The Galloway brothers had been apprenticed to another partnership involving their father, a maker of waterwheels and gearing for mills, before setting up in business on their own account.

Their firm grew to be a specialist producer of steam engines and industrial boilers with a worldwide customer base and a reputation for ingenuity.

[10] Around 1820, William Glasgow, a foundryman from the Tweed who had been working in Bolton for Rothwell and Hick, joined Galloway and Bowman as a junior partner.

The wheels were built by John Ashbury, who was later to become a notable engineer in his own right and the owner of the eponymous railway wagon works at Openshaw.

[15] Vertical cylinders were the norm at this time (other builders used them too), the theory being that a horizontal or inclined arrangement would lead to premature wear due to the weight of the piston.

"[17] The success to come with stationary steam engines was in no small part based on the experiences with the short-lived railway locomotive production: the locomotives had boilers rated for 50 pounds per square inch (3.4 bar), compared to the normal stationary engine boiler rating at that time of 5 or 10 psi (0.34 or 0.69 bar).

[18] To put this into context, however, John Galloway senior is reported to have said that the challenges of building a locomotive were nothing compared to those of getting it out of the works and onto the railway afterwards.

[24] The brothers built a foundry at Knott Mill, near Chester Road in Hulme on the site of former premises which had served a similar purpose but had fallen into disuse subsequent to the death of its owner, Alexander Brodie, in 1811.

[21][25] A key advantage of the site was the adjacent River Medlock, sources of water being vital for iron founding and the operation of steam engines, and it was the erosion caused by this watercourse which required the works to be built on two levels.

[25] From 1848 the brothers took out numerous patents related to steam power, with John Galloway taking a particular interest in issues to improve the efficiency of boilers.

[34] The Lancashire boiler, which formed the basis on which the Galloways developed their 1851 design, had been patented by Sir William Fairbairn and John Hetherington in 1844.

[37] From 1855 the firm was working with Henry Bessemer, inventor of the eponymous process, in steel manufacture; he described William Galloway as "my old friend" when writing in 1905.

This was while he was trying to prove his method, and Galloways are thought likely to have constructed the equipment that Bessemer used in his later trials at Baxter House in London, after which he announced the process to the world in August 1856 at Cheltenham.

[42] The Knott Mill works were one of those at which Bessemer set up his experimental "converting vessels" when attempting to prove his process commercially late in 1856.

They went instead into partnership with Bessemer, Robert Longsdon and William Daniel Allen (long-term business partners, and both of them his brothers-in-law)[47] in building and operating his steel works in Sheffield.

[52] (The ship's manoeuvrability was poor and, having crashed on its maiden voyage, investors lost confidence and the project was abandoned with the equipment remaining untested.)

[54] Nor might these have been their only involvement: William Galloway owned land at Runcorn and there were discussions between him and Bessemer regarding a partnership to erect a blast furnace for the purpose of manufacturing "rich manganesian pig-iron", which was required at that time to de-oxidise the molten blown metal.

However, delays in progressing this idea, due to Bessemer's process gaining widespread use, ultimately resulted in Galloway feeling he was too old to embark on the venture.

[59] Despite the expansion of the partnership a deed registered in the Court of Bankruptcy in July 1864 only names William and John Galloway, who were to receive a payment of 6s.

[7] During the 1850s and 1860s the firm generated many overseas sales to countries such as Turkey, India and Russia, and for items as diverse as gunpowder mills, boilers, presses, and steam engines for use in a wide variety of applications.

The firm supplied cast iron columns for buildings, constructed the pier at Southport (and then extended it, for which the tender was £3,000)[62] and, between 1855 and 1857, a 1,535 feet (468 m) railway viaduct over the River Leven close to Ulverston.

The pier and the bridge employed a new construction method devised by John Galloway, using pressurised water jets to create the holes into which the piles were later driven.

[66] It was in this decade that the company began to install flat belt drive systems for the transfer of power from its stationary steam engines to the looms and similar machinery which they were intended to service.

[70] Charles John did not limit his activities to that of the family firm and was chairman of Boiler Insurance and Steam Power Co. Ltd. in September 1880, when an extraordinary general meeting held in King Street, Manchester resolved to liquidate the company and sell its business and assets.

[78] An engineer, Edward Galloway was appointed a Land Tax Commissioner in 1899;[79] he died on 5 October 1919 when living at Hill Rise, Leicester Road, Altrincham.

However, The Engineer reported Charles John as chairman at the company's annual general meeting in 1901 and noted that Sir Richard Mottram was a director.

[89] There were reports at this time that the company had licensed and was developing Pictet's discovery of an improved method for the production of oxygen gas, although there were suggestions that this may have been as part of a syndicate involving other Manchester businesses.

[90] The 1902 annual general meeting confirmed that the expansion was complete, voted a similar dividend and re-elected William Johnson Galloway and Charles Rought as directors; it also noted that an order for a blowing machine from Carnforth Hematite was being processed.

"[102] The company went into receivership in 1932[103] and in 1933, Hick, Hargreaves & Co. purchased the complete records, drawings and patterns of the defunct W & J Galloway Limited.

[109] This widened and flat-topped flue was stayed by the use of many conical vertical Galloway tubes being riveted into it, improving the circulation of water and increasing the heating surface.