A nineteenth century, cast iron coffee mill with brass fittings and a turned wood knob, made by Kenricks of West Bromwich. This has a brass plaque to the front which has the makers name 'A Kenrick & Sons, Patent Coffee Mill' around the Royal Coat of Arms with a lion and unicorn above the words “DIEU ET MON DROIT”. It dates from c.1880. Lugs on either side allow it to be screwed to a worksurface and a small drawer with a brass handle collects the ground beans. 

Archibald Kenrick was born at Wrexham on the 12th November, 1760. In 1780 he moved to Birmingham, where he went into business with a distant relation, Henry Witton, making buckles. After acquiring some knowledge of plating, he went into partnership in 1787 with another buckle maker, Thomas Boulton, thanks to financial support from his father. With the increasing use of shoe laces, he opened an iron foundry in West Bromich producing ironmongery, including coffee mills, door furniture, cast nails, and mole traps. He developed a new annealing process. In 1812, steam powered machinery was installed in the factory. It became the first factory to manufacture saucepans with rims. The firm rapidly expanded. Archibald built houses to rent to a few key workmen and the area was known locally as Kenrick village. 

In 1827 Archibald Kenrick Junior became a partner and the company became Archibald Kenrick and Sons. In 1846, Timothy, Archibald senior’s other son, had taken out a patent for glazing and enamelling the metal surfaces of cast iron, which led to the growth of sales both at home and abroad. In 1868, production management was in the hands of Frederick Ryland, a professional engineer who was the first non-family manager employed in the firm. Kenrick’s first travelling salesman was appointed in 1872. By 1878 Kenricks employed over 700 people. At that time, more than 30 percent of products were sold overseas. In 1883 the firm became a limited company. The Company still exists today. 

The transatlantic trade in Africans played a critical role in shaping the existing coffee industry. In the 1700s coffee began to make its mark on Britain. Coffee houses appeared in England in around 1650 and by 1675 there were over 3000 coffee houses in England. Demand for coffee overlapped with the increasing demand for sugar. Tobacco fuelled the slave trade and established the “triangle trade” where the journey from Europe to Africa carried manufactured goods, and the journey from Africa to the Caribbean and America carried enslaved Africans to the growing plantations in the New World. From such locations as Jamaica, coffee was transported back into the U.K. By 1660, this arrangement was formalized when the Royal African Company was founded to trade along the western coast of Africa. Colonizers established vast coffee plantations in Brazil, the Caribbean and parts of Central America, where coffee production became integral to the new economy. Enslaved people on coffee plantations endured brutal conditions. 

The exploitive legacy of coffee is still reflected in the modern treatment of exploited African and Latin American coffee farmers, many of whom are descendants of historically enslaved people.