Swansea manufacturing history

 Swansea at the mouth of the Tawe was recognised as a natural harbour by Norse pirates and came into its own with the discovery of bituminous coal which, from the sixteenth century, it was exporting by sea to other parts of Britain and further afield. In 1913 at its peak South Wales produced 56 million tons of coal.

Local deposits made Swansea and its surrounding area the principal place for smelting copper, which from the eighteenth century was much in demand from Birmingham's brass industry. Matthew Boulton and others formed the Rose Copper Company with a smelter on the banks of the Tawe. In time copper ore was brought by sea from Cornwall and Anglesea as well as from overseas to be smelted using the Welsh process and Welsh coal. In 1845, Swansea was producing 55% of the world's copper. Copper was joined by lead and zinc.

Tinplate was, though, what made Swansea's name. Locally produced iron would be dipped in locally mined tin. Tin was also brought in from Cornwall. In 1831, William Llewellyn had founded the Aberdulais Tinplate Company where iron ingots were rolled into flat plates and a thin protective layer of tin attached. It was one of hundreds of tin mills which grew up around the country. Tin was readily available, easy to work and very effective in coating iron and steel to prevent rust.

With the advent of steel, the iron ore local to Swansea had too high a phosphorous content (a problem also found elsewhere) and so ore was sourced from further east. William Siemens was determined to see his method of steel making, as opposed to that of Bessemer, embraced. The tin platers were reluctant and so Siemens set up his own state of the art plant at Landore. It proved successful for tin plate and gradually more plants took on the Siemens system. Swansea went from strength to strength in tin plate production.

Continuous strip mills were introduced alongside electroplating allowing a very thin coating of expensive tin. Demand grew as more and more food stuffs were packaged in tin cans.The producers of South Wales at one time provided three quarters of Britain's production with much going to the USA.

The coming of central heating created a demand for anthracite coal which was in plentiful supply around Swansea and which had proved less suitable for smelting. This provided a much needed boost to the economy.

Swansea had become a town long before Cardiff and residential development ran west along the shore with industry along the banks of Tawe running north. There were hundreds of small copper smelters most of which closed when the industry was consolidated. Balchin's introduction to his book has a vivid description of what remained: 'one of the most concentrated areas of industrial dereliction, desolation and decay in Britain.' Alongside this, the city has long been a cultural and intellectual centre.

I write about the consolidation of the steel industry in Vehicles to Vaccines and this brought about the Steel Company of Wales. This new company embraced amongst others the major tin plate producer Richard Thomas with plants at Velindre and Trostre and built a massive continuous process steel plant at nearby Port Talbot. This complex produced most of Britain's sheet steel and all its tin plate.

Copper production had suffered as other countries came on stream. The same became true of tin plating. Nonetheless Swansea attracted a wide spread of metal and other industries.

Alcoa Manufacturing and British Aluminium produced cast and sheet aluminium as well as wire. Borg-Warner from the USA produced car transmissions. Also from the USA, Jefferson Chemicals produced morpholine for making rubber and Piperazine for pig and poultry feed additives. B.P. refined oil and manufactured chemicals and 3M made tape products. Imperial Metal Industries produced Titanium and Zirconium alloy. International Nickel produced nickel and Imperial Smelting (about which I write more in the context of Bristol) produced zinc and lead. Smiths Industries made watches and Ford UK, rear axles. Mettoy built a factory at Fforestfach to manufacture Corgi toys. In the seventies Morgan Crucible relocated its electric motor brush manufacturing from Battersea.

A programme of development attracted other SMEs, but more and more the economy of Swansea became dominated by service industries. It boast a university with its own wafer fab for semiconductors.

Further reading:

• Swansea and its Region, W.G.V. Balchin ed. (Swansea: University College of Swansea, 1971)
• J.C. Carr and W. Taplin, History of the British Steel Industry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962)

Ilford manufacturing history

 The manufacturer of photographic film that shares the name of the town was founded in 1879 and moved to a larger factory in Basildon in 1976

Plessey had started out in Marylebone in London after the First World War as mechanical engineers exploiting the talents of a German born engineer, William Oscar Heyne. The first products were jigs and tools. In 1919 the company moved to Holloway with investment from American, Bryan Clark.

Marconi, through their Marconiphone company, produced valve receivers, but not many. They subcontracted manufacture to Plessey and the relationship continued successfully until Marconi established their own manufacturing in 1926, and Plessey reverted to component manufacture. In 1923 Plessey had moved to Ilford where they also manufactured telephone equipment and equipment for the RAF and motor manufacturers. In 1929 Plessey made the first television invented by John Logie Baird. They also made the first portable radio. Bryan Clark's son, Allan, introduced mass production of standard components.

Plessey took on licences to produce American aircraft equipment. In the Second World War, Plessey produced many different types of components and equipment for the war effort, including shell cases, aircraft parts, and radio equipment such as the R1155 (receiver) and T1154 (transmitter). Following bombing of their Ilford factory they moved production to unused sections of the Central Underground Line. They also opened a factory in Swindon and took on the management of shadow factories. They set up a research establishment at Caswell House near Towcester. At the end of the war they employed 11,000 people, a workforce which reduced with the coming of peace.

Allan Clark's sons, John and Michael joined the company and senior managers, John Cunningham and Raymond Brown, left Plessey to form Racal. The company made many thousands of television sets for EMI. With the growth of the hydraulics business, the company formed two separate divisions, Fuel Systems which was moved to Titchfield, Hampshire and Industrial Hydraulics which went to Swindon, Wiltshire.

The next break came with telephones. The existing system, Strowger, was ‘hopelessly out of date’ and the development of electronic exchanges still some way off. The answer was the Crossbar system which AT & E had developed. Plessey bought both Automatic Telephone & Electric (with their Liverpool and Bridgnorth factories) and Ericcson, taking over the Beeston factory, and won twenty-six out of the thirty-two orders placed. I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines.

In 1961 the company had 17,500 employees. Six years later the payroll had grown to 68,000 employees with 6,500 in research and development with R&D labs at Caswell in South Wales, Roke Manor near Romsey, Taplow in Berkshire and Havant and Poole in Hampshire and Dorset.

Plessey were important suppliers to the Ministry of Defence and I write of this in my piece on Kingston upon Thames and Isle of Wight. Plessey made a failed bid for English Electric in 1968. In the eighties they went head to head with GEC over the next generation of telephones. In the event it was Ericcson which won with their System Y as opposed to System X which was developed by Plessey and GEC. Through the machinations of corporate bids, the Plessey telecoms business ended up with Ericcson and its defence related business eventually became part of BAE Systems via its merger with Marconi (the new name of GEC). I also wrote of this in Vehicles to Vaccines.

One part of Plessey did survive intact in Plymouth as Plessey Semiconductors which also took in Marconi Semiconductors.

I am grateful to Graces Guide which supplemented the earlier research I did for my books How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines.

Burton on Trent manufacturing history

 At one time Burton was home to thirty breweries, having been connected by the Trent and Mersey canal bringing goods from Preston down to Shardlow and the navigable river Trent. We can think of Bass, Marstons (which still brews in Burton) and Ind Coupe to name but three. As long ago as the eighties Ind Coope joined with Tetley of Leeds and Ansells of Birmingham in Allied Breweries

Shardlow

Most breweries have now closed or been replaced by new technology with a fraction of the former workforce and new often overseas owners. The biggest brewery is owned by the Canadian Molson Coors. There are though a good number of small independent breweries.

Most breweries have now closed

Much architecture remains to tell of Burton’s past

Close by was the original Branston Pickle factory which became a Central Ordnance depot for army clothing. It is now a heritage site.

More recently the Toyota factory was built at Burnaston.

Unilever built its UK condiments business in Burton. Also close by at Tutbury in 1901 Nestle built a factory for the making of condensed milk. By the fifties the demand for this wained and the factory was repurposed to make instant coffee.