Chas B Pugh (Walsall) Ltd

Chas. B. Pugh (Walsall) Ltd is a metal recycling business initiated by Charles Bryer Pugh in 1919 as a gas coke and breeze supplier to industries in the Black Country. This was after he had been a furnace man in a Sheffield ironworks in his early days and Director & Secretary of a substantial foundry near Walsall.

The business grew acquiring offices and a canal side wharf in Wednesbury and offices and yard in Darlaston. Coke & Breeze came in by Pughs` own barges and by rail truck to Darlaston to be distributed by horse & cart to furnaces & many blacksmiths` hearths. The steel turnings & solid scrap produced in making bolts at the time needed clearing away so the customers of Chas. B. Pugh asked them to do this. Hence Pughs` entry into the scrap/recycling trade.

In 1935 the enterprise became a limited company and in due course, road trucks replaced the horses & carts. Foundry coke distribution became the predominant part of Pughs by tonnage over the next 30 years from the early 1950`s driven by the new chief Ted Pugh, son of Charles the founder.

Substantial expenditure from the early 1970`s saw 3 yards and heavy machinery producing iron & steel briquettes scrap for the foundries & steelworks for the next 15 years. Scrap processing and merchandising tonnages were now catching up with the coke tonnages.