The Manchester Water Meter Co Ltd was an early company manufacturing and supplying water meters to industry. The main partner in the firm, Herbert Frost (son of the founder George Frost) made many improvements to water meters, and gained patents for a number of these improvements. The company manufactured Frost's positive reciprocating and rotary piston types of water meter. The company was based in Tipping Street, Ardwick.

Alan Lansdown Tabor was born in Bedminster, Somerset. He established himself as a 'commercial and artistic designer' in Manchester in the early years of the 20th century. He produced illuminated addresses and certificates from a studio in St Ann's Passage, moving to premises in Albert Square in around 1933. In 1937 he produced a loyal address from the City of Manchester upon the accession of George VI (Manchester Guardian, 4 March 1937, p. 13), and in 1943 he designed the scroll conferring the freedom of the city upon Winston Churchill. Tabor died on 28 September 1957.