Philip B Waldron Ltd (Dronwal)
This company appears to have started life called Service Castings Company Ltd and was first registered on 7 April 1933 with a nominal capital of £1000; their address was 174 Kings Road Tyseley Birmingham. This company did not appear to prosper and on 7 May 1934 seems to have gone into receivership, however the business struggled on and on 2nd January 1940, Philip Bradford Waldron became a director. A memorandum of association shows that in 1966 the name of the company was changed from Service Castings Ltd to Philip B Waldron Co Ltd which creates a rather large anomaly in that adverts shown in 1944 Kelly and other contemporary publications show the business using the title Philip B Waldron Co and the trade name of Dronwal. 1972 saw the ownership change as it was purchased by P.L. Willcox Ltd a company itself dating from 1913 and engaged in CNC engineering. They appeared to have used Philip B Waldron Co Ltd to manufacture machine tool cooling equipment along with spraying machines etc. 1977 saw the purchase of the remains of the Four Oaks Spraying Machine Company and they soon started selling the Kent range of large pneumatic sprayers with capacities ranging from 1 to 3 gallons. The new organization lasted until 10 December 1992 when Joint Administrative Receivers working for Touche Ross were called in. The business appeared to be run by the receivers until April 1995 however the business was eventually dissolved in 1997.
How long sprayers were made for is not exactly known, however in my collection is a Dronwal 5P/T small pneumatic with a transfer commemorating the Queens Silver Jubilee in 1977.
A copy of an advert of the style that appeared in directories such as Kelly and the like. This illustrates the range of sprayers and other items produced.