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)