Inigo Jones Slate Works was founded in 1861 primarily to prefabricate school writing slates, when school writing slates were replaced by paper, the company had to find new products. The owner at the time, Hugh Jones, started producing electrical panels in slate. These proved to be very popular and the company rapidly expanded, sourcing its slate from the whole of North Wales.

The slate was enamelled and this was a slow, laborious process as the slate had to be baked in ovens for over 48 hours. Thousands of electrical slate panels were produced at Inigo Jones Tudor Slate Works. The world famous Queen Mary, Mauritania and the Queen Elizabeth luxury liners all had panels from these works. The original slate panels supplied to the Queen Mary can still be seen in Long Beach, California where the liner is now a tourist attraction.