Crayford manufacturing history

 The main route running through Crayford was Watling Street offering evidence of Roman occupation. It was also where Hiram Maxim built his first factory. In nearby Dartford Heath there is evidence of iron smelting using ores from the Weald.

An early industry was silk printing and in the nineteenth century David Evans won a reputation for the excellence of his product. The skill expanded into textile printing more generally. The Swaisland company was said to have made Crayford the 'Mecca of the printing industry in Britain'. The company was bought by G.P. & J. Baker which created iconic designs for their fabric printing. Their archive has been preserved in private hands and inspires some of today's fabric printers. In the nineteenth century this was big business employing massive steam driven machinery. The Calico Printers Ground became a well known place in Crayford where printing had grown out of the bleaching industry, itself the product of Hugenot weavers making their homes here.

Frederick Braby worked with sheet steel in the Euston Road in London and set up a works in Crayford in 1867 to take advantage of the transport facilitated by the Surrey Canal. The works lasted until 1964 latterly supplying the food industry.

Sir Hiram Maxim was also a Hugenot but came to Watling Street, Crayford in 1888 via Hatton Garden and America to which the family had fled. He would be best known for his machine gun, but William Carr also suggests that he took to the air in a steam powered aircraft. Nothing came of this. What did come was an amalgamation with the Nordenfeldt Gun Company which in 1887 had built a factory in nearby Erith. In 1888 Nordenfeldt and Maxim combined their businesses which results in Maxim-Nordenfeldt Gun and Ammunition Company close to St John's church in Erith. In 1897 Vickers acquired the Maxim factory and there developed the Vickers Maxim machine gun.

In the early 1900s the armament works were repurposed to manufacture Wolseley Siddeley motor cars. This came about because John Siddeley was looking for someone to put his all British 100 h.p. car on the market. To do this he joined with Wolseley, then run by Herbert Austin, and Vickers. Austin left to set up on his own and the motor business was moved to Birmingham.

Crayford closed until 1912 when Vickers reopened it for arms production. Crucially they designed a synchronising gear which enabled a machine gun to be fired through the revolving propellor of an aeroplane, also manufactured by Vickers in Erith. After the war, the Crayford factory assumed a key part of Vickers manufacturing capability and I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Of international significance, a Vickers Vimy bomber built at Crayford but modified at Weybridge made the first trans-Atlantic crossing with Alcock and Brown. The Vickers Vimy powered by a Rolls-Royce Eagle engine proved a success but then a decision was taken to focus aircraft production on Weybridge.

In the Second World War in Crayford, Vickers manufactured armaments including military fire control and aiming equipment and after the war diversified into petrol pumps and packing and bottling machinery.

Given its location much of Crayford's business derived from imports. This the Vitbe Flour Mill was in Crayford. A good deal of timber was imported and at Crayford a portion of this was made into a whole range of different plywoods by the Tucker Armour Plywood Company.

Dussek's Oil Refining and processing works, later bought by Burmah Castrol, had a range of products from which I infer a range of raw materials. Before the drilling for hydrocarbons, oil was derived from plants and seeds, from coal tar and from animal fats. Dusseks specifically used tar and, I infer from their production of putty, linseed oil. This oil is derived from flax and in the nineteenth century the seed was imported from Russia. There is evidence of its processing also in Maidstone. There was a large trade in palm oil from West Africa which was used in making margarine and soap. I wrote about this in the context of Lever Brothers and the United Africa Company in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World.

Further reading:

• J.D. Scott, Vickers - A History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962)
• William Carr, The Spot that is called Crayford (Crayford Urban District Council, 1951, 1965)

Kingston upon Thames manufacturing history

Kingston was possibly the most important market town in Surrey. Like so many places, its history was built on the wool trade. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it supplied London first with Surrey Whitewear pottery and then with Redwear. As London grew, Kingston supplied many of its needs using the Thames as the vital transport link. Turnpikes were built, but the Thames reigned supreme until the railways arrived in 1838. This first Kingston station was in Surbiton, but Kingston was becoming a centre for the growing residential areas of Surbiton, New Malden and Chessington.

Manufacturing came in earnest in the First World War, first with Thomas Sopwith manufacturing aircraft which would become iconic for the part they played in the war effort. It was all about the internal combustion engine. Racing driver, Kenelm Lee Guinness formed the KLG spark plug company to manufacture the version of the spark plug which he had invented. Bus and lorry manufacturer, Leyland, built their vehicles for the war effort.

Harry Hawker, who was Sopwith's chief test pilot, formed his own Hawker Aircraft Company after the war and it was agreed that the companies should be joined. Tragically he died in a flying accident in 1921 the year his company merged with Sopwith. Thomas Sopwith became chairman of the combined company which continued to develop aircraft in Kingston. In 1934 Hawker Siddeley was formed which drew together Hawker, Gloster of Cheltenham, Sir William Armstrong of Elswick, Newcastle and Armstrong Siddeley of Coventry.

In the Second World War, Hawkers manufactured their equally iconic Hurricane Fighter using also factory space at Langley near Slough. Leyland manufactured lorries and also tanks including Churchills, Centaurs and Comets. They built bombs at a rate of 400,000 a month. John Perrings made radio sets in a secret workshop above his furniture shop using employees seconded from the Hoover factory at Perrivale to teach his staff the necessary skills. Siebe Gorman in nearby Chessington made rubber suits for navy divers.

After the war Hawker Siddeley went on to produce further acclaimed aircraft not least the Harrier and it became part of the British Aircraft Corporation and then British Aerospace. The successor, BAE Systems, closed the Kingston factory in 1992. I write of the post war aircraft industry in Vehicles to Vaccines. The Hawk jet, produced by BAE Systems flown by the Red Arrows, was developed under Hawker ownership.

Decca Radar had a significant presence in Chessington and Tolworth and also in nearby Addlestone. The company emerged from the Decca Record Company in 1947 and moved to Tolworth in 1951. Three years later premises were taken in Chessington. Heavy radar for air traffic control and air defence was based in Tolworth. In the mid fifties, government informed the company that any further expansion had to be outside the immediate Surrey area and a site was taken on the Isle of Wight. Heavy radar was sold to Plessey in 1964. The remaining Surrey operations were focused on marine radar and this was bought by Racal in 1979. The legacy of Decca radar is now within BAE Systems.

Further reading:

• Shaan Butters, The Book of Kingston (Cardiff: Baron Books, 1995)
• https://woottonbridgeiow.org.uk/decca-legacy/index.php

Weybridge and Brooklands manufacturing history

Brooklands Motor Racing Circuit was close to Weybridge and brought motor racing enthusiasts and manufacturers including the Itala Automobile Company. It was the first purpose built race track in the world and had banked curves, very much the place where enthusiasts of the internal combustion engine gathered whether on the track or in the air. Alliot Verdan Roe carried out his flight trials there as did Sopwith of Kingston which had a training school there.

In 1915, the Itala factory was taken by Vickers to manufacture aircraft. They began with the Bentley designed BE.2 but then the government decided on the Farnborough designed SE5a and production began with a Hispano-Souza engine. Some 1,000 were produce exceeding the number of aircraft produced by any of the National Aircraft Factories. Vickers were in the aircraft business.

In the interwar years, the Brooklands track became the venue for many races including the British Grand Prix and the British Racing Drivers Club 500 mile race. Drivers including Malcolm Campbell and John Cobb raced there.

Another arrival in the twenties was the Airscrew Company which manufactured propellors. Over the years the business developed to include propeller blades for variable pitch aircrews. An artificial wood was developed called Weyroc. The company diversified into all manner of fans.

During the Second World War, the Vickers Weybridge factory manufactured Wellesley and Wellington bombers. The airfield was also where the Hawker Hurricane was brought for testing from its Kingston factory.

The Vickers design team at Weybridge came up with one winner in particular in the post war world: the Viscount passenger aircraft which was flown by BEA and many other operators.

The Vickers research department was headed by Dr Barnes Wallis who had created the Dam Busters bomb. His team went on to design some of the early missiles.

Aircraft production came up with the Valiant as a stop gap before the V Bombers came into service and then the civil Vanguard and VC10 neither of which lived up to the success of the Viscount. The factory closed in 1986. I write much more about Vickers in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World.

Further reading:

J.D. Scott, Vickers - A History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962)

 

Farnborough manufacturing history

The Factory, as the Royal Aircraft Factory was known to the early aircraft manufacturers, came to Farnborough as the Army School of Ballooning which had been formed at Woolwich during the Boer War and then moved to nearby Aldershot before coming home to Farnborough with the formation of the Army Balloon Factory.

In the early days its mission was to try to impose safety standards on the reckless adventurers who were the first to take to the air. When the Wright Brothers succeeded with powered flight the army turned its attention to the marriage of aircraft and the internal combustion engine and the Royal Aircraft Factory was born.

All this came just in time for the First World War and initially the use of aircraft for reconnaissance. The Factory came up with designs alongside the commercial manufacturers and, as I suggest in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World, played leapfrog with the Germans, and aeroplanes became ever more technically advanced. I write about this in my chapter on the First World War.

The interwar years presented something of a hiatus of aircraft design until re-armament began. The Factory was once again up with the pack in aircraft design.

After the Second World War, the British aircraft industry was vast but, unlike the Americans and Germans, relied too much on old technology. The Royal Aircraft Establishment as it had been renamed was tasked with the challenge of leading the drive to ever more advanced technology. We were at war, but it was a Cold War demanding a whole different approach.

In 1962 the Establishment employed 8,500 people including 1,500 scientists.

This remarkable team of people tackled a good number of knotty problems.

• jet lift and the control of vertical takeoff aircraft, culminating in the Hawker Harrier
• supersonic interception aircraft culminating in the English Electric Lightning
• the V bombers
• the enquiry into the Comet crashes to understand why it happened and how it could be avoided in future
• Concorde and supersonic transport, employing the wind tunnels to full effect.

The site comprised a range of buildings:

• Q121 24ft wind tunnel
• R133 Transonic wind tunnel
• R52 1916 wind tunnel building
• R136 11.5 ft x 8.5ft wind tunnel
• R178 Materials and chemistry building
• R51 Forge and Foundry
• Q120/Q146 Seaplane test tank
• R173 Romney buildings
• Q134 Weapons testing building
• Q65 The fabric shop
• Q170 Telephone exchange
• Q153 Structural test building

The site was decommissioned in 1998 and had been redeveloped as Farnborough Business Park. However the legacy was preserved to an extent in the air tunnel buildings owned by the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, a museum in the Balloon Factory named Trenchard House and a massive portable airship hangar. There is of course the annual Farnborough International Airshow held at the Farnborough International Exhibition and Conference Centre.

Further reading:

Adam Wilkinson, Save Farnborough: The Cradle of British Aviation (London: SAVE Britain's Heritage, 2001)

Bracknell manufacturing history

 A small village on the road to the west of England was how Bracknell was described in the mid nineteenth century. It then set about growing. Thomas Lawrence founded a brickworks producing twelve million bricks a year by the end of the nineteenth century, bricks that would find their way into buildings including Eton College, 10 Downing Street and Westminster Cathedral.

Its designation as a new town came in the late forties with work beginning in 1950. The plan was ambitious and provided for employment as well as homes and leisure. Work on the first factory for Fluidrive began in 1951 followed by Kent Bros. & Phillips. In 1961 the numbers employed in factories passed 6,000.

George Rowney & Co, founded in 1783, opened their factory in Bracknell moving from units in Chalk Farm and the Euston Road. Rowney became part of Morgan Crucible and set up their head office in Bracknell. They were later bought by Dale Board, another artist materials business, and still manufacture in the town. Rowney are one of the few companies at both the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Festival of Britain a century later.

The American Sperry, with their artificial horizon equipment for aircraft, moved their whole UK establishment from Brentford in 1968. Sperry would remain the largest employer until the plant was closed under the ownership of BAE Systems.

Racal set up their first factory in the fifties bussing their workforce of one hundred daily from Isleworth until houses were completed. By 1981, Racal had a worldwide workforce of 18,000. Racal spun off Vodaphone which continued a presence in the town.

Expandite, a supplier to the construction industry, bought Secomastic in 1956 and manufactured alongside operating a contracting division. ICI's agricultural research centre was nearby at Jealott's Hill. Ferranti digital systems and aircraft design was based here.

Honeywell Control Systems, ICL (now Fujitsu), 3M, Dell, NetGear, Panasonic, Hewlett Packard Techologies and Micron Technologies semi-conductors are some of the companies with a presence in Bracknell making it a technological hub and part of the Thames Valley 'Silicon Valley'.

Further reading:

Henry and Judith Parris, Bracknell - The making of a New Town (Bracknell Development Corporation, 1981)

Fareham manufacturing history

Fareham is a coastal town just about half way between Southampton and Portsmouth and it is to Portsmouth I look for clues to the town's commercial success.

I write in my blog piece on Portsmouth of the key role it had in British naval history. It looked to Fareham for key manufactures at its time of greatest need: the Napoleonic Wars. The Navy needed iron for various uses in its ships and a Gosport blacksmith named Henry Cort had taken on a business of supplying chains. Cort was not satisfied by the then current methods of making iron and through extensive experimentation arrived at his puddling process which produced strong wrought iron. In this venture he took on a foundry in Fareham where he produced iron for the Navy. Cort's methods were adopted widely and he is regarded as the father of the iron industry. I write of him in how Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World.

The second contribution came later when Lord Palmerston ordered the building of defences around Portsmouth and this time Fareham supplied great quantities of high quality bricks. There is evidence of the Romans making bricks from the mud of the estuary mixed with shell fragments. Later rich reserves of clay were discovered to make the London Blue which can be seen in much of the railway infrastructure. Fareham Reds can be seen in the Albert Hall and at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. As well as bricks, chimney pots and tiles were made and supplied to nearly all western counties.The clay was also used for making pipes when tobacco became more generally available. Cigars and cigarettes later put pay to clay pipes.

The third contribution is probably the oldest and is the production of leather. The tanneries of Fareham date back as far as bricks if not farther. Leather was used as a strong flexible material before the days of plastics, as well as for shoes, clothing, bags etc. Coaches and wagons were comprised largely of leather and of course there were many million saddles and bridles. The Army and Navy were major users and hides came to Fareham from all over the country.

There is no record of whether the fourth contribution was supplied to the Navy, it was however enjoyed by many in the towns and cities: strawberries grown over 2,500 acres.

During the Second World War, Fareham became the location for the construction of the Mulberry Harbours for the D Day landings.

Further reading:

Lesley Burton and Brian Musselwhite, An illustrated History of Fareham (Southampton: Ensign Publications, 1991)

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 I am on a virtual tour of Britain seeking to discover its manufacturing history and I am adding posts twice a week. You can find more on my BritishManufacturingHistory website.  https://britishmanufacturinghistory.uk/

Warwick and Leamington manufacturing history

 Nicholas Paris first made his mark in Warwick in 1670 as a blacksmith and clockmaker. In clockmaking he had been preceded by John Wyse who had learnt his craft as an apprentice in London, but it is the Paris family which would be better known. As well as clocks they made guns with wonderful ornamental designs.

Interestingly in his book on Warwick, Charles Lines notes the Napoleonic wars as kick starting manufacturing in the town, but with the weaving of worsted cloth rather than anything to do with metal. William Parkes factory employed 500 people and a 24 hp steam engine.

Of more enduring impact was William Glover a wheelwright whose Eagle Works went on to manufacture what we used to know as dustbin lorries. Eagle merged with Dennis and still manufacture in Leamington.

Another thriving Leamington business is Rangemaster which manufactures cookers. The iron for its AGA cookers was cast in Coalbrookdale. As with so many British companies, factory sites keep the old alongside the new. (the image taken from the canal)

Thwaites dumper trucks have been made in Leamington since 1937. I recall that a former client Newage Transmissions of Coventry supplied Thwaites.

The University of Warwick was well known for its mechanical engineering focused on the West Midlands motor industry. This focus expanded in 1980 by the formation of the Warwick Manufacturing Group with a mission on developing new technologies, products and skills in collaboration with manufacturing industry.

Further reading

Charles Lines, The Book ofWarwick (Buckingham: Barracuda Books, 1985)

Wellingborough manufacturing history

 Like so many towns in agricultural areas, cottage industries emerged because of the necessity to supplement the income of agricultural labourers. In the Wellingborough area, again like so many, it was the spinning and weaving of wool and the tanning of hides and making of simple footwear. To add to this in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was the hand making of lace to sell to the better off.

In terms of industry, the area was rich in iron ore and blast furnaces were erected to supply local foundries and those further afield. At one time parts of the town was constantly covered in ash from the furnaces.

Wellingborough smelters supplied the Stanton Iron works in Derbyshire which company took the opportunity of hard times to buy the Wellingborough iron company, which eventually became part of United and then British Steel. One of the the larger local foundries was bought by the Morris Motor Company for casting engine blocks.

In the part of England which the Romans set apart for grain production, a local family company is making waves in the twenty-first century. Whitworth Brothers had mills in Bedford which were destroyed by fire in 1884. Frank Whitworth used the proceeds of insurance to build a new flour mill by the river Nene in Wellingborough. Completed in 1886, the company used the latest technology for roller mills, but also had more than an eye for fire protection. (The image offers the contrast of old mill and more recent additions.)

Some thirty years earlier Nathaniel Sharman had built a shoe factory and warehouse in the town. I tell of the Northamptonshire footwear industry in my blog piece on Northampton. In Wellingborough a number of businesses started, thrived and then closed. An exception is George Cox, a former brewer, whose company still produces its famous 'brothel creepers' in the town. Barkers Shoes are still made at nearby Earls Barton.

Whitworth remained a successful business supplying local bakers until the thirties when a new generation of the Whitworth family expanded by buying a mill of similar size, Cadge and Colman, in Peterborough. The company then added its own bakery to utilise the new mill to the full.

A new generation took over the company in 1997 and began a major programme of investment. Two further mills were built in Wellinghborough and two more in Peterborough. New technology was employed to the full. The new century offered opportunities for expansion by acquisition and the company now also has mills in Selby and Trafford Park in Manchester. From 1% of he market, it has grown to one third. The company produces bakers, bespoke and heat treated flour.

There was another side to Whitworths as producers of dried fruit and nuts. This is now a separate company and operates downstream from Wellingborough at Irthlingborough. The business has recently changed hands at the time of writing and is carrying out an extensive factory building project.

Further reading

Joyce and Maurice Palmer, A History of Wellingborough (Earls Barton: Steepleprint, 1972)

Banbury manufacturing history

 A market town in an agricultural county, it is perhaps not surprising that Banbury's first venture into engineering manufacturing was into agricultural machinery. Bernhard Samuelson had been in business in Tours in France and, on visiting Banbury, saw the urgent need for labour saving equipment to support agricultural production. His company produced at their Britannia Works a prize winning turnip cutter, digging machines, mowing machines, chaff and linseed cutters and an oil cake breaker. Importantly he took a license to manufacture the American McCormick reaper of which he sold thousands. In 1871 he employed 500 people. He was a philanthropist, as well as a businessman who paid above average wages, and provided a good deal of the infrastructure of the growing town. He served as member of parliament for the town for some ten years. His business became a limited company in 1873 but closed in 1933.

Thus the approach of the Second World War saw the town without major manufacturing employment. The council managed to attract .The Northern Aluminium Company (later known as Alcan) of Canada. The company's role during the war would be vital, providing aluminium for Spitfires and Bailey Bridges. It became the town's largest employer with a workforce at one time of 2,300. During the early years of the war, the plant supplied 40% of aluminium sheet and extrusion vital for the manufacture of aircraft. Aluminium ingots were brought from as far a field as Canada and scrap from crashed aircraft would be melted down for re-use. The factory acted as the central store of aluminium for the Ministry of Aircraft Production Light Metals Committee which was based there. The factory continued its role as part of Alcan's research laboratory until closure in 2003. I write more about the UK aluminium industry in Vehicles to Vaccines.

After the war Banbury agreed to accept overspill from both London and Birmingham the latter of which relocated the Birds factory owned by General Foods of America and then Kraft of America.

Another company attracted was Automotive Products of Leamington about which I write more in my piece of Warwick and Leamington

Further reading

Ted Clark, Banbury (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992)

Telford manufacturing history

 Telford is rightly known as the place where in 1708 Abraham Darby discovered the way to use coke to smelt iron ore and I wrote about this in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. It is worth pondering that this was an environmentally friendly development since before this it is said a small iron furnace would consume 2,000 acres of woodland annually.

Iron smelting had been carried out in Telford and its surrounding for perhaps two millennia. It was perfectly placed in a gorge running down to the river Severn. High up the gorge there was limestone and coal along with iron ore. Darby leased an existing furnace from the Brook family and adapted it to his new process. The gorge had fast running water to power the bellows for blast furnace. The resulting pig iron and in due finished goods could then be taken downhill to the river for onwards transmission. In due course the banks of the Severn were lined with iron works, tile works, china works and limestone quarries.

Darby's Coalbrookdale Company continued in one form or another until 2017. It began with pig iron but then specific castings including the famous iron bridge, pillars, boilers for steam engines and rails. As a Quaker, he would not cast cannon Much later the company cast parts for Rayburn and AGA eventually being owned by Glynwed. In the meantime it extended its interests into coal mines and metal work.

The process of making coke from coal produced by-products including gas and tar, the latter being combined with the spent material from the furnaces to make asphalt. It also later provided the base material for many chemicals. Gas from coke production would, of course, light the nation's towns until North Sea gas came on stream.

There were other iron masters and other major employers. Among these, John 'Iron mad' Wilkinson was an iron master with works at nearby Broseley and at one time provided one eighth of Britain's iron output. He cast boilers for Boulton & Watt. He developed a method of casting cannon in a single solid form which would then be bored out to form the barrel. He then devised a method whereby the cannon was rotated whilst the boring tool remained fixed and this greatly improved accuracy. Later he made the first iron barge for use on the river Severn.

The Lilleshall Company founded in 1764 traded until 1964 and was the largest employer. Owned by landed gentry it sought to exploit the natural resources that lay underground. It built several iron works, a glass works, brick works, mines, canals and stretches of railway. In the mid nineteenth century Lilleshall ws producing 15,000 tons of finished iron a year as well as a million bricks and massive steam engines.

None of this would have been possible without a skilled workforce whose experience in iron working stretched back many generations. Nothing stood still. The Ketley iron works was repurposed for the production of rain water goods.

Coalport manufactured bone china. The company came about by the joining of the landowning Browne family who brought clay, coal and capital and a talented engraver Thomas Turner who had been apprenticed at the Worcester factory. Production continued from 1750 until 1926. There is now a Coalport Museum.

The Shropshire canal opened in 1797 and provided a vital link and was followed as elsewhere by railways. In and around Telford just about every large factory and mine had its own branch line; it was a wonder of modern transport. Electricity arrived in 1876 with the production of Elwell and Parker High Speed Electric Engines. Coalbrookdale installed its own power generating station in 1906.

The General Strike saw declines in both Lilleshall and Coalbrookdale and Coalport moved to the potteries. Other businesses prospered: the Horsehay Company made bridges and crains, Heybridge Steel produced miles of wire and Walkers and Corbetts made tanks and boilers. Ever Ready Batteries set up a factory and Joseph Sankey took over Briggs Bodies and made car parts especially wheels. Chad Valley had two factories making toys.

In 1939 work began on the vast Ordnance depot at Donnington and I tell its extraordinary story in War on Wheels. It remains a Ministry of Defence establishment.

Lucas automotive manufactured lighting and Rists wiring. Sankey also produced armoured vehicles at the Hadley Castle works until it became part of GKN, then Alvis and BAE Systems. It is now RBSL (owned by Rheinmetall and BAE Systems) and which now produced the Boxer fighting vehicle and Challenger 3 tanks.

Further reading

• https://www.ironbridge.org.uk/visit/coalbrookdale-museum-of-iron/
• George Evans, Telford's Living Landscape (Wellington: Vision Books, 1993)