The story of The Phoenix Engineering Co. Ltd. starts back in 1839, when the Smith Brothers’ Phoenix Iron Foundry started trading. 45 years later Edward Rusk, a London financier, acquired the freehold to the foundry and in November 1891 he set up Phoenix Engineering Company Limited in order to buy the Phoenix Iron Foundry. Rusk was the majority shareholder and the rest of the capital was owned by some London-based engineers, Roger Bolger Pownall, Charles Harris and Thomas John Jennings, who was the company secretary.

Phoenix Engineering Company Limited continued to manufacture the same product lines such as small mobile asphalt plants, asphalt hotboxes Phoenix asphalt plant etc.