Palatine Paints

General information

How It All Began!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In the beginning the Keystone Paint and Varnish Company of Newark New Jersey USA, invented what was then a revolutionary new product “The original Flat Oil Paint” trade named Keystona.

At some time in the early1920’s they started to export the medium for this product, together with its formulation to a newly opened branch in Hull where it together with other products continued to be manufactured until the Great Depression of the 1930’s
struck, this was devastating and by 1937 the Company was in such dire straits that it could not in some weeks even pay wages, the men were offered the chance to stay on without pay and see if things improved, they did rather than be on the dole (then very poor).

In 1937 the directors discovered that if you moved to a designated “Depressed Area” Government assistance would be available, they applied and were given free of charge Prospect Mill a weaving shed which had gone Broke, it’s still there on Platt Lane Hindley but is now split up into units. Mr Joseph Everingham, the company engineer was sent over to engage local labour and remove the cotton machinery and install the paint machinery, with further instructions to keep it in as small an area as possible so that they may be able to rent the rest to another firm.

This took about three months, 99 Lancashire looms and a steam engine to drive them together with a humidifier plant to keep the cotton workable.

The rest of the people then came over to continue production in Hindley, came the war and Government contracts for the ministry of defence, which put a stop to renting out bits of the factory.

What also happened was that Louis Berger Ltd who had a factory in the East End of London thought they would probably get bombed out, so started to look for a shadow factory in the north of England. The Then MD of Keystone was a Southern Irishman and all he wanted was to return to neutral Southern Ireland, the two were made for each other; he sold it. In the event Bergers did not get bombed out and took little notice of their new acquisition, until 1946 when they started to make their presence felt.

This was not popular and two men in particular (one of them was a Lancastrian and the other a Yorkshire man) felt they could not put up with it, so left to start their own business known as Palatine Paints, this because it was situated in the “County Palatine” of Lancashire. They adopted as their trademark the Tudor Rose, which was of course the combination of the white rose of Yorkshire, and the Red rose of Lancashire, the emblem of the Tudor Dynasty at the end of the Wars of the Roses

The initial set-up was that they would be distributors for Keystone products with some small- scale manufacturing. In 1957 Mr Alan Everingham was working very unhappily as a Highly skilled Chief Chemist at Beaver Paints in Aintree, Merseyside and put an advert (under a box number) in the Paint Oil And Colour Journal offering his services, this received numerous replies including one from Palatine Paints to which he replied, the man in question was delighted to find that it was Alan, he had been trying to persuade his farther Joseph Everingham (Engineer) to speak to Alan for a long time but he said he didn’t want to be involved, (stubborn Yorkshire man).

So Alan Everingham joined them, with the remit to improve and increase production capacity (a batch of white gloss was just five gallons at that time) and to expand the product range. This continued until a fire in 1973 at which point, sad to say the most almighty falling out occurred (nothing quite like a fire for doing that) so the Company was put into voluntary liquidation and Alan Everingham started Everingham Paints & Chemicals ltd.

Mr Everingham bought the registered trade mark from the liquidator in order to keep some sort of continuity, and with his outstanding qualities both as a person and a paint chemist Everingham Paints quickly rose from the ashes.

Up until 2000 Everingham Paints had developed a sustained foothold in the coatings industry and then due to Mr Everinghams retirement the company was sold to Talke Chemical Co Ltd based in Congleton, Cheshire. The Leigh manufacturing facility along with its staff were retained and the site managed by Jason Huyton. Talke Chemicals felt a need to return the company to its origins and combined its own Carbo brand range and the Palatine brand to offer it’s customers a greater range of industrial and decorative coatings.

In June 2011, and after joining Everingham Paints in 1994 as a sixteen year old and then his continued employment for Talke Chemicals, Jason Huyton purchased the Leigh manufacturing site and became the Managing Director of Palatine Paints & Chemicals Ltd.

With his youthful, modern vision for the company Palatine Paints will continue the proud tradition set out by it’s forbearers to independently manufacture it’s own unique brand of Carbo and Palatine ranges, whilst embracing brand leaders to offer it’s extensive customer base a wide selection of capabilities.

And so the story continues………………………………………..