East Midlands manufacturing history

 Textiles and footwear. Engineering built on an agricultural heritage and steel based on ore in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. The image is of Lincoln Cathedral.

Nottinghamshire

Nottingham

One of the five towns of the Danelaw. Hosiery was centred on the East Midlands and so Nottingham along with Derby and Leicester. This led to framework knitting and then to Nottingham lace. I write about framework knitting in the page on Leicester (below). Nottingham suffered from dreadful overcrowding and this combined with a decline in the hosiery trade after the Napoleonic wars led to the action of the Luddites.

The city was home to Jesse Boot and pharmaceuticals, Raleigh Bicycles (later part of TI plc) and Stanton and Staveley steel and spun pipes (formerly part of British Steel and before that Stewarts & Lloyds). It was also home to John Player cigarettes and a good deal of Courtaulds and other textile manufacturers. Follow this link to read more about Nottingham.

Long Eaton

Long Eaton was home to lace making and furniture. In the late 19th century three large tenement lace mills were built one financed by the notorious financier Ernest Terah Hooley who was born in the town. You can read more about long Eaton manufacturing in this link.

Beeston

Just outside Nottingham, Beeston was home to Plessey Telecommunication following their purchase of Ericcson. Long before then it was home to the Humber Company before their move to Coventry. It was the vacant Humber factory that in 1901 was occupied by the National Telephone Company (later taken over by British Ericcson) to manufacture telephone equipment under licence from the American Bell and Edison. Nearby Chilwell had been home to a massive shell filling factory in the First World War and I wrote of this in Ordnance. In the Second World War it became home to the Army Centre for Mechanisation of which I wrote in War on Wheels.

Sutton in Ashfield

A coal mining town which became home to hosiery manufacturer, Pretty Polly. Parker-Knoll upholstery moved here

Mansfield

William Hollins set up its mill in Pleasley that same year, attracted by the availability of water and a climate kept damp by the number of trees. Labour was provided by a workhouse; many of the workers were children
At the Great Exhibition of 1851 I noted that William Hollins of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire exhibited both cotton and wool which when combined was patented as Viyella.

Worksop

One of the major producers of liquorice. Home also to hat making and furniture. Also Sharwoods, owned by RHM and then Premier Foods, make their famous curry sauces.

Newark

Home to British Sugar, later part of Associated British Food. Home to Worthington Simpson Pumps, later part of a joint venture between Ingersol-Rand and Dresser Pumps. Ransome and Marles Bearing Co became part of Ransome Hoffman Pollard bearings formed at the initiative of the IRC in the sixties. It became a subsidiary of Ingersol-Rand. After a management buy out, the bearings business eventually became part of the Japanese NSK.

Leicestershire

Leicester

One of the five towns of the Danelaw. Leicester embraced hosiery and foot wear from which came engineering to mechanise those industries, and then much more. Follow this link to read more of Leicester's manufacturing history and framework knitters.

Ashby de la Zouch

United Biscuits produce McVitie, Crawford and McCoy's biscuits and snacks

Hinckley

The first stocking making machine was used in the town in the mid seventeenth century. Much more recently Hinckley is home to a new factory manufacturing Triumph Motor Cycles.

Ibstock

The company began in 1825 as a colliery, but refocused on bricks with annual production of 3 million in 1914, 10 million in 1939 and 18 million in 1946. Ibstock Brick became a punlic company in 1963. By 1990 it had 5,000 employees expanded through acquisition including Redland and Tarmac brick businesses. The business weas bought by CHR but then sold to management in 2015. It was then re-floated. Its Eclipse factory near Leicester was opened in 2018.

Loughborough

Home to Brush Electric Machines . I write of the American Brush Company in my blog on American electricity. The British Brush company operated first in London but grew out of its premises and looked for a suitable place for expansion. The site selected was in Loughborough next to the Midland Railway where the Falcon Engineering Works had been built by Henry Hughes who had begun by building carriages, railways carriage and eventually steam locomotives. Brush Electrical Engineering became a major manufacturer of electric powered locomotives whilst continuing with steam locomotive particularly for export markets. Ladybird produce their children's books in the town. Nearby Mountsorrel became home in 1941 to the Alvis workforce relocated from Coventry after the bombing of 14 November 1940. After the war the factory was bought by Rolls-Royce and only closed in 1994. British Gypsum producing plasterboard is at East Leake, now owned by St Gobain.

Market Harborough

Summingtons made Liberty corsets and the famous Liberty bodice.

Melton Mowbray

Promoted as the food capital of England, this market town is home to Samworth Brothers makers of sandwiches and porkpies and Clawson Dairy makers of Stilton and other cheeses. Until 2000, the neighbouring village of Old Dalby was home to the army depot maintaining our missiles. Mars chose the town for its Pedigree Petfood factory. Stanton & Stavely had an iron works manufacturing fitments and manhole covers at Holwell just outside Melton.

Derbyshire

Derby

One of the five towns of the Danelaw. Home to Rolls-Royce, railway and engineering history. I tell more about the city's manufacturing story with the help of a visit to the Derby museum of making.

Spondon

In 1923 British Cellulose had changed its name to British Celanese and by the 1930s was producing Celanese filament yarn well suited to the fashions of the twenties and thirties. Its acetate drape was being used in competition with silk. British Celanese was later bought by Courtaulds. In the Second World War, British Celanese manufactured parachutes and underclothing. By the end of the war, they employed 20,000 people. In conjunction with Courtaulds, ICI formed British Nylon Spinners to exploit the Du Pont patent of Nylon for the manufacture of parachutes.

Belper

Was home to Glowworm and Parkray boilers, part of TI plc and then Hepworth Ceramic plc.

Langley Mill

The Valley works became a shadow factory producing a variety of armaments. It was then repurposed by Vic Hallam to manufacture prefabricated buildings. Aristoc manufactured silk hosiery and GR Turner manufactured wagons.

Chesterfield

John Robinson set up a business here in 1839 making pill boxes. In the fifties the company patented the first disposable nappies and now as Robinson plc make a whole range of packaging material.

Burton on Trent

At one time it was home to thirty breweries. The Branston pickle factory was repurposed as a Central Ordnance Depot for Army clothing in the Second World War. Read more in this link.

Burnaston

Toyota built a plant here in the early 1990s to manufacture motor cars for the UK and European market

Cromford

Richard Arkwright’s water frame massively increased the speed of spinning cotton. Cromford is the site of his first factory and also John Smedley wool knitters.

Alfreton

Home to Thornton's Chocolates founded in Sheffield in 1911. Butterley was an engineering company at nearby Ripley and produced cast iron (for St Pancras Station and the Falkirk Wheel) and bricks, the latter became part of Hanson and then Heidelberg Cement. The engineering business was bought by Slater Walker and merged with Crittall. Read more in this link. Also nearby is the Denby Pottery.

High Peak

Home to Swizzles Matlow.

Northamptonshire

Northampton

New Town designated in 1968. Home to boot-making, becoming busy during the First World War with huge demand from the army. From this came shoe making which now is at the quality end of the market with Churches. The town was home to Express Lifts, Britain's largest manufacturer of lifts, and their test tower built in 1982 is now a listed building. I tell more in this blog.

Corby

A new town designated after the Second World War in 1950. Stewarts and Lloyds in effect relocated their steel making in the interwar years but steel production ceased in the eighties. Tata Steel has a presence in the town manufacturing thin walled tube. I tell more in this blog.

Kettering

This was a home to footwear manufacturing along with Northampton. Weetabix is made at nearby Burton Latimer

Wellingborough

Another footwear town also home to flour mills. Read more by following this link.

Irthlingborough

Home to Whitworth's dried fruit and to the Lantern Tower on St Peter's Church which was built as a beacon to guide travellers through the 'treacherous' Nene Valley

Daventry

Cummins Inc power systems factory was set up here and combines with their UK logistics centre. Home to DIRFT, the International Rail Freight Terminal. At nearby Long Buckby is McLaren automotive.

Peterborough

New Town designated in 1967. A deeply agricultural town which embraced engineering as I tell more in this blog.

Lincolnshire

Lincoln

The Romans installed garrisons at strategic towns across England and Lincoln was one. One of the five towns of the Danelaw. William the Conqueror built a castle and cathedral and the town was one of the largest in medieval England, wealthy from wool. More recently famous for its cathedral and relationship with the RAF and Bomber Command. Follow the link to Lincoln's manufacturing story

Grantham

An engineering town. You can read about it in this blog.

Scunthorpe

Home to United Steel Companies (Lincolnshire) now renamed British Steel and owned by the Chinese. I write more in this blog.

Stamford

One of the five towns of the Danelaw. A town famous for the Cecil family to whom we owe thanks for British patent law. The town, in its later years, attracted engineering. You can read more in this blog.

Boston

An ancient town with a busy port. In a county where chickens were grown in the hundreds of thousands Fogarty took advantage of byproduct of feathers for their pillows and duvets. Deep in farming country there is currently a plan to build a factory for a vegan food processor. Greencore produce prepared salads and vegetables.

Spalding

Home to vegetable processors including Greencore and FreshLinc.

Long Sutton

Home to Princes largest vegetable processing plant

Grimsby

Known for its fish as early as the thirteenth century. Fishing and fish processing dominated the town in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In nearby Caistor, Sealord (now Japanese owned) make high end fish fingers for Waitrose.

Humberside

The south bank of the Humber was and is home to much heavy chemical industry. British Titan Products built a factory on the Pyewipe industrial estate on the outskirts of Grimsby. They were followed by Laporte also with titanium dioxide, Dunlop with industrial hoses, Ciba Chemicals and Courtaulds with man made fibre. Fisons had a factory at Immingham.

Yorkshire manufacturing history

 Britain's largest county with a long history of wool, coal and steelmaking. I draw together an overview of coal mining and iron and steel making to place individual regions in a national context.

Sheffield

Sheffield was to steel as Manchester was to cotton and Leeds to wool. This developed in Sheffield plate (silver plating) and stainless steel. On a larger scale, it was the place of Huntsman’s invention of crucible steel and the development of the Bessemer processes embraced by the father of Sheffield steel, John Brown, for rails and armour plating for naval ships. It was the birthplace of Vickers and the Vickers/Cammell Laird English Steel Corporation (Sheffield). Part of this now continues in public ownership as Sheffield Forgemasters. Read more about Sheffield manufacturing by following this link.

Leeds

A city that made its wealth from the wool industry; in the years following the Second World War the Burton factory employed 20,000 people. Wool attracted textile machinery manufacturers and engineering more generally, including the railways. Yorkshire Chemical Company provided the dyes for the wool industry. See much more by following this link. In nearby Temple Newsam one of the first fulling mills was erected in 1185.

Bradford

The home of worsted production and a major iron producer. In 2025 the UK City of Culture. See much more by following this link.

Wakefield

A coal mining town on the river Calder with a history of working with wool. Sirdar knitting wool is spun here. Sirdar was also famous for their knitting patterns. Hodgson and Simpson, soap manufacturer later part of Unilever, was active here. Coca Cola has major plant here. The British Premium Sausage Company formed in Bradford to produce high end sausages distinct from then prevalence of cheap sausages with low quality ingredients. At nearby Batley Angloco make fire engines.

Castleford

In 1972 Burberry moved its production of gabardine overcoats.

Yeadon

North of Leeds, Avro produced Lancasters and and Ansons in what was reputedly the largest single factory unit in Europe at the time employing 17,500 people. The Dowty Heritage site offers more fascinating detail on aircraft production and the shadow factories.

Rotherham

Yorkshire was home to Park Gate Iron and Steel Co formerly owned by Tube Investments. Liberty’s Speciality Steel is part of its progeny. J & E Walker's tin plate works was known as one of the greatest in the country until 1829. Tinplate later focused on South Wales. J&E Walker's predecessor Samuel Walker cast both iron and brass (bronze) cannon.

Halifax

Famous for its Piece Hall where merchants traded woollen products made by the many hundreds of spinners and weavers in the surrounding area. A keen competitor of Bradford in the worsted trade having the advantage of more water power. It later concentrated on 'fancy' worsted. Together with Keighley and Huddersfield, Halifax was part of a cluster of Yorkshire towns where machine tool manufacturers explored new ideas in the nineteenth century. It was where John Mackintosh set up his shop selling toffee; it merged with Rowntree in 1969. I tell more of Halifax in this blog.

Huddersfield

The home to wool products which made the town wealthy. "It is believed, in the 1940s, Huddersfield had more Rolls-Royce owners per capita than anywhere else in England, displaying the wealth of the mill owners at the time". English Cloth are one of the remaining wool manufacturers and their website tells the story. You can read more about Huddersfield manufacturing by following this link.

Barnsley

A town in the Yorkshire coalfield where mining and related metal manufacturing dominated. It was famous for its nail makers operating from small workshops, also wire stretchers. Joseph Bramah produced his famous unpickable locks in London to which he had travelled from Barnsley to seek his fortune. Metal working skills were adapted to clock making very much aimed at the monied classes. Redfearn Glass at Monk Breton near Barnsley at one time had 16% of the UK’s glass bottle production. RHM made Mr Kipling 'exceedingly good cakes' in Barnsley, subsequently owned by Premier Foods.

Whitby

Was a coal and whaling port. The ship Endeavour was built there.

Scarborough

The Canadian McCain have made frozen chips nearby since the sixties.

Hull

The city was one of the two great ports serving the industrial revolution, the other being Liverpool. Historically the docks were home to commercial shipbuilding and manufacturing activity grew up around the products traded. In the later nineteenth century fishing became a massive part of Hull. I write more about Hull manufacturing in this blog.

York

Home to Rowntree, Terry's and the National Rail Museum which grew out of the railway workshops in the city. Although without a university until 1963, it was a place of scientific invention. I tell in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World how technical development tended to be on the job rather than in formal educational settings as in France or Germany. Many towns had their scientific society where ideas were shared and stimulated. You can read more about York manufacturing by following this link.

Doncaster

Where the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard were built. International Harvester set up their first UK full manufacturing plant before the Second World War. I write more in this blog.

Goole

The company town of the Aire and Calder canal through which many thousands of tons of coal from the South Yorkshire coalfield. It is now home to Siemens new railway factory. Croda Chemicals began production in 1925

Skipton

Was home to Dewhurst, maker of Silko thread. Metcalfe Models now make wonderful card kits for model railways.

Northeast England manufacturing history

 This was surely the powerhouse for the Industrial Revolution in Britain, with abundant coal, iron ore and limestone, a canny workforce and some of our best engineers. The coalfields of Northumberland and Durham were the biggest source of coal in the UK the total production of which in 1913 was 287 million tons with the mighty USA a short distance behind. The output of the Durham field alone was 41 million tons. The region produced iron and steel and played a big part in shipbuilding.

Berwick on Tweed

In 1850 Robert Stephenson built the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick, connecting London and Edinburgh.

Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead

A shipbuilding town built on coal. Home to William Armstrong's engineering ventures which joined with Vickers to become a giant of engineering, shipbuilding and armaments. CA Parson steam turbines were invented and built in the city and transformed both the generation of electricity and the way ships were powered. You can find more in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and by following this link.

South Shields

Barbour have made wax jackets since 1894.

Sunderland

On the river Wear, home to builders of clippers for fast carriage of tea and silk. Now home to Nissan UK and its electric car and battery plant. I write much more in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and in this link.

Washington

A new town designated in 1964 home to a BAE Systems munitions factory derived from the Second World War Royal Ordnance engineering factory at nearby Birtley. You can read more by following this link.

Jarrow

Home to Palmer Shipbuilding and Iron Company. This was one of the companies which in the 1930s was deemed surplus to the nation's needs. Palmers with eighteen berths and one hundred and thirty one thousand capacity closed in 1935. Vickers later brought it back for repair work.

Blyth

A major port for the shipment of coal. Nearby Cambois was home to a Glaxo primary manufacturing factory

County Durham and Durham

The county was home to one of Britain’s largest coal fields and a good deal of the industry of the area development round the need to transport that coal to market. The first water powered pump to clear a mine of water was introduced in Finchdale in1486. In recent times, there was some diversification. Phillips (formerly Mullard) made colour TV tubes at their Durham factory.

Consett, the Derwent Valley and Shotley Bridge

The Derwent Valley was rich in coal, iron ore and limestone and made it the perfect place for iron and steel production. I write more in this blog piece.

Hartlepool

A shipbuilding and iron and steel town built on the carriage of coal by rail from the Durham coalfields to the sea. Still home to a Tata steel plant. You can read more in this link.

Peterlee

A new town designated after the Second World War in 1948. You can read more in the link.

Middlesborough

On the south of Teeside, and so in Yorkshire. One of the 19th century towns created by the railways. Along with neighbouring Hartlepool, Stockton and Darlington historically focused on shipbuilding, coal and iron. You can read more by following this link.

Billingham and Wilton

ICI built massive chemical plants forming the core of the British chemical industry. Read more in this link.

Stockton

One end of the first railway, this town on the winding river Tees. was important for its engineering skills. You can read more in this link.

Darlington

The North Eastern Railway workshops moved here from Gateshead. Whessoe foundries and engineering had their home here. Cummins Inc set up their diesel engine factory here in 1965. Dorman, Long continues to trade as DLT Engineering with the Whessoe Technology Centre at Darlington, head office in Northamptonshire and operations in China and India. Here is the link to DLT. Rothmans made cigarettes here.

Barnard Castle

Glaxo's first factory producing penicillin. I write more in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Newton Aycliff

New Town designated in 1947. Home to a Royal Ordnance shell filling factory in the Second World War to which the government persuaded the British Bakelite company to move in the late forties. Home now to Hitachi Europe, one of the few remaining UK railway locomotive works, and the government owned semiconductor plant, Octric. You can read more in this link.