The History of George Barnsdale

George Barnsdale 1863-1937

In 1884 a 21 year old man named George Barnsdale purchased a plot of land off Donington Market Place, comprising of a dwelling house, workshop and storage shed for timber.

This was the beginning of a carpentry and wheelwright business which maintained steady growth until the First World War.

After the war, George’s sons Walter and Frederick, the eldest of nine children, were taken into the business. It was soon apparent that diversification into general building was the way to go, whilst still retaining woodworking as the core activity. Walter took control of the building side and he had acquired a good knowledge of plan drawing during his time as a prisoner of war. Fred was a timber man through and through and so it seemed they were ideally placed together with their father’s experience to take on the running of a general building business.

George Barnsdale & Sons prospered and expanded between the wars and was to earn a name for quality, reliability and fairness, indeed auctioneers would want to describe a house they were selling as “Barnsdale built”. The work force reached 100 at one time, and many went from apprenticeship to retirement at the firm.

It was the woodworking side, run by Fred however which was an even greater success story. Turning out high class joinery in hardwood and softwood, supplied to builders and merchants over a wide area.

George Barnsdale died in 1937 at the age of 74 at a time where the business was very successful. The war followed shortly afterwards and the staff were decimated by conscription, but managed to keep going, doing essential repair work and M.O.D. contracts. After the war it was a matter of picking up the pieces and re-forming the company and a difficult time ensued.

John Barnsdale

Fred’s son John joined the company after he had served in the war and continuity of the name was maintained. House building was carried on more and more by speciality firms and George Barnsdale & Sons saw joinery as the way to proceed, specialising in high quality for the top end of the market.

Fred died in 1983, Walter in 1989 and John was at retirement age. His daughter, Helen married Stephen Wright in 1975 and Stephen was welcomed into the business in 1985.

Stephen Wright

Stephen started by carrying out an extensive modernisation programme with new machinery, dust extraction, staff welfare, office organisation and CAD.

This was followed by an intensive review of the way timber windows and doors perform and a review of international best practice and it was this that brought product performance to the forefront of the company’s activities.

In 2006, Stephen and Helen’s son, Tom, joined the firm after gaining experience as an automotive design engineer with Nissan. With this experience, Tom has started to build further on the performance side of the products and develop the manufacturing process allowing the company to produce a very wide range of advanced and niche products using advanced, high precision machinery.

With a very local company workforce and a dedicated board of directors, George Barnsdale is a company that is continuing in its forefathers footsteps, manufacturing highly regarded joinery in Donington, Lincolnshire and is well positioned to do so for another 125 years.