Mitchell Shackleton & Co was created in 1907 when Ernest Mitchell formed a partnership with Edwin Shackleton. Mitchell's company was founded in 1887 when work began on the Manchester Ship Canal. It was one of the first to locate in Eccles, with the original works opening at Vulcan Works in 1888. Eccles later became an area populated by heavy industrial companies. From 1907 Mitchell Shackleton & Co Ltd created a successful crankshaft manufacturing and repair company for customers worldwide. Production transferred to the Green Lane site in Patricroft in 1908. The range of equipment on the site was unique and the capacities of the machines were unparalleled within the UK. The company, having been taken over by National Forge Europe, went into liquidation in 2003.

National Forge Europe was set up in 2000 by the American firm National Forge Ltd. in order to acquire Mitchell Shackleton and Company Ltd. National Forge Ltd was a Pennsylvania-based company producing crankshafts, steel pipe molds, ordnance components, submarine propulsion shafting, and power generation rotors. Ellwood acquired the assets of the National Forge business in 2003 and became Ellwood National Forge.

Edward Clarke first ran a forge in 1859 in Lincoln, producing agricultural equipment. Clarke began to specialise in the production of crankshafts for steam engines and patented his own design in 1872. In the 1870s Clarke moved his rapidly expanding business to larger premises in Coultham Street, Lincoln. During the First World War the company supplied large numbers of marine crankshafts , and in 1917 the Admiralty funded an expansion of the factory to produce heavy forgings for ships. Mitchell, Shackleton & Company of Manchester took over Clarke's in 1948. Mitchell, Shackleton subsequently merged with Walters Somers of Halesowen in 1964. Clarke's remained a subsidiary company until it was taken over by Folkes Plc in 1990. In 2003 the Folkes Group announced the closure of the Coultham Street factory.