Northwest England manufacturing history

 The climate of the north west leant itself to the spinning and weaving of cotton. Later chemicals, electrical engineering and glass fixed the region in the national manufacturing jigsaw. In the sixties Courtaulds bought up a great many cotton mills and so were a highly visible presence.

Mill in Bollington near Macclesfield, formerly Courtaulds.

Manchester

Was home to the cotton traders who provided the raw cotton to the multitude of spinners and weavers in Lancashire who would then sell their finished cloth to those same merchants. The merchants later transformed the industry with the introduction of mills housing machinery for the mass production of cotton cloth. As I explain in this link, Manchester has a genius for re-invention.

Merseyside and the Cheshire salt towns

Liverpool

Was a seagoing town connecting Britain with many parts of the world. Its manufacturing was largely built round the materials it imported. With the decline of the port, Liverpool became one of the firt areas in the country to receive active support in re-inventing its manufacturing. You can read more by following this link.

Blackpool

Home to TVR motor cars. Johnson & Johnson manufacture here. Like many towns Blackpool had an extensive tram system with vehicles built in the city's own Rigby Road Works but also by English Electric in Preston and Brush in Loughborough. Mullard produced components at Lytham St Annes and Fleetwood.

St Helens

Home to Pilkington Glass of which I write much more in Vehicles to Vaccines and in this blog. Like much of the surrounding area St Helens had salt mines and from these the early heavy chemical industry grew with the production of soda which became part of United Alkali. Production did though shrink back as new processes were embraced elsewhere (the Solvay process for producing soda at the ICI plant at Winnington - outside Northwich). Thomas Beecham moved from Wigan to set up as a chemist in the town. Beecham later became part of GSK. I write more in this blog

Newton le Willows

The famous Vulcan Foundry, which became part of English Electric with Ruston-Paxman Diesels, played a big part in building the railways and later in the modernisation of British Railways. Newton-le-Willows also became home to GEC Switchgear.

Runcorn

New Town designated in 1964 with a long history of chemical manufacture. Read more in this link.

Widnes

Close to the Cheshire saltfields, this was a natural place for alkali manufacture. Read more in this link.

Warrington

New Town designated in 1968. A chemical town based on the production of soda from salt. Crosfield, later part of Unilever, had a toiletries and detergent business. In the Second World War Fairey Aviation managed a shadow factory modifying American made aircraft. Historically Warrington had manufactured metal goods and engineering products. It also became an early producer of sheet aluminium. I tell more in this link.

The Cotton Towns

Preston

Preston, along with Chorley and Leyland was designated a new town as Central Lancashire in 1970. Chorley, a cotton town, had been home to a massive Royal Ordnance shell filling factory in the Second World war which was repurposed for textile production. Leyland was dominated by Leyland commercial vehicles. In Preston, Dick, Kerr & Co factories building electric locomotives and aircraft filled a massive gap left by the decline in the cotton industry. I write much more about Preston and neighbouring towns in this link.

Leyland

Leyland under the leadership of the Spurriers was a force to be reckoned with. The subsequent story of British Leyland is well known and I write about it in Vehicles and Vaccines. Leyland still assemble DAF trucks.

Blackburn

A cotton weaving town with now home furnishings. You can read more by following this link

Oldham

A cotton spinning town with machine makers, Platt Brothers. Much later Ferranti Limited moved their heavy electrical business from London in 1900 and later focused there on naval and civil computer systems and fuzes. When Hawker Siddeley was formed in 1935, Avro's operations moved to Chadderton and Woodford in the Oldham borough. Woodford became home to British Aerospace Commercial aircraft production until that ceased in 2001. Read more in this link.

Burnley

A cotton weaving town with manufacturers of power looms. Lucas aerospace and automotive had a big presence derived in part from the Gas Turbine Equipment Company. Mullard manufactured radio components in Simonstone.

Bolton

A cotton spinning town with machine makers, Dobson and Barlow. Home to Warburtons Bakeries.

Rochdale

In the twenties Dunlop bought cotton mills to complete the material sourcing for the production of tyres. Rayon from Courtaulds' Rochdale factory and in thread form was accepted as an alternative to natural cotton by spinners. It brought the company great prosperity and a strong position in the American market, through its subsidiary American Viscose, and in international markets, through its patent and licence agreements.

Todmorden

Weir Group had an iron foundry in the town

Accrington

Cotton and coal, bricks and textile machinery. Read more in this link.

Wigan

A coal and cotton town at the centre of canal and railway mania. Beecham originated here as a chemists shop in 1850, but then set up his first factory in St Helens. Heinz Baked Beans set up their UK production here. A major steel works was located adjacent to the Wigan flight of canal locks. In the Second World War the Royal Ordnance factory produced five and half million 25lb shells. You can read more by following this link.

Horwich

One of the six major railway workshops was established here in 1887 transferring activity from Manchester.

Skelmersdale

A new town designated in 1961. Thorn set up a plant for the manufacture of colour picture TV tubes. Union Carbide set up production, as did Dunlop.

Poynton

A coal mining town where Ferranti located its microwave division.

Macclesfield

Home to silk with reputedly two hundred mills at one time. Home also Hovis and now Astra-Zeneca. Follow this link to read more.

Congleton

Home to ribbon manufacturers, the Beresford family. Over the years there were mills in Congleton itself but also Macclesfield and Derby. Products included ribbons for lady’s wear, medal ribbons and fustian - a velvet made from cotton and laboriously cut by hand.

Wilmslow

Quarry Bank Mill at nearby Styl is open to visitors to gain a sense of what cotton production was like.

Knutsford

Ilford Ltd manufactured here

Stockport

Was where more than half of the hats made in Britain were produced in 1900. It was an industry dating back to the seventeenth century and earlier. You can read more in this link.

Southport

The Vulcan motor company manufactured chassis for the War Office in the First World War. Mullard manufactured radio components.

Northwich

Winnington Hall was home to much brilliant ICI research of which I write in Vehicles to Vaccines. The same building had been a girls boarding school at which John Ruskin had spoken about the education of women. Nearby, ICI (formerly Brunner Mond) manufactured soda ash (Carbonate of soda) using the Solvay process which had been patented in 1863. It is now the headquarters of Tata Chemicals Europe. Read more in this link

Chester

The Romans set up forts across the country and Chester was one such. Much later, the coming of the railways brought three railway workshops and a LNWR factory manufacturing railway wagons. Vickers managed a large shadow factory to meet the demand for Wellington bombers during the Second World War. The factory subsequently became part of Vickers-Armstrong. Also in the town were Hydraulic Engineering Company, the Westminster Coach and Motor Works, the aluminium manufacturer Williams & Williams and Brookhurst Switchgear Ltd. (with thanks to Stewart Shuttleworth and Stanley C. Jenkins and their book Chester at Work. Bristol Meyers Squibb have a presence in Chester and manufacture at nearby Moreton.

Barnoldswick

A cotton town which welcomed a shadow factory in the Second World War working on jet engines first for Rover and then Rolls-Royce. Silent Night, the largest bed and mattress manufacturer in the UK, which started business in 1946.

Carlisle, Cumbria

Home to Carr's Biscuits subsequently part of United Biscuits. Separately Carr's Flour Mills produced both flour for human consumption and animal feeds. Nestle make instant coffee at nearby Dalston.

Kendal, Cumbria

K Shoes was founded in 1842 and manufactured in the town until 2003.

Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria

Vickers began building ships having bought land from the Duke of Devonshire. The shipyard is now part of BAE Systems and builds mainly submarines. Ferranti had a semiconductor plant here. You can read more in this blog.

Whitehaven, Cumbria

Chzech refugees Frank Schon and Fred Marzillier created the Marchon works in Whitehaven in 1940. Albright & Wilson adopted their new process of sulphuric acid production from anhydrite using reserves at Whitehaven when they bought Marcon in 1955.

Sellafield, Cumbria

A Royal Ordnance factory manufacturing TNT was set up here in the Second World War. It is now the site of a nuclear power station.

Distington, Cumbria

A shadow factory managed by High Duty Alloys (later part of Hawker Siddeley) produced Hiduminum (an alloy developed by Rolls-Royce) for aircraft parts.

Ulverston, Cumbria

Glaxo built a new factory, modelled on their Brentford HQ, to manufacture antibiotics.

Ellesmere Port and Stanlow

The German Hoechst Elsmere Port plant produced nearly all indigo dye. The same factory produced the major anti-syphilis medicine. Although not manufacturing, these areas provided vital port facilities for oil and although its subsequent refining. British Dyestuffs had an indigo plant here.

Manufacturing in the West Midlands

 The home of the metal basher, the Black Country, but also the city of a thousand small workshops. The image is of the Cadbury sports pavilion at Bournville.

Stoke on Trent

This town, the amalgamation of pottery villages, was home to the foundation of a British luxury goods industry in the form of pottery. You can read more by following this link.

Leek

Home to a Croda International chemical plant.

Newcastle-under-Lyme

Lucas (Rist) wiring harnesses were produced in the former BSA shadow factory.

Stafford

Originally known for shoe making (most notably Lotus shoes) and railway locomotive manufacture, Siemens Brothers Dynamo Works Limited set up in Stafford and subsequently became part of GEC. English Electric ran their tank factory here in the Second World War. They too became part of GEC. Also home to GEC Nelson Laboratories and GEC Turbine Generators, Power Transmission, Transformers and Dorman Diesels. Perkins Diesels still manufacture in the town. You can read more by following this link.

Crewe

A railway town. Bentley motor cars took over the former Rolls-Royce factory when Rolls-Royce Motors was sold. BAE Systems produce munitions at nearby Radway Green. You can read more by following this link.

Armitage

Home to Armitage Shanks bathrooms.

Wolverhampton

Home to boiler makers John Thompson, a diversified engineer making metal products ranging from drums for Servis washing machines to chassis for Land Rover. Rubery Owen, which owned BRM about whose Design Award I write in Vehicles to Vaccines, was based here. You can read more by following this link.

Walsall

Historically a centre of the leather industry, particularly saddlery. Later it became known for its fine leather products including handbags for the late Queen. GEC owned Berlec Ltd which manufactured furnaces here.

Cannock

Neighbouring Cannock Chase had the largest coalfield in Staffordshire. Cannock was known for its edge tools (chisels). In the First World War a large number of soldiers were trained here. Lucas manufactured automotive lighting

Birmingham

My first introduction to the Industrial Revolution was a study of Birmingham. This city of workshops caught my imagination as is evident from the essay I wrote which tells the story of the city up to the date of the Great Exhibition. I include some of this and some of Birmingham's later industries in the post which can be accessed by following this link. Birmingham is a city with a remarkable capacity for reinvention.

Coventry

Home of the British motor industry with the first factory producing vehicles to Daimler's designs. William Lyons set up SS Cars in Coventry later changing its name to Jaguar and taking over Daimler, amongst others. I write of these in Vehicles to Vaccines. You can read much more on Coventry manufacturing by following this link

Rugby

Home to electrical and railway engineering. Read more in the link.

Warwick and Leamington

The University of Warwick had a specialism in the motor industry. At nearby Leamington Spa Automotive Products manufactured parts of the motor industry from a seventy acre site. Read more on this link.

Nuneaton

Courtaulds produced rayon in the town. Nearby Atherstone was a centre of hat making.

Rocester

JCB headquarters founded 1945

Stourbridge

The area close to the river Stour had all the ingredients for industrialisation. The Stour itself powered mills and then under the ground there was coal, iron ore, high quality clay, lime and sand. Stourbridge was thus home to glass making. Follow this link to the Stourbridge Glass Museum.

Dudley

Dudley was home to nail making and much more - a genius for reinvention. Read more in this link.

Telford

Nearby Coalbrookdale is regarded as the home of the Industrial Revolution. Telford was a new town designated in 1963. Read more in this link.

Redditch

Home to needle making. A new town designated in 1964. Read more in this link.

Droitwich

Originally known for the production of salt. Vax vacuum cleaners have been made here since 1977

Kidderminster

Home to the carpet industry. You can read more by following this link.

Worcester

Up until 1826 Worcester was a centre of fine leather glove manufacture when the removal of tariffs resulted in the market being flooded with cheaper imports. Home to Willis Shoe Company, Royal Worcester porcelain and Lea & Perrins Source. SIG (Carmichael) fire engines.

Malvern

Home to Morgan Motor Company and Malvern Water.

Hereford

Historically known for its cider and beer and home to HP Bulmer's cider. A munitions factory employed over 5,000 in the First World War and a Royal Ordnance shell filling factory was located here in the Second World War. This factory specialised in alloys and after the war the factory was taken by Henry Wiggin Ltd, specialist metals founded in Birmingham.

Manufacturing history of Wales

Coal, iron ore, copper and tin were the raw materials that made Wales key to the British industrial revolution. Slate from North Wales covered many British roofs. Before all of this Wales was predominantly agricultural with an economy revolving around annual fairs and periodic local markets. Woollen cloth was woven from locally reared sheep in very much a cottage industry. There were big land owners but no great wealth.

There was a massive coal field bordered by Merthyr Tydfil in the north, Kidwelly in the west and Pontypool in the East reaching the coast in the south around Swansea bay and then heading inland eastward toward Caerphilly. Iron, copper and tin ore were also to be found. Landowners and occupiers would access coal and other minerals close to the surface essentially for their own use; there was simply not the transport to trade further afield. War changed this settled picture with increased demand particularly for iron. Technical developments were crucial: the blast furnace, Darby's discovery of how coal could be used to smelt ore and Cort's puddling method for wrought iron. In relation to coal, it was Newcomen and then Watt who enabled the sinking of ever deeper pits. The canals offered vital transport; the image is of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. A.H. John in his The Industrial Development of South Wales 1750-1850 highlights the remarkable fact that the capital to develop coal, tin and copper mining came from England as did the funding of most of the iron industry. One result of this was that the Welsh iron industry in particular was in much larger units that the contemporary businesses in industrial England.

Further reading: A.H. John, The Industrial Development of South Wales 1750-1850 (Cardiff: Merton Priory Press,1995, 1950)

Thomas Telford's Menai Bridge

Merthyr Tydfil

Once known as the Iron Capital of the World, Merthyr was home to the Dowlais Foundry and Engineering Company which made iron using the Northern Coal measures some twenty miles inland of Cardiff and Newport. It became part of GKN and I write about this in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. In the nearby village of Hirwaun, Radio and Allied had a manufacturing base in a former Royal Ordnance Factory; this would be the start of Arnold Weinstock's long relationship with GEC and I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines. I write more on Merthyr in this link.

Ebbw Vale

Ebbw Vale Steelworks was at one time the largest in Europe. It had moved from using local ore for iron production to ore from Middlesbrough and Northampton to make steel, the local ore being unsuitable for steel making. In 1920, the steel works had employed 34,000 people but had then declined and closed in 1929. As a result of a government initiative, Richard Thomas & Co, the biggest tinplate manufacturer, took over the steel works and production of tinplate expanded not least for the growing canning industry. In the thirties it introduced a wide strip mill which revolutionised production. The production of 5,000 tons a week was used in the adjoining tinplate works but also to be galvanised and corrugated. It was at one time under the control of the Darby family and had fought Bessemer over patent rights.

Newport

At the mouth of the river Usk, Newport remains a general cargo port. It has one of the few remaining transporter bridges which crossed the river. Historically, it exported coal and tinplate. Richard Thomas and Baldwins of Spencer Works, Llanwern was set up to produce tinplate taking advantage of the proximity of the coast and hence the ease of imports. The Inmos semiconductor factory was built here and later became Newport Wafer Fab.

Cwmbran

A new town designated after the Second World War. Ferranti based their software development, naval and civil computer systems there. Lucas managed a shadow factory making aircraft turrets, and later Girling made shock absorbers. As a new town it provided home for some workers at the nearby Panteg steelworks.

Pontypool

British Nylon Spinners opened a factory in 1947 to produce nylon yarn. Pilkington Brothers had a glass works there.

Glascoed

BAE Systems' former Royal Ordnance munitions factory is the major manufacturing employer.

Cardiff

The capital city of Wales. In 1891, the Dowlais Company set up steel making at East Moors to have better access to imported ore, its reserves at Merthyr Tydfill being unsuitable for steel making. The company had acquired suitable iron ore reserves at Bilbao in Spain. A Royal Ordnance engineering armaments factory was based here in the Second World War and produced 21,200 guns including 7,250 tank guns and 1875 anti-tank guns. Matsushita TV factory was set up in the sixties. Robert Bosch set up a factory in nearby Pontyclun Miskin Business Park but left in 2011 when the space was taken by Renishaw for Healthcare product manufacturing. Also in healthacre, Amersham International had a presence here. The Royal Mint is at Llantrisant.

Bridgend

Sony set up a TV factory here. I write in Vehicles to Vaccines about the encouragement government gave to Japanese manufacturers. Ford set up a motor factory here in 1980 and a supply chain gathered including machine tools makers, mostly SMEs.

Swansea

The home of tinplating and related steel production largely because of its status as a major commercial centre. You can read much more by following this link

Port Talbot

The Steel Company of Wales's Abbey Works at Port Talbot was huge. It stemmed from the success of Siemens in steel making for tinplate at nearby Swansea. In 1831 William Llewellyn founded the Aberdulais tinplate works. The steel works now owned by Tata is in process of conversion to smelting with electric arc furnaces.

Llanelli

A centre for lead, copper (after 1804), and tinplate (after 1847). Llanelli also became a port for the anthracite coalfield. South Wales produced nearly all the anthracite mined in the UK. A large cold-reduction mill at Trostre, using steel strip from Port Talbot, made Llanelli again a centre of tinplate manufacture, primarily for packaging. The town also has a small steel fabrication industry. TNT was manufactured in the Second World War at the Royal Ordnance factory at Pembrey on the South Wales coast between Llanelly and Kidwelly. Covering five hundred acres of dunes, it was originally owned and run  by Nobel before being taken over by the War Office in the First World War. Pembrey also had a shell filling factory. The Japanese Calsonic Kansei (Marelli) set up a car components plant.

Pembroke

For over a century of active service, the Royal Dockyard saw the construction of five Royal Yachts and 263 other Royal Naval vessels. The last ship built there was launched in April 1922. The Valero Oil refinery was established by Chevron in 1964 and taken over by Valero in 2011.

Milford Haven

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the town was one of the main UK fishing ports employing some 4,000 people. The Suez crisis of the fifties led to the use of much larger oil tankers for which new terminals were required. Milford Haven fitted the bill and the Esso Oil Refinery opened in 1960 to be followed by BP in 1961, Regent (now Valero) in 1964, Gulf in 1968 and finally Elf in 1973.

Newtown

The wool industry had been significant in Wales since the time of the Cistercian monks in the twelfth century. Fulling mills began to appear wherever there was fast running water and by the late nineteenth century there were 250 mills in west Wales. Also in the nineteenth century Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones opened a large woollen mill in Newtown selling by mail order. I wrote of current wool manufacture in Melin Tregwynt in Vehicles to Vaccines. Foxford woollen mills founded in 1892 in county Mayo is one of the few remaining mills.

Flint

The first artificial silk mill, the Aber Works, was opened in Holywell by a German company in 1907. The First World War saw its German employees interned and the mill was taken over by Courtaulds to manufacture rayon as it became known. Further mills were added: the Castle Works and Deeside Mill. The mills employed thousands so much so that the Flint football team were known as the Silkmen. Production ceased in 1980.

Deeside

There was John Summers and Son’s Steelworks on Deeside which closed in 1980. Toyota engine plant built in the early 1990s to supply the Burnaston assembly plant.

Broughton (North Wales)

Vickers set up a factory at Broughton in 1940 producing Wellingtons and Lancasters. A Broughton built Lancaster now forms part of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. After the War, the factory was bought by de Havilland, producing the very successful Mosquito. In the 1960s, the company became part of Hawker-Siddeley Aviation, before becoming part of British Aerospace in 1977. Today, the Broughton facility is owned by the multi-nationally owned Airbus and is one of the biggest employers in the area, producing wing components

Wrexham

The town boasts the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal designed by Thomas Telford (shown in the image). The steel works at nearby Brymbo was founded in 1796 and was only closed in 1990. At one time it experimented with a method of making steel from high phosphorous ore. The Royal Ordnance factory producing cordite closed after the Second World War. Wrexham attracted new industries, including engineering, packaging, pharmaceuticals, electronics, optical fibres and chemicals. In 1978 Kellogg created a new manufacturing plant which was to take over production from Trafford Park in Manchester. JCB manufactures transmissions at a factory here.

Llandudno

Some of the first British copper mines were on the Great Orme, one of the hills bordering the seaside town. Inland was the great slate mining district.

Anglesea

Once the largest copper mine in the world. There is evidence of a Roman presence here for it was the place they defeated the Druids. Robert Stephenson built the bridge over the Menai Strait connecting London to Dublin by train and sea. He followed the wrought-iron and stone suspension bridge built by Thomas Telford in 1826 as part of the post road linking the two capitals.