A Brief History of Smith Bros (Quinton) Ltd The Wooden Packaging Co.

Smith Bros. (Quinton) Ltd was established in 1927, the proof of this establishment being defined by Cliff Smith (one of the founder brothers) when a sign emblazoned with the Smith Bros. (Quinton) Ltd scroll was erected by Ran Smith, above their first workshop at 570 Hagley Road West, Quinton, Birmingham.

At that time, which was during the recession of the late twenties, Stan, Ran and Cliff Smith, were like so many other people at the time - looking for work, and decided to try and go it alone.

Starting with the manufacture of timber incubation units for chickens, known as "Foster Mothers". They also made sheds, greenhouses, garages, porches, verandas and generally anything constructed in wood that people in their vicinity required.

They managed to make a go of this, and being as they needed to purchase nails, screws, paint, glass, putty, etc., they decided to sell such items from 570 Hagley Road West and hence the Smith Bros. (Quinton) Ltd Ironmongers was opened.

The enterprise continued much the same growing bit by bit until the outbreak of the Second World War, by which time Eric Smith had joined the company. Ken Smith was to join them just after the war making five of the six Smith brothers involved within the business.

During the war the brothers were at the age where if they were involved in war work (a reserve occupation) they were allowed to continue such an occupation. During the war years manufacture of timber buildings was superseded by the manufacture of ammunition boxes (EI Mark III's), thousands of these were produced by Smith Bros. at Quinton for the war effort.

After the war luckily all survived and Smith Bros. (Quinton) Ltd reverted back to manufacture of timber buildings, however the great problem was obtaining sufficient timber (as it was on license) to continue in business. To this end they managed to purchase a quantity of what were described as Canadian timber invasion barges from the Ministry of Defence. These were moored on the Thames at Hammersmith and proved to be extremely difficult to dismantle for the purpose of obtaining timber. The first one that was tackled took many days to disassemble by a gang of men. However, with perseverance they managed to develop a technique whereby a fair quantity of usable timber was transported back to Quinton in Birmingham.

In the early fifties, Cliff Smith was approached by a friend of his who worked at the Austin Motor Company and asked if he and his brother would be interested in quoting for export packing cases for what was to become through time Rover Group. It was decided to tender for this work and fortunately they were successful. From this small beginning in export packing case manufacture they managed to become the sole supplier to the Rover Group and also sole or major supplier to the majority of large and volume users of export packing cases.

In 1960 with the encouragement of B.M.C. as it was then, they started a factory in Bo'ness, Scotland to produce export packing cases in volume for the Bathgate truck manufacturing facility and later Rootes at Lynwood. Later Rootes became Chrysler, which became Talbot, which then became Peugeot Talbot, which now is Peugeot.

Through its history Smith Bros. (Quinton) Ltd has been both versatile and resilient and has been prepared to change with the times which it has found to be essential to survival.

To demonstrate its willingness to change and respond to market needs in 1998 a new division was started called SBQ Flexible which, in a short space of time became a major player in the Woven Polypropylene sack and flexible packaging markets supplying both the local Midlands area and UK as a whole.  So as to concentrate on the specialist woodworking and carpentry skills that the company has developed during early 2003 this division was sold to Masplas Flexible Packaging Ltd based near Stourbridge in the West Midlands.

Additionally in 1998 the group became BS EN ISO 9002 accredited by BSI which more recently has been superseded by the companies ISO 9001:2000 accreditation.

In 2004 the company made the major step of moving from its older Titford Rd premises in Oldbury to a more modern production facility in Tipton where new external plywood storage facilities and an conveyer automated pallet production unit could be installed.

Hence today Smith Bros (Quinton) Ltd The Wooden Packaging Co. is in a strong position to take on the challenges in its industry for the future and through the new millennium.

 Now involving the third generation of the original Smith's family Smith Bros The Wooden Packaging Co., a UK leader, has proven itself to be a successful forward looking company dedicated to its customers and employees.