[2][3][4] In the early industrial revolution, the Mander family entered the vanguard of the expansion of Wolverhampton, on the edge of the largest manufacturing conurbation in the British Isles.
The brothers Benjamin and John Mander[5][6] were early industrialists and entrepreneurs, who established a cluster of loosely integrated businesses in paints, lacquers and pigments, japanning, chemicals manufacture and varnish making.
[15] As in similar important TGWU negotiations in the early 1930s, such as at Imperial Chemical Industries and Crosse and Blackwell, reduced working hours coupled with increased worker efficiency was facilitated by the Bedaux Unit.
It was acquired by Dalancey Estates in partnership with the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2010, which led to controversy and questions in Parliament when they removed a bronze sculpture, 'Rock Form (Porthcurno)', by Barbara Hepworth, specially commissioned for the site and donated by the Mander family and shareholders in 1968.
[19] In the 1990s, trading as Manders PLC, the various divisions of the business were sold piecemeal in a major Group restructuring in order to focus on the core activity of printing inks and specialty chemicals manufacture.
Manders PLC went on to acquire a number of the world's leading ink manufacturers, including a major competitor, Croda, trading with operations in the UK, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the USA.