[1] Bulldog Tools is one of the oldest businesses still existing in the Wigan area today, still producing products on the same factory site as originally intended.

Today it is owned by the Rollins Group based in Harlow in Essex who acquired Bulldog Tools in 2004.

The company is one of the last remaining manufacturers of traditional solid forged garden tools in the UK.

In 2010, as part of its 230th anniversary celebrations, Bulldog Tools manufactured the world's largest spade at its forge in Wigan.