Reuben Heaton
inventor (1839–1923)
Reuben George Heaton (Birmingham 1 August 1839 – Erdington 3 November 1923) was a manufacturer of fishing tackle and patentor of a blow football table-top game.
Heaton's father was John (Birmingham c.1811 – Birmingham 1883) was a brass caster and white metal candlestick maker of Aston, Birmingham. The Heaton's were "well known in Birmingham, with family members involved with the Birmingham Mint".
The firm of Reuben Heaton, founded in 1857 manufactured fishing tackle in large quantities for many of the well known brands of the time and also under its own brand. Unusual items also manufactured by the firm included, inkwells made from horses hooves, umbrella stands made from Elephants feet, bicycle wheels and paraffin lamps, all of which helped firm to overcome troubled times when tackle manufacture was slow. In 1887 he patented a railway key ferrule and, by 1893, had patented his "Football for the Table" which he advertised as an "amusing game" for hotels, coffee house and clubs.
His daughter, Rose, married the architect, Arthur Edwards.
Aston Harold
In 1875 the Reuben Heaton Works football team, the Harold club or Aston Harold, were founder members of the Birmingham Football Association. A subscription of £3 was required from member clubs in order to commission a trophy for the member tournament, the trophy costing £50 and made by Mr R. Williams of Wednesbury. Not all of the clubs could afford the £3 subscription – the Harold club contributed 15s, Wednesbury Old Park 10s 6d, and Saltley College £1 12s.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Reuben Heaton” as inventor (1839–1923). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as inventor (1839–1923). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q140343739. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1839, 1923, 1811 and 1883.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Reuben Heaton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.