The growth of industry in the Commercial Road area
The Commercial Road works were in an area that grew up in the middle of the 19th century around one of the town’s main arteries; the Birmingham Canal Navigation. In the 1850s Wolverhampton was greatly expanding due to the large number of factories that were opening in the area and offering employment. The town had just become a Borough after the Charter of Incorporation on 18th March 1848 and the Stour Valley Railway had been completed with the opening of the High Level Station (Queen Street) on 24th June, 1852. At this time the town was the centre of the local iron trade and the Iron and Corn Exchange opened in Exchange Street in1852. Industrialists became prominent members of society due to their newly found wealth. The first Mayor was George Benjamin Thorneycroft, who with his brother Edward, founded the Shrubbery Iron Works in Walsall Street in 1824 and was a near neighbour of the Crown Nail Company.

The eastern side of the town was slowly expanding. The Union Workhouse opened in Bilston Road in 1840, the Theatre Royal opened in Cleveland Road in 1844 and was followed in 1849 by the South Staffordshire General Hospital and the Cattle Market.

The canal was an essential part of the commercial life of the town and wharfs were built to allow the loading and  unloading of all kinds of products. Commercial Wharf opened in about 1802, and along with Waterloo Wharf was accessed via Navigation Street. Commercial Road wasn’t built until about 1850 and is not marked on the 1842 Tithe Map or on Joseph Bridgen’s map of 1850. In fact the Crown Nail Company’s building, dated around 1850, must have been one of the first permanent buildings in Commercial Road. Much of the early industry grew-up along the canal, which opened in 1772. It’s importance to the local manufacturers can be seen from the large number of factories that were built along its length. As already mentioned, the Shrubbery Iron Works opened in 1824, but they were not the first.
The Beaver Iron and steel Works.
From "Local Steelworks" 1873.
The Minerva Iron and Steel Works. From "Local Steelworks" 1873.
 T. & C. Clarke’s Shakespeare Foundry opened in 1795 and Pickford & Company’s coal wharf in Walsall Street opened in 1821. There were the great Chillington Iron Works; Bayliss Jones and Bayliss; Isaac Jenk’s Minerva Iron and Steel Works, and Beaver Steel Works; Baldwin’s and Sparrow’s tin plate works; and many more. It must have been an ideal place for the setting up of a nail making company, to whom the canal was essential, both for the receiving of heavy raw materials and transportation of the heavy nails and tacks.
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Early Years