Dan, I've done a bit of digging to see what ancestry.com could tell me about the Monninger locations. Here's a summary of most of the directory entries it showed:
1875 - Post office London Directory: Monninger, Chas. D., manufr of french band saws & band knives, contractor to dockyard & army clothing department, 10 & 11 Ray street, Clerkenwell E C
1880 - Post office London Directory: Monninger, Charles Dietrich, St. Annas saw & file Works Farringdon road EC
1885 - Post Office London Directory: Monninger, Charles Dietrich, mfr of band & circular saws, emery wheels, files &c, contractor to dockyards & principal railway carriage works, St Anna saw & file works, Clerkenwell road EC (next Italian Church)
1895 - Post Office London Directory: Monninger, Charles Dietrich, mfr of band & circular saws, woodworkers' tools, emery wheels, files &c, St Anna saw & file works, Clerkenwell road EC (next Italian Church)
1900 - Post Office London Directory: [listed under saw makers] Monninger, Charles Dietrich 124 & 126 Clerkenwell road EC
1905 - Post Office London Directory [listed under bandsaw makers] Monninger, Charles Dietrich 124 & 126 Clerkenwell road EC
1921- Hughes´ Business Directory: Monninger, Charles D Ltd, saw manufrs 59 Farringdon Rd EC1
There was also an earlier entry in the 1870 Post office London Directory which said:
Monninger, Charles D., clocks & french fancy goods importer 9 Great Sutton street E C; & 21 Rue d'Hauteville, Paris
I think it's likely to be the same man - it's hardly a common name - and perhaps explains that odd reference to "french band saws" five years later.
A family tree shared on ancestry.com, gave me the information that although known to us as Charles Dietrich Monninger, he was born
Karl Dieterich Monninger on 13 October 1833 in Gemmingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
He's on several London electoral registers as living in Ray Street and then in Enfield but I can only find him in one census - 1891, living in Enfield, aged 57, widowed, with his 8 year old daughter, a cook and a housemaid. His occupation was given as "Saw and File Manufacturer."
He died on 12 June 1908 at home in "Jesmond" The Ridgeway, Enfield, Middlesex and left effects worth £7, 818 to his unmarried daughter Julie Margaret Caroline Monninger.
Having found all that myself, I belatedly thought to look in Simon Barley's reference book on British Saws and Saw Makers. His entry there reads:
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Monninger, C.D. Ltd, London10 & 11 Ray Street, Clerkenwell 1875-1877
St Ann's Saw Works, Hatton Wall, Farringdon Road 1878
St Ann's Saw & File Works, Hatton Wall, Farringdon Road 1879-1882
This saw and file making company had several other addresses in the same area until 1967, with additional premises (probably manufacturing) at Averbury Road, Tewkewsbury Road, South Tottenham from 1922 to 1938; this second area was home to several other saw manufacturing firms in the 20th century (see Day, Roberts & Lee, Turpin and William Tyzack). Thier 1926 catalogue is largely devoted to woodworking machinery. Their trademark was evidently a condor.
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I had a bit of a poke around on old maps, to try and make sense of the addresses. I think they didn't really move very far. Ray Street is still there, but it looks like the even numbered (Northern) side of the street has all been redeveloped. Farringdon Road and Clerkenwell Road intersect. St Peter's RC Chapel must be the Italian Church - it's specifically shown as Italian on the 1940s map. You'll see that there was a big timber yard close by, and the whole area was peppered with small furniture making workshops.
- 1890s map
- (566.87 KiB)
- 1940s map
- (595.97 KiB)
This last map is zoomed out a bit to show a wider area, but with the Italian Church near the middle. Each blue dot is a furniture maker, active after 1840, recorded by the The British and Irish Furniture Makers Online (BIFMO) project, accessible through layersoflondon.org.
- Plenty of customers needing saws etc
- (400.86 KiB)
I've just noticed that Hatton Wall (as in the BSSM entry) is just south of the Italian Church, on the other side of Clerkenwell Road, connecting Leather Lane and Hatton Garden - an area better known for more precious metal than saws are made of.
I hope this helps!