From needle making to alloys for aerospace.
Redditch, to the south of Birmingham, was one of a group of towns and villages where needles were made. It was a labour intensive cottage industry, and one not conducive to good health with the sharpening of the needles. The needle makers were fiercely protective of their trade and resisted mechanisation even for ventilation which would transform the work environment.
As was always the case, mechanisation crept in with steam power. The coming of the canals and railways enabled Redditch to assume pole position, attracting needle makers from towns across the country as much as from neighbouring villages. It was big business; we are talking of five million needles a week in 1824 rising to fifteen million in 1840. Needles were made for textile workers but also for surgeons. Redditch became renowned the world over. The same skills were appropriate for fish hooks and from there, fishing tackle more generally.
Needle making demanded a range of metal working skills: wire drawers, file makers, tool makers, bellow makers, grindstone trimmers, and miilwrights. This held the town in good stead for it attracted light metal industry in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Metal workers could make springs which were in demand in the new industries of the bicycle and motor cycle. Royal Enfield and Herbert Terry bicycles were made in Redditch. BSA relocated their manufacturing to the town making motor cycles, motor cars and, of course, small arms. In the First World War, Nife Alkaline Batteries supplied power for the new submarines.
With the coming of the Second World War, a number of businesses set up in the town: Cadmium and Chromium plating, machine tools, wire drawing and springing machinery and air compressors.
High Duty Alloys were one of those companies which became part of the shadow factory initiative. Their business was the making and moulding of alloys used in aircraft production. They were based in Slough which was thought vulnerable to enemy bombing and so they built a factory in Redditch but also one in Cumbria. When the Slough factory was hit by bombs Redditch came into its own.
During the Second World War the company supplied pistons and other aircraft parts by the thousand to engine manufacturers including Rolls-Royce, Napier, de Havilland and Bristol. By 1945 the company employed 13,000 people over its three sites, Slough having returned to production and importantly research.
In the post war world it was the jet engine that demanded the skills that HDA had to offer. High temperatures, massive power - all these demanded the alloy with the right properties. HDA alloy castings were to be found in structural aluminium, Concorde and the British missiles of the Cold War. The company is now called Ferris Aerospace and it continues to supply the aerospace industry from Redditch.
In the sixties Redditch was designated a new town and attracted inward investment and the attention of a new generation of town planners and architects. The plan placed emphasis on public transport with residents working in the town where they live.
John James still make needles in Redditch as part of ENTACO (English Needle and Fishing Tackle Company) formed in the thirties from the combination of long standing needle manufacturers Milward and Hall. The main business of ENTACO are medical products including needles.
Further reading:
- https://www.aerosociety.com/media/21427/paper-2023-03-buttler-high-duty-alloys.pdf
- John G Rollins, A History of Redditch (Chichester: Phillimore, 1984)
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