Much of the company's business at this period appears to have been as suppliers to the brewing trade, especially of the copper vats used in beer-making process.
Several instances are known of Boulton & Watt recommending Shears to customers who had purchased an engine and required a suitable boiler.
The company was still at this address in 1822 (when a fire broke out at the premises described as extending "from the west side of the Market to Shoe-lane").
[6] By this time Fleet Market was becoming increasingly dilapidated and by 1834 at the very latest Shears & Co had acquired freehold property at 27 Bankside on the Southwark bank of the Thames.
During his career he took out a number of patents,[8] all clearly related to the business of copper and brass manufacture or to industries which used utensils made of these materials: 1817 Machine to cool liquids, e.g. in the process of distillation or brewing.
(This has been described as the first true heat-exchanger) 1824 Manufacture of zinc (with his brother James Henry Shears and Frederick Benecke) 1830 Apparatus for distilling (subsequently described as "a bad imitation of the Pistorius still") 1845 Production of ingots of zinc from ores 1847 Treatment of zinc ores to produce ingots 1850 Manufacture and refining of sugar 1853 Improvements in brewing In 1842 Daniel Towers Shears married his second wife, a Maria Dickenson; at the time he was living at The Lawn, South Lambeth[9] and this was still his home at the time of his death in 1860.
In the 1820s, during a period of national economic euphoria, he speculated in a number of concerns which often had little connection with the company's core business.
In this concern Shears was joined by his brother and by two London merchants, Thomas Margrave and William Ellwand.
[14] These two enterprises were obviously intended to be complementary to one another in providing the materials required for the manufacture of brass, part of the core business of James Shears & Sons.
Immediately after its formation the company had invested heavily in taking out mineral leases, in setting up new ironworks and in buying new ones.
Following dissatisfaction among the shareholders Shears was compelled to resign as a director in 1826 but he continued as one of three trustees of the company's property.
His assets were ordered to be sold by the Court of Chancery and a series of sales took place in 1867 of the premises of the company and its stock, stores and equipment.
[16] Whatever the outcome of these sales the company continued to trade under its original name and was controlled by Daniel's son William Shears.