Holloway Brothers (London)

In 1889, on the death of James, they took on the business and obligations of the building and construction firm founded by him in 1875 and then based in Marmion Road Lavender Hill.

Opens a branch at 43 South Audley St Mayfair (still trading as Holloway White Allom) to undertake high quality decoration and maintenance work.

This led to a rapid expansion of the company's civil engineering work and the winning of contracts for major projects such as the General Post Office building (1907).

James set up his own business with a few hundred pounds in capital in 1875 and by the following year had new premises at Marmion Rd Lavender Hill and his father and other brothers joined the firm.

Initially the firm concentrated on speculative house building in Clapham but rapidly expanded to take on larger contracts such as churches, schools, public libraries and baths.

It was after the death of the founding Thomas in 1914 that WH Stacey and GF Palmer, recruited from John Aird & Co in 1912 and 1915, slightly diluted the family's control when they joined the board in 1917.

In the style of the day, built with domed and turreted neo-Byzantine pumping house and tall brick chimney stack in the form of a campanile.

[16] 1897-1902 Chatham Royal Naval Barracks[2] 1897- Admiralty Building, Horse Guards Parade[17] 1899-1900 Millais Building (flats) Millbank[18] 1900-7 Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey)[17] 1901-3 London Wall office development 1904-05 Hanover House flats Regent's Park[18] 1904-9 Gorringes department store, Buckingham Palace Rd Westminster 1905 Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, completely restored after fire.

[19] 1905-6 United University Club, Pall Mall Westminster 1907-10 General Post Office (King Edward's Building), Giltspur St London.

Holloways was seen as well suited to contracts of this nature both because of its expertise in civil engineering and because as an integrated company it had its own stonemasonry, joinery and decorating divisions with a demonstrated ability to carry out work to the highest craft standards.

193(1)-39 Duveen gallery British Museum and North Library reconstruction (date of latter unclear) 1938-40 Roche Products Factory, Broadwater Rd Welwyn Garden City 1950- Serjeant's Inn rebuilding, Fleet Street Post-war Holloways were responsible for large scale flat and domestic housing developments e.g. at Crawley New Town and Draycott Avenue Chelsea, Henry Dicken's Court Kensington and the Pimlico housing scheme (1st four blocks).

With the acquisition of expertise in steel framing and reinforced concrete at the beginning of the 20th century civil engineering became an important aspect of the company's operations.

1920 500 ft graving dock and deep water quay at Seaton Snook, River Tees, and similar works in the 1920s and 1930s on the Thames, at Grimsby, Seahouses Hebburn and Jarrow 1935 Morgan Crucible chimney, Battersea.

The contract had been let in 1940 but construction was delayed by the Second World War 1946-52 Bagdhad Railway Station 1947 new deep water quay and Millennium flour mill at Royal Victoria Dock, London.

Post-war, power station construction was carried out at Littlebrook (extensions), Brighton, Freemans Meadow Leicester, Uskmouth pump house (a major undertaking because of its location with an extreme tidal range, weighing 42,000 tons when complete), Tilbury and Dalmarnock.

Although there were contracts to be completed, normal operations were severely affected by the recruitment of men to the armed forces and the government direction of labour, and new work was mainly or wholly devoted to the needs of war.

The firm completed numerous war contracts including camps, factories and ordnance sheds at Purfleet, Didcot and Langwith Derbyshire and a hospital at Étaples in France.

The company also built numerous houses for war workers at Rosyth, Roe Green Village, Kingsbury and Cardington, Bedfordshire.

Henry Holloway, and his foreman Mr Gathercole, toured the country arranging the work with local builders and architects, achieving the target of providing the necessary housing within six months.

The war brought numerous contracts for the building of new camps, ordnance depots, Royal Air Force stations, hospitals and the like.

Later in the war the firm responded to the urgent need to expand domestic coal production by engaging in open cast mining for which they were well fitted by their experience with heavy earth moving equipment.

Holloways were contracted to build a series of sea forts for the defence of the Thames estuary, and these were built in reinforced concrete and steel in dock basins and berths at Gravesend.

The solution was to build the unit on keel blocks and when complete transfer the weight to the launching cradle which ran over a curved ramp which increased in gradient from one in 16 to one in six.