Listers Plant Stand

Listers Auto Trucks

Listers Fire

Robert Ashton must have shown early intelligence and inventiveness as his education was varied. In succession he attended a school in Dursley - the Agricultural and Commercial School of Mr Want in Woodmancote, forerunner of the first Grammar School, and then schools in Banbury, Dusseldorf in Germany, and finally in Vaersailles. His education seems to have been technical in character and this would have suited his enthusiasm for mechanical things.

1866 21st April Ashton married Frances Ann Box, who came from a well-known local family. Her father, John box, was a watchmaker. The box family home was at the bottom of Long Street known to us now as Lister's Training School.

Four sons were born to Frances and Ashton - Edward in 1867 ~ Charles 1872 ~ Austin 1873
and later Stuart.

The firm R A Lister and Company began on 23rd August 1867 with, as employees, one man and a boy. The premises were rented for £6 p.a. and this sum covered the 'privilege' of using power from a 3" belt for 4 hours daily, the belt being driven by a water-wheel worked by the Broadwell stream.

1868 Ashton was able to advertise as 'R.A. Lister - Machinist and General Mill Furnisher - Long Street adding a year or so later 'and General Machine Agents, Victoria Works. Briefly he was associated with William Priestley of Dursley, an engineer and machinist who had works adjoining Ashton's. Gloucestershire Agricultural Show in 1872, the two men had a small stand on which they exhibited a 3 h.p. portable steam engine, five different sizes of chaff cutters, a portable grinding mill, some improved lifting jacks and cheese presses, which won a first prize, 'all of their own manufacture.

An early aim was to increase his property and he began by buying in February 1870 for £750 the mill he had until then rented and with it came a mill house, wool lofts and other buildings. In 1874 William Priestley's neighbouring property was acquired to be followed at intervals by other properties, until by 1893 he owned the whole area bounded by the bottom of Long Street, Yellow Hundred, Hogg Leaze Lane and Brownings Entry - part of an area known as Troy cottages, a former inn, The Black Horse, stables, brew house and a communal privy but it gave scope for future expansion.

Hours for his employees were long - 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. with 30 minutes off for breakfast and an hour for lunch. 1879 his workforce had reached 16 by 1885 about 40. Most were probably local men but some came from Wotton-under-Edge, North Nibley and even Charfield, rising in the very early morning to walk over the hills to reach the Victoria Works by 6 a.m.

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