Dear Diane,
During my family research, I came across a VIP by the name of Thomas Sitch (1858-1923) who founded the Chainmakers and Strikers Association in Chester in 1899. He worked for Henry Wood & Co in Saltney, but the founder member companies came from the main chainmaking centres of Saltney, Cradley Heath, Shifnal, Crewe, Tipton and Pontypridd. He was succeded by his son Charles, who was tried on charges of forgery. How the mighty are fallen. The Association records can be found at Birmingham University (see
http://calm.bham.ac.uk/DServeA/ ).
Hope this proves to be of interest,
Best of luck,
Kevin Gibson.