An Immigrant's story
The Hindley Manufacturing Company produces a wide range of special wire parts and standard wire hardware to meet the specifications of exacting engineers as well as basic do-it-yourselfers.
You see, we have had years of experience to perfect our manufacturing . . . Hindley is one of the few 5th generation companies thriving in the US. It all began when James Hindley, a master mechanic, immigrated to the US from England in the late 1800's. He found work in the Perkins Horseshoe Factory in Valley Falls, Rhode Island, and his son Walter eventually began working in a wire plant in Worcester, Massachusetts. At work one day, Walter happened to see a price list for cotter pins. He brought the list home and reviewed it with his father James. Cotter pins were being used in many machines and based on those prices, there was a real potential to make a good living. They set up a machine in a neighbor basement and tweaked it until it worked perfectly.
A Link to the America's Cup!
"What they didn't realize," said Scott Hindley , present day VP of Sales and Marketing,"is that cotter pins were typically sold with a 90% discount off the price." What they also didn't know was that the price in the late 1800's was controlled by a cartel. Walter drove to New York monthly to meet with other producers who told him what he could charge that month. They expanded their lines to include plumbing hardware and the Company grew. They managed to get their cotter pins into a winning America's Cup Yacht, the Columbia, in 1898 and 1901, and packaged them as "Columbia Cotter Pins", which proved to be a successful marketing tool.
Hindley employees have a history of staying with the company long term. During the war years, employees who were called to duty as soldiers knew their job would be waiting for them when they returned.
Hindley continued to grow and in 1956 moved to their present facility. They have expand there, but remain today the proud, entrepreneurial, service oriented family that founded Hindley over 100 years ago