Historic engines built in Devizes will be returning to the town for an event to commemorate the firm that created them.

Brown and May built steam engines for agricultural use and its foundry was on the site of what is now Morrisons supermarket in Estcourt Street.

The company was founded in 1854 and was the largest employer in the area, with 350 staff, and exported its machinery all over the world. It closed in 1913.

Michele Goddard, of Bromham, is a steam engine enthusiast and owns a Brown and May engine. She has arranged a ‘steam up’ of 14 of the 16 full-size Brown and May wheeled steam engines that remain in the UK to be held in Devizes on Sunday.

She said: “There are seven Brown and May engines in the Devizes area and they will be there. Others will be coming from Yorkshire, Cornwall, Somerset and Berkshire, and the only Brown and May’s showman engine will be coming from Lincoln. Some of them will be in steam while the rest are part-restored.

“I organised it to mark the centenary of the closure of Brown and May and, originally, it was going to be a small group of local enthusiasts displaying their steam engines, but owners in other parts of the country expressed an interest so it’s become a serious reunion.”

Mrs Goddard said it was important to remember the history of such an influential local business.

She said: “It is so easy in this day and age to forget our history. There’s a lot of modern industrial history in Devizes that maybe our parents and grandparents know and that’s so easily lost. “Brown and May were the main employers of Devizes at one time and the founders, Mr Brown and Mr May, were both town mayors.”

One of the engines on display will be a portable steam engine built in the 1890s that used to belong to Lackham Museum of Agricultural and Rural Life and which now belongs to the newly formed Brown and May Trust, of which Mrs Goddard is a trustee.

As well as the steam engines, there will be on display a number of items produced at Brown and May’s foundry along with engine drawings and other historical artefacts.

Llew Bedder, of Coventry, who recently wrote a book on Brown and May, will be attending.

Entry is free at the event on Sunday, which runs from 10.30am to 4pm at Devizes Trailer Centre, London Road. Parking is in Folly Road.