Northern Ireland manufacturing history

 The traditional manufacturing industry in the six counties was linen. However, the presence in Belfast of Harland & Wolff underlines the importance of shipbuilding

Shorts Stirling bomber

Belfast

Home to Irish textiles. Harland & Wolff has been a longterm employer in the city and was joined in 1948 by Shorts aircraft which moved from Rochester. Read more by following this link.

Moira

Harry Ferguson began manufacturing farm machinery and tractors. I tell in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World of the businesses he worked with before and during the Second World War eventually to become Massey Ferguson.

Larne

Home to the AEI turbine plant that became something of a White Elephant as I write in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Carrickfergus

Courtaulds had a viscose yarn works here. Carreras manufactured cigarettes.

Ballymena

Historically the home of handloom brown linen weavers. Designated New Town in 1967. Wrightbus, set up in 1946 and in the 2000's employ 1400 people manufacturing environmentally friendly buses. Michelin manufacture tyres and Gallagher cigarettes.

Antrim

Designated New Town in 1966. With a history of linen production. You can read more in this link.

Craigavon

Originally a linen town with major mills including Gilford Mill. Craigavon was designated a New Town in 1965 and welcomed Hyster-Yale to manufacture lift trucks. Sir Allen McClay, opened the doors of Almac his pharmaceutical development business on its Craigavon headquarters. Goodyear manufactured drive belts for DAF trucks.

Derry (Londonderry)

Home of shirt manufacture. Designated New Town in 1969. Read more by following the link.

Southern Ireland

This history covers a period very much longer than the division of Ireland into north and south.

Dublin

Linen and later cotton spinning, weaving, dying and bleaching were the business of Ireland, north and south. Before partition, Dublin handled most of the textile exports as well as having the more skilled calico printers. The main manufacturing industry was brewing, but also shipbuilding. Read more in this link

Waterford

Home to linen spinning and weaving and later to cotton. Malcolmson's integrated spinning and weaving factory at Portlaw provided Lancashire with strong competition for half of the nineteenth century.

Waterford Glass began manufacture in 1783 and still produces fine glass today. It is owned by the Finnish Fiskars Corporation.

Manufacturing history of Wales

Coal, iron ore, copper and tin were the raw materials that made Wales key to the British industrial revolution. Slate from North Wales covered many British roofs. Before all of this Wales was predominantly agricultural with an economy revolving around annual fairs and periodic local markets. Woollen cloth was woven from locally reared sheep in very much a cottage industry. There were big land owners but no great wealth.

There was a massive coal field bordered by Merthyr Tydfil in the north, Kidwelly in the west and Pontypool in the East reaching the coast in the south around Swansea bay and then heading inland eastward toward Caerphilly. Iron, copper and tin ore were also to be found. Landowners and occupiers would access coal and other minerals close to the surface essentially for their own use; there was simply not the transport to trade further afield. War changed this settled picture with increased demand particularly for iron. Technical developments were crucial: the blast furnace, Darby's discovery of how coal could be used to smelt ore and Cort's puddling method for wrought iron. In relation to coal, it was Newcomen and then Watt who enabled the sinking of ever deeper pits. The canals offered vital transport; the image is of the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. A.H. John in his The Industrial Development of South Wales 1750-1850 highlights the remarkable fact that the capital to develop coal, tin and copper mining came from England as did the funding of most of the iron industry. One result of this was that the Welsh iron industry in particular was in much larger units that the contemporary businesses in industrial England.

Further reading: A.H. John, The Industrial Development of South Wales 1750-1850 (Cardiff: Merton Priory Press,1995, 1950)

Thomas Telford's Menai Bridge

Merthyr Tydfil

Once known as the Iron Capital of the World, Merthyr was home to the Dowlais Foundry and Engineering Company which made iron using the Northern Coal measures some twenty miles inland of Cardiff and Newport. It became part of GKN and I write about this in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. In the nearby village of Hirwaun, Radio and Allied had a manufacturing base in a former Royal Ordnance Factory; this would be the start of Arnold Weinstock's long relationship with GEC and I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines. I write more on Merthyr in this link.

Ebbw Vale

Ebbw Vale Steelworks was at one time the largest in Europe. It had moved from using local ore for iron production to ore from Middlesbrough and Northampton to make steel, the local ore being unsuitable for steel making. In 1920, the steel works had employed 34,000 people but had then declined and closed in 1929. As a result of a government initiative, Richard Thomas & Co, the biggest tinplate manufacturer, took over the steel works and production of tinplate expanded not least for the growing canning industry. In the thirties it introduced a wide strip mill which revolutionised production. The production of 5,000 tons a week was used in the adjoining tinplate works but also to be galvanised and corrugated. It was at one time under the control of the Darby family and had fought Bessemer over patent rights.

Newport

At the mouth of the river Usk, Newport remains a general cargo port. It has one of the few remaining transporter bridges which crossed the river. Historically, it exported coal and tinplate. Richard Thomas and Baldwins of Spencer Works, Llanwern was set up to produce tinplate taking advantage of the proximity of the coast and hence the ease of imports. The Inmos semiconductor factory was built here and later became Newport Wafer Fab.

Cwmbran

A new town designated after the Second World War. Ferranti based their software development, naval and civil computer systems there. Lucas managed a shadow factory making aircraft turrets, and later Girling made shock absorbers. As a new town it provided home for some workers at the nearby Panteg steelworks.

Pontypool

British Nylon Spinners opened a factory in 1947 to produce nylon yarn. Pilkington Brothers had a glass works there.

Glascoed

BAE Systems' former Royal Ordnance munitions factory is the major manufacturing employer.

Cardiff

The capital city of Wales. In 1891, the Dowlais Company set up steel making at East Moors to have better access to imported ore, its reserves at Merthyr Tydfill being unsuitable for steel making. The company had acquired suitable iron ore reserves at Bilbao in Spain. A Royal Ordnance engineering armaments factory was based here in the Second World War and produced 21,200 guns including 7,250 tank guns and 1875 anti-tank guns. Matsushita TV factory was set up in the sixties. Robert Bosch set up a factory in nearby Pontyclun Miskin Business Park but left in 2011 when the space was taken by Renishaw for Healthcare product manufacturing. Also in healthacre, Amersham International had a presence here. The Royal Mint is at Llantrisant.

Bridgend

Sony set up a TV factory here. I write in Vehicles to Vaccines about the encouragement government gave to Japanese manufacturers. Ford set up a motor factory here in 1980 and a supply chain gathered including machine tools makers, mostly SMEs.

Swansea

The home of tinplating and related steel production largely because of its status as a major commercial centre. You can read much more by following this link

Port Talbot

The Steel Company of Wales's Abbey Works at Port Talbot was huge. It stemmed from the success of Siemens in steel making for tinplate at nearby Swansea. In 1831 William Llewellyn founded the Aberdulais tinplate works. The steel works now owned by Tata is in process of conversion to smelting with electric arc furnaces.

Llanelli

A centre for lead, copper (after 1804), and tinplate (after 1847). Llanelli also became a port for the anthracite coalfield. South Wales produced nearly all the anthracite mined in the UK. A large cold-reduction mill at Trostre, using steel strip from Port Talbot, made Llanelli again a centre of tinplate manufacture, primarily for packaging. The town also has a small steel fabrication industry. TNT was manufactured in the Second World War at the Royal Ordnance factory at Pembrey on the South Wales coast between Llanelly and Kidwelly. Covering five hundred acres of dunes, it was originally owned and run  by Nobel before being taken over by the War Office in the First World War. Pembrey also had a shell filling factory. The Japanese Calsonic Kansei (Marelli) set up a car components plant.

Pembroke

For over a century of active service, the Royal Dockyard saw the construction of five Royal Yachts and 263 other Royal Naval vessels. The last ship built there was launched in April 1922. The Valero Oil refinery was established by Chevron in 1964 and taken over by Valero in 2011.

Milford Haven

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the town was one of the main UK fishing ports employing some 4,000 people. The Suez crisis of the fifties led to the use of much larger oil tankers for which new terminals were required. Milford Haven fitted the bill and the Esso Oil Refinery opened in 1960 to be followed by BP in 1961, Regent (now Valero) in 1964, Gulf in 1968 and finally Elf in 1973.

Newtown

The wool industry had been significant in Wales since the time of the Cistercian monks in the twelfth century. Fulling mills began to appear wherever there was fast running water and by the late nineteenth century there were 250 mills in west Wales. Also in the nineteenth century Sir Pryce Pryce-Jones opened a large woollen mill in Newtown selling by mail order. I wrote of current wool manufacture in Melin Tregwynt in Vehicles to Vaccines. Foxford woollen mills founded in 1892 in county Mayo is one of the few remaining mills.

Flint

The first artificial silk mill, the Aber Works, was opened in Holywell by a German company in 1907. The First World War saw its German employees interned and the mill was taken over by Courtaulds to manufacture rayon as it became known. Further mills were added: the Castle Works and Deeside Mill. The mills employed thousands so much so that the Flint football team were known as the Silkmen. Production ceased in 1980.

Deeside

There was John Summers and Son’s Steelworks on Deeside which closed in 1980. Toyota engine plant built in the early 1990s to supply the Burnaston assembly plant.

Broughton (North Wales)

Vickers set up a factory at Broughton in 1940 producing Wellingtons and Lancasters. A Broughton built Lancaster now forms part of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. After the War, the factory was bought by de Havilland, producing the very successful Mosquito. In the 1960s, the company became part of Hawker-Siddeley Aviation, before becoming part of British Aerospace in 1977. Today, the Broughton facility is owned by the multi-nationally owned Airbus and is one of the biggest employers in the area, producing wing components

Wrexham

The town boasts the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal designed by Thomas Telford (shown in the image). The steel works at nearby Brymbo was founded in 1796 and was only closed in 1990. At one time it experimented with a method of making steel from high phosphorous ore. The Royal Ordnance factory producing cordite closed after the Second World War. Wrexham attracted new industries, including engineering, packaging, pharmaceuticals, electronics, optical fibres and chemicals. In 1978 Kellogg created a new manufacturing plant which was to take over production from Trafford Park in Manchester. JCB manufactures transmissions at a factory here.

Llandudno

Some of the first British copper mines were on the Great Orme, one of the hills bordering the seaside town. Inland was the great slate mining district.

Anglesea

Once the largest copper mine in the world. There is evidence of a Roman presence here for it was the place they defeated the Druids. Robert Stephenson built the bridge over the Menai Strait connecting London to Dublin by train and sea. He followed the wrought-iron and stone suspension bridge built by Thomas Telford in 1826 as part of the post road linking the two capitals.

Manufacturing in southwest England

 Cornwall was the source of valuable metals, until more accessible reserves were found elsewhere and so a very much part of the Industrial Revolution. The image is of South Cornwall. Continuing the metals theme, I am taking the Southwest to include the English part of the Forest of Dean as well as the counties south and west of Bristol.

Cheltenham and Gloucester

The Romans installed garrisons at strategic towns across England and Gloucester was one. In medieval times and probably earlier, iron ore was found and was smelted with charcoal from the nearby Forest of Dean. At nearby Temple Guiting the Knights Templar set up one of the first fulling mills in the twelfth century. The two towns were later famous for their contribution to aircraft production. Read more by following this link.

Wotton-under-Edge

Home to Renishaw plc and McMurtry Automotive

Dursley

RA Lister made agricultural machinery and diesel engines

Bristol

Home to the early days of shipbuilding through its trading links and from these to WD & HO Wills cigarettes and Fry’s Chocolate. In the eighteenth century, Bristol was a centre of Zinc production from ore mined in the Mendips. You can read more in this link.

Bath

Harbutts plasticine was made at Bathampton. In the Second World War Bristol manufactured aircraft at a shadow factory built in a disused quarry in nearby Corsham where there was also an underground ammunition storage depot. Rotork's Brassmill Lane factory was built in 1961 and is now the HQ of a global business serving the energy industry. I also spied a Rotork motor powering locks on the River Nene. The Bathford paper mill dating back to the eighteenth century became owned by Portals the security printer and is its last remaining mill in the UK.

Trowbridge

Former home of Bowyers sausages, later joined with C&T Harris of nearby Calne as part of Northern Foods. Not to be confused with Harris sausages of London, the sausage king. Nestle and General Foods make Shredded Wheat and Cheerios.

Melksham

Home of the Avon Rubber factory. G Plan Upholstery moved here from High Wycombe.

Malmsbury

In the twelfth century one of the first fulling mills was established at nearby Heycroft.

Chippenham

Evans O'Donnell set up a railway signal works in 1897 and six years later merged with the Kilburn firm of Saby and Farmer which moved all manufacturing to Chippenham. Westinghouse Brake and Signal bought the combined business and moved from their London factory in 1932. It was bought by Hawker Siddeley in 1979 subsequently becoming part of BTR, Invensys. It is now part of Siemens Mobility rail infrastructure

Weston Super Mare

Bristol Beaufighters were produced at a shadow factory in the Second World War at nearby Old Mixon

Bridgewater

British Cellophane manufactured here from the 1930s until 2005. I was a joint venture between Courtaulds and La Cellophane SA

Taunton

Home to cider. Read more in this link.

Axminster

Carpets have been made here for over 250 years and are still woven in Devon. Machine tool manufacturer JH Shand moved from London in 1940 and carried out crucial tooling work including for the Spitfire.

Honiton

A Drake and Gorman, Skull Ltd company made switchboards. Radio-Intercom made baby alarm systems.

Newton Abbot

Centrax, with 2,000 employees, made gas turbine blades for Bristol Olympus aero-engines and mobile transformers and generating sets. The area is also a major producer of ball clay.

Paignton

STC moved here from Ilminster where it had moved during the Second World War.

Street

Where Clarks shoes were manufactured. I write more in this link.

Chard

Home to Numatic International manufacturer of the Henry vacuum cleaner

Yeovil

Home to Westland (now Leonardo) Helicopters and BAE Systems digital intelligence. You can read more in this link.

Cheddar

Home to Showerings Babycham, once again owned by the Showerings family. Cheddar cheese is made in a number of places including Redruth and Froome. The major producer Dairy Crest is now owned by the Canadian Saputo. It was previously the processing arm of the milk marketing board.

Wellington

Home to woollens manufacturer Fox Bros.

Weymouth

The first recorded incidence of the Black Death was recorded here in June 1348. The plague spread and killed perhaps half the population. With too much work for too few people and strict control of wages the poor suffered

Exeter

Was a major centre of the wool trade. It now is home to a top university and a vibrant service economy.

Tiverton

Home to John Heathcoat textiles.

Oakhampton

In the nearby Taw Valley the farmers co-op Arla are investing in a creamery to make Mozzarella.

Launceston

In nearby Lifton, Ambrosia Creamed Rice has been made since 1917. It is now owned ny Premier Foods.

Delebole

Slate is still extracted here

Plymouth

In 1859 Isambard Kingdom Brunel extended his Great Western Railway across the Tamar bridge into Devon and Cornwall. The Royal Naval Dockyard, later known as Devonport Dock Yard, was created in Plymouth in the late seventeenth century. As well as shipbuilding the city attracted technology companies. You can read more by following the link.

Appledore near Bideford

Home to Appledore shipbuilders currently owned by Harland & Wolff

St Austell

English China Clays was the major producer of china clay in Cornwall and also manufactured related building products. The Eden Project now occupies former clay mining quarries. Before china clay the St Austell area was extensively mined for metla. I write more in this link.

Camborne and Redruth

Cornwall was exporting the tin mined here as early as 1,300 BC. Copper and silver were also mined. In the eighteenth century Cornwall was mining the metals demanded by the industrial revolution. You can read more in this link. At nearby Upton Towans from 1888 the National Explosives Company manufactured dynamite and other explosives. They later joined 29 other companies in Nobel Industries Limited

Callington

Ginsters pasties and sausage rolls made here, now owned by Samworth Brothers of Melton Mowbray.

Truro

The cathedral city of Truro is home to Kensa Ground Source Heat Pumps. These pumps are already installed in a number of projects including the replacement of night storage heaters in three tower blocks in Thurrock, Essex.

Falmouth

The town was the busiest port in Cornwall importing wine and timber, exporting tin and pilchards. Along with this, the town's businesses supplied services to shipping including the Packet Service set up on 1689 to take post to Spain and beyond when the overland route through France was disturbed once more by war. Alongside ship repair, ships were built until 1930. Now A&P operate the largest ship repair facility in Britain, and Pendennis Shipyard offers a specialist repair facility for yachts.

Yeovil manufacturing history

 Yeovil’s traditional industry was glove making from locally sourced hides. It was a substantial industry with the final glove factory closing only in 1989.

Continuing the agricultural theme, the St Ivel brand of cheese was produced by Western Counties Creameries.

Mechanisation did not pass the town by and at the end of the nineteenth century, James Petter set up as an iron monger and produced the acclaimed ‘Nautilus’ fire grate. From there he went on to install a one horse-power oil engine in a horseless carriage and produced well regarded stationary oil engines.

From this base his company went on to manufacture aircraft in the First World War. Short Type 166, Sopwith 1½ Strutters, de Havilland 4 and 9 two-seat bombers. de-Havilland planned to use the American Liberty engine in the DH-9 to produce the DH-9A and Westland were given the job.

Westland also built 25 Vickers Vimys making a total of 1,100 aircraft. The Yeovil site was transformed with hangers and workshop space.

During the interwar years, Westland survived but continued its drive for innovation.

One result of this quest was production of the Lysander transport aircraft ready to serve in the Second World War. It became known for its role in dropping agents into occupied France. Of more significance in terms of volume was Westland's role in building Spitfires following the bombing of the Southampton Supermarine factory.

Westland, which had built a large number of aircraft for other companies, in 1947 focused on rotor craft and built the Wyvern, the first Westland aircraft to enter service with Fleet Air Arm.

During the Second World War it had been agreed that the USA would take on the development of helicopters; Cierva, the UK pioneer of rotary aircraft was sold to flying boat manufacturer Saunders-Roe in 1951 and produced the Saro Skeeter. In 1959, Westland bought Saunders-Roe and developed the design into the Wasp for the Royal Navy. The decision to focus development work during the war in the USA gave Sikorsky a lead which it would retain for many years. Westland had produced the Sikorsky S-51 under licence and developed this into their own S51 Widgeon, followed by the Whirlwind, Wessex and Sea King.

The Times of 12 January 1960 reported that Westland had bought, in addition to Saunders-Roe, the Bristol Helicopter Division and the UK interests of Fairey Aviation. The enlarged company was now the biggest manufacturer of helicopters outside the USA, and it went on to produce further Sikorsky based craft under license from the Italian Agusta Company. The Sea King (shown in the image) was developed from the Agusta design and the other iconic name, the Lynx, from the 1968 Anglo-French Helicopter Agreement.

Notwithstanding the success of these craft, the company ran into financial difficulties in 1986 and eventually came under the control of GKN in 1994. The GKN Westland EH 101 Merlin was the child of this latter marriage and was regarded as the most advanced helicopter of its time going on to sell worldwide and in the early 2000s replacing Sikorsky as the craft used by US ‘Marine One’ Corps for the US President.

Westland later merged with Agusta a subsidiary of the Italian Finmeccania. In 2004, Finmeccania became the sole owner of AgustaWestland and in 2016 absorbed the business following which it changed its name to Leonardo in 2018.

Further reading:

• https://www.westland100.org.uk/content/history-of-westland/history-westland-1915-1998
• Leslie Brooke, Yeovil A Pictorial History (Chichester: Phillimore, 1994)

Belfast manufacturing history

 Ireland moved later than much of Britain away from a subsistence economy. The island as a whole was not rich in raw materials yet the climate was good for growing, spinning and weaving flax. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Belfast ranked alongside towns such as Lisburn, Lurgan, Portadown, and Dungannon. In size, the city was similar to Derry and Newry. Linen was a cottage industry with a great number of spinners and weavers in Ulster but also in Leinster and Munster (which would become part of the Republic).

Linen was also made in England, but it was over-shadowed by that imported from continental European countries. The focus of English textiles was very much on wool and cotton. Ireland's linen industry was cottage based with exports flowing via dyers through Dublin. At the end of the seventeenth century the needs of British government finance for war led to increased duties on imports and, since linen was one of the biggest imports, it was a prime target. The knock on from this was the need to increase home production and Ireland was drawn in and given preferential access to the English market, then the biggest and fastest growing in Europe. In Belfast flax spinning and weaving gathered round the rivers Forth, Farset and Blackstaff and the mills they powered taking the place of what previously had been a cottage industry in the province.

The late eighteenth century also saw in Belfast the birth of the mechanised cotton industry. Cotton was the stuff of Lancashire, but the Irish climate was similar and the island had both labour and skills. The industry developed in East Ulster and also in the south in Waterford and in Dublin. Belfast was known for its fine fabrics, whereas the south produced the courser calicos. In the later nineteenth century Belfast took advantage of growing mechanisation to produce cheap muslins. Cotton reached its peak in the 1820s and a number of Belfast men notably Thomas Mulholland and John Hind decided to venture into mechanised flax spinning. Others followed. Linen came into it own once more when the shipping of cotton was blockaded in the American Civil War. With a market starved of cotton, what better than linen. In Belfast, spinning mills were busy and more were built. Handloom weavers moved closer to the spinners and still held the market for fine linen with coarser fabric being produced on power looms. In time these looms were improved and power looms were adopted widely with yet more mills built.

With the end of the war, cotton shipments resumed and Lancashire, adopting further mechanisation, once more undercut linen. To make matters worse international customers began to produce their own linen. The result of all this was the closure of mills and the removal of the remainder closer together in Belfast. Linen and cotton began to be processed alongside each other. Linen Union became popular as the addition of cotton made the fabric softer. The First World War increased demand for linen and the industry revived only to fall into terminal decline after a brief respite following the war.

Along with Dublin and Cork, Belfast was one of Ireland's sea ports and as the linen and cotton trades expanded so too did Belfast. Belfast was becoming increasing prosperous with developments in the textile industry. William Durgan, known in Ireland as the King of the Railways, saw the potential for growth, not only in railways, but also shipping and he undertook the digging out of the harbour. This made the docks perfect for shipbuilding, something seen clearly by Edward Harland and Gustav Wolff. This transformed Belfast in to Ireland's primary port. With shipping came shipbuilding which was also transformed mid century by the coming together of Harland and Wolff. It is worth mentioning, because it is a name that keeps appearing, that contracts with the Bibby Line were the lifeblood of the new company.

Harland & Wolff is surely the iconic image of Belfast. Anthony Slaven in his British Shipbuilding 1500-2010, praises the shipyard for its ability in the late nineteenth century to 'produce any type of vessel', having previously noted the specialisms of the other British shipbuilding areas. He does concede that the Northern Ireland yard was particularly known for its cargo liners and passenger liners. Later it was of course known as the birthplace of the Titanic but also her sister ships Olympic and Britannic. Alongside Harlands was Workman and Clark's yard founded in 1879.

Scottish born John Boyd Dunlop who, whilst living in Belfast, developed the pneumatic tyre which both greatly improved the comfort of riding a bicycle but also its speed.

Belfast played its part in the war effort in both world wars with ships and munitions and in the Second World War. Shorts of Rochester joined with Harland & Wolff in 1936 in a company known as Short & Harland and produced the Sunderland flyboat, and, from this design, the massive Stirling bomber. Production at Rochester became too vulnerable to air attack and so move to Belfast, with Austin also producing a good number. Some 2,375 were produced in all. After the war, some yards took advantage of opportunities to re-equip. Harland & Wolff took over welding shops provided by the government. Part of Shorts was bought by the American Spirit Aerosystems which in turn became part of Boeing. Another part of Shorts, then owned by Bombardier, entered into a venture with Thompson-CSF to develop the Shorts Missile System. Thompson-CSF changed its name to Thales and bought out Bombardier. Thales now manufacture ammunition in the city.

The Festival of Britain in 1951 shed light on Belfast and Northern Ireland highlighting its agriculture and linen industries. At that time manufacturing was concentrated on Belfast with some 58% of those employed in manufacturing working in the capital. It was by far the largest centre of population, some eight times that of Derry which came second with 50,000. It was primarily a manufacturing city with half the working population so employed in engineering and shipbuilding, textiles and clothing, food and drink. The Belfast Ropework Company had the largest rope making factory in the world.

Soft drinks producer Cantrell and Cochrane was founded in a shop in Belfast in 1852.

Government sponsored industrial development is important with industries established in the decade after the Second World War including aircraft (Short Brothers), precision engineering, rayon weaving, toy making and food processing.

The city welcomed investment from overseas, particularly the USA with Dow Chemicals. The DeLorean motor company set up production in 1978 but lasted only four years.

Belfast and Northern Ireland suffered from the 'troubles' - sectarian violence - which lasted until the Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998. Since then the province has prospered.

Further reading

• Anthony Slaven, British Shipbuilding 1500-2010 (Lancaster: Crucible, 2013)
• Emily Boyle and Robin Sweetnam in Belfast the Making of the City 1800-1914 (Belfast: Appletree Press, 1983)

Stockport manufacturing history

 Stockport was a cotton town which perhaps embraced progress more readily than some others. Traditional spinning and weaving would take place in people's home. With mechanisation, Mills would be built but then demolished when new processes came in which demanded more or different space. In 1851, the textile industry employed half the working population. In the second half of the century it was said that Stockport was building mills on a ‘monumental scale’ and many of these along the Ashton canal which provided fuel and raw materials and took away the finished product. Among many others two families come to be mentioned. The Gregs, whose father built Quarry Bank Mill in Styal, and the Houldsworths whose mill is a classic example of great industrial architecture; it was designed by architects AH Stott. It also offered a more efficient configuration and was in effect a double mill with a central section housing the steam power used by a factory on either side.

Stockport had become, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the great centre for power loom weaving. Manufacturers often carried on both spinning and weaving until weaving became concentrated on East Lancashire. Stockport shifted its efforts to spinning and embraced the spinning of cotton waste and doubling (spinning two or more yarns together to produce greater strength). Spinners also adopted the ring frame which worked much faster than the mule.

In the mid nineteenth century the weaving of silk was taken on in a number of mills to supply the manufacturers of Macclesfield until, with a downturn in demand, Macclesfield took over all their weaving. The weaving of wool had been done for many years as a cottage industry. This too was explored in the mill context with two mills in production until 1939. A further innovation falls to be mentioned. As mills got bigger they did of course cost more and a number of companies adopted a joint stock status following the lead of Oldham.

What was successful was hat making. The mid nineteenth century saw a fashion move from silk hats to those made from felt. Here, Stockport companies such as Christys and Battersbsy stepped in and in the last thirty years of the century employment grew ten fold. Stockport manufacturers embraced the latest American machinery and prospered until fashions changed once more.

Engineering followed textiles with manufacturers of the ring frame and power looms. They also made machinery for hat making. Cravens manufactured cranes, Simon-Carves made mining equipment and Lancashire boilers were built at the Wellington boiler works.

With the coming of the First World War, National Aircraft Factory No 2 was built in the town and run by Crossley. The associated airstrip was also used by Avro from their Woodford factory. Later Fairey manufactured aircraft in the Second World War in nearby Heaton Chapel. The company moved to wheeled armoured vehicles and now operates as KNDS UK.

Further reading:

Peter Arrowsmith, Stockport - A History (Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, 1997)

You can read more in Vehicles to Vaccines and in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World 

Cheltenham & Gloucester manufacturing history

 In the fifteenth century Gloucester was another centre for the wool and cloth industry. Work with iron was if anything more important with smelting from the Forest of Dean and foundries in the city. There is evidence then of further metal trades: cutlers, bladesmiths, coopers, farriers and pinners. In the thirteenth century, more towns had come to be known for their product: Lincoln for cloth (dyed green or scarlet), Grimsby for fish, Corfe for marble and Gloucester for iron.

In the sixteenth century the wool trade declined, but the city was appointed a port which went some way to increase trade, although Bristol continued to dominate. Cheltenham made its name as a Spa Town. The eighteenth century also saw Gloucester run more by the gentry, but the coming of the canals and railways, as elsewhere, brought manufacturing industry to the city.

This was in the shape of one remarkable company, the Gloucester Carriage and Wagon Company formed in 1860. Its traditional business had been fine carriages for the gentry, but the need to transport coal brought in the coal wagon for use on railways of which the company manufactured a great many. The design of wagons was developed and a greater use was made of iron and steel. Passenger carriages were produced mainly for overseas customers. The London Underground became a major customers with carriages produced for a number of lines. The company worked with English Electric on rolling stock for electrified railways. The company ceased manufacture in 1986.

In Cheltenham in 1888, Herbert Henry Martyn founded a company of wood, stone and plaster carvers, metal and glass workers. The company gained a national reputation for the excellence of their work. During the First World War, Hugh Burroughs of the Aircraft Manufacturing Company of Hendon (Airco) was looking for subcontractors to make wooden DH2 Scout aircraft. He was advised to visit Alfred Martyn who had taken over from his father. Burroughs was impressed and gave the order. Clearly a good relationship developed because Burroughs and Martyn set up a new company, the Gloucestershire Aircraft Company, owned by their respective companies.

The Gloucestershire Aircraft Company or Gloster Aircraft as it became, began by building large numbers of Bristol Fighters and Nieuport Nighthawks and, after the war ended, set about using large quantities of surplus Nighthawk parts to produce a series of planes derived from the Nighthawk which they named the Sparrowhawk and many of which were bought by the Japanese Navy. The Schneider Trophy beckoned and the company made a number of racing seaplanes. The interwar years were spent in experimentation as designs were tried out moving from wood to metal construction. This cost dear and Gloster became part of the much larger Hawker Siddeley which drew the company into the Hawker fold. A large number of aircraft were built including the Gladiator, the last bi-plane fighter.

Gloster had the distinction of being the first aircraft manufacturer in the UK or US to design, build and fly an aircraft fitted with a jet engine. I write about the development of the jet in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. The company went on to produce the highly successful Meteor.

Gloucester was home to Rotol, formed by Bristol aircraft and Rolls-Royce to manufacture propellers. Dowty Aviation with which Rotol later merged was based in Cheltenham specialising in undercarriages. The Dowty Heritage site has much more excellent detail. George Dowty, the founder of the company in 1930, had been a draughtsman at Gloster Aircraft designing internally sprung aircraft wheels in his spare time. Joe Bowstead and John Dexter joined him on their first contract for struts for the de Havilland autogyro. Soon they went full time and began building a company that would provide vital parts for the growing aircraft industry. George Dowty was a great believer in subcontracting, both to hold steady the company's employee numbers and to drawn on more specialist skills. I write more of the post war British aircraft industry in Vehicles to Vaccines.

With thanks to the Dowty Heritage Trust - Original photo in the Dowty archive at the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub

Unilever set up their Walls ice cream factory in Gloucester. In nearby Coleford, Lucazade and Ribena are produced. Ribena was produce by H.C Carter and was bought by Beecham and joined by Lucazade. They were sold by GSK to Suntori in 2013.

Further reading:

• Carolyn Heighway, Gloucester - A History and Guide (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1985)
• Peter Dancy, British Aircraft Manufacturers since 1909, (Fonthill Media, 2014).
• The Engineer 7 October 1971

I wanted to explore British manufacturing history geographically, having looked at it chronologically and by sector in my books How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines. 

Follow this link to a list of the places I have explored to date.

Medway towns manufacturing history

 Rochester was a cathedral city until local government changes caused the status to lapse on its joining the Medway unitary authority. Nevertheless, its cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of the Rochester Diocese dating back to the sixth century. Rochester boasts a castle whose keep is one of the best preserved in England or France. Rochester has been occupied by Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans.

Chatham in contrast was a small village on the mud flats of the Medway not far from Rochester and close to Gillingham, Strood and Rainham. It was the mud that attracted naval use. Henry VIII had built the first substantial Royal Navy including the Mary Rose, the first purpose built warship. The Medway then came into its own since the ships could safely be beached and there have their hulls cleaned, caulked and tarred.

Elizabeth I added to the navy, galleys - ships with both sail and oars. These were stationed at Chatham where they could easily be maintained. The dockyard was already bigger than Portsmouth, Deptford and Woolwich and it maintained and improved on this position through the years of war with the Dutch. The yard attracted shipwrights, carpenters, sailmakers, smiths, sawyers, riggers and mast makers.

In the early seventeenth century a new dry dock was built along with mast docks, sail loft and rope house - the latter being 1,000 feet long, the length of the longest rope. The tactic for naval ships was simple, to be massively armed to wreak destruction at short range. The massive PRINCE was an exemplar of this ship type known as the First Rate with three gun decks. These early ships would be armed by cannon cast in iron works in the nearby Weald.

With the eighteenth century came another opponent - the French - and so the centre of gravity for the navy moved westward to Portsmouth and Plymouth. More than this, the theatre of naval warfare moved from the sea between Britain and the Continent to the oceans: the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Atlantic. The ships required for this more open warfare needed to be more agile and so tended to be Third Rate with seventy-four guns or frigates with thirty-two guns. In the course of the century the Royal Navy moved to a position of increasing strength where victory was always expected. This was great credit to the men who sailed the ships and lived in the most appalling conditions, but also to the dockyards.

For Chatham, the eighteenth century meant first completion of the improvement programme, but then decline as resources were directed to Portsmouth and Plymouth. The century ended with restoration ready for the next great conflict: the Napoleonic Wars. At the end of the eighteenth century the Chatham dockyard was the largest employer in the South East with some 2,000 men.

The navy's most famous ship, the VICTORY, was built at Chatham in 1765 and had a chequered career culminating in her being fitted out as a hospital ship in 1797. Two years later she was to be converted into a prison hulk. Instead, orders were given for her to be rebuilt and she left Chatham in 1800 as a superb fighting First Rate ship. These vast ships were built from four thousand oak trees with a compliment of 850 men. The lower of three gun decks was equipped with 42-pounders, the middle deck with 24-pounders and the top deck with 12-pounders giving a broadside of 1,176 pounds. Iron guns were most likely now cast at the Carron works in Falkirk with brass cannon made by Samuel Walker in Rotherham.

The nineteenth century saw reduced employee numbers with the ending of hostilities, but also the introduction of industrial process with a steam-powered sawmill designed and built by Marc Brunel. This incorporated a canal and and overhead rail system, with seasoned uncut timber entering at one end with sawn planks emerging at the other. I wrote in my blog on Portsmouth of Brunel's other inistiative of mechanising the process of pulley production.

The new century also saw the beginning of a dramatic change with steam power taking over from wind and sail. I write in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World of the transition from wooden hulls through iron clads to iron and then steel hulled ships. Mid-century saw a major investment in Chatham as it became the only eastern yard with the closure of Woolwich (although its continuance as the army's arsenal) and of Deptford. The work was substantial with new dry and wet docks, repair and fitting out basins all demanding some 110 million bricks made on site from a 21 acre brickfield. As the century drew to a close, ships became ever bigger culminating in the Dreadnaught Class which was too big either to be built or repaired at Chatham.

Her days seemed to be numbered until the Navy decided that they needed to build the newly invented submarines alongside private contractors not least to test their costings. The yard went on to build many submarines alongside Vickers at Barrow. In the Second World War it built smaller surface vessels and refitted a great many vessels of all kinds. At its peak the yard employed 13,000 people from Chatham, Rochester, Gillingham and Strood, and further afield.

The dockyard closed in 1981.

Rochester itself became home to Short Brothers which from 1913 manufactured flying boats or float planes was they were called at their factory at the Borstal end of the city. Their planes served with distinction during the First World War. Shorts survived the slump of the twenties by diversifying into buses, barges and motor boats. They came back into the limelight with the Shorts Singapore which in 1927 made a spectacular flight around the coast of Africa. The thirties saw the Shorts Empire operated by Imperial Airways and offering their 24 passengers a choice of cabins, births and a smoking room. From the design of the Empire came the Sunderland with innovations including a powered gun turret. Many saw service during the Second World War as did the Stirling four engine bomber of which I wrote in my book MacRoberts Reply. In 1943 the company was compulsorily purchased by the government and production dispersed to Belfast away from enemy bombing. With the return of peace, the company moved its operations to Belfast.

BAE Systems Faraday test centre and Advanced Aerospace Technologies are now based in Rochester.

In the nineteenth century Strood became home to Stewart Brothers and Spencer which extracted oil from seeds and sold the residue as cattle feed. Seeds would come by ships from as far afield as India, America and Russia.

Aveling and Porter manufactured agricultural machinery and went on to manufacture steam engines. In the thirties they became part of Agricultural Engineering and joined Barford & Perkins of Peterborough to form Aveling Barford which also took the Hornsby steam and road roller business based in Grantham.

Wingets took the Aveling site to manufacture cement mixers. Strood had attracted cement manufacturers like many sites on the Thames and Medway. Portland cement had become an essential part of building in the mid-nineteenth century. I write more about this in my piece on Dartford.

Gillingham had a history of textile manufacture with the Gillingham Silk Company in business from 1769 to 1875. There was also linen manufacture and glove making. The Copperas Works produced dyes and inks. In the late 19th century the Brennan Torpedo works was established.

Gillingham is also headquarters of Delphi Automotive Systems which had been spun out of General Motors and included AC Delco, Automotive Products of Leamington and Lucas Diesel Systems based in Gillingham. It was bought by BorgWarner which spun it into PHINIA.

Further reading:

• Philip MacDougall, The Book of Medway (Buckingham: Barracuda Books, 1989)
• Philip MacDougall, The Chatham Dockyard Story (Rochester: Rochester Press, 1981)
• https://www.worldcementassociation.org/about-cement/our-history

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)

Southampton manufacturing history

 Southampton was one of the great English ports first identified as so used in Roman times. The port was later ravaged by the Vikings. Henry V, having won the battle of Agincourt, set about building a navy to defeat the French. His largest ship the Grace Dieu was built in Southampton. The port grew as the benefit of Agincourt flowed in terms of comparative peace and the taking of Normandy. With the shift in opponents from Spain to France, Portsmouth became the primary naval port and Southampton was called upon to supplement its ship building resources as needed. It later prospered with yards for smaller ships and yachts.

Southampton as a port thrived with deliveries of coal from the Tyne. In time it added imports and exports to and from the empire. The nearby oil refinery at Fawley is run by Esso. It has long handled imports of timber and chemicals.

The city is now forever associated with ocean going liners taking their mix of passengers to the new world. We can think of the Titanic, but many more. The Southampton story started much smaller, although P&O made the port its home from the early nineteenth century. It was the years following Waterloo and the defeat of Napoleon that the peaceful and pleasurable use of the sea took off. Steam was fundamental and it was smaller steam packets that busied themselves in the Solent crossing to the Isle of Wight and taking trippers round the island. Bigger vessels also made regular trips to the Channel Islands. The coming of the railway in 1840 opened up Southampton to the growing London population and steam packets prospered. It was then that Southampton really featured in trans Atlantic travel, although the Thames still held on to much passenger and freight business. P&O moved back to London, but Cunard White Star took its place in Southampton. In the 1930s P&O moved back to Southampton.

The Chiswick based shipbuilding company owned by John Thornycroft moved to Woolston Southampton in 1900 and continued their manufacture of specialist naval vessels in the yard built by T.L. Oswald of Sunderland in 1870. During the Second World War they built seventeen destroyers, torpedo boats, mine sweepers and landing-craft and numerous other craft. In 1968 they amalgamated with Gosport-based Vospers to form Vosper Thornycroft. Harland & Wolff had a ship repair operation in Southampton from 1907 until 1973 when it was sold to Vosper Thornycroft. The ship building activity of the company is now part of BAE Systems Maritime based in Portsmouth.

Ship building also focused on yachts. Camper and Nicholson, founded at Gosport, but with a yard in Southampton, built Gypsy Moth IV for Sir Francis Chichester for his single handed journey around the globe. Oyster at Hythe and also Wroxham in Norfolk build and manage super yachts. Moody founded in Swanwick in 1827 made world class yachts until 2007 when the company was sold to the German Hanse Yachts.

The city became home to aircraft manufacture at the time when take off and landing on the sea was seen as more convenient than building land based air-ports. The company that championed this just outside Southampton was Pemberton-Billing Ltd, later named Supermarine and later still bought by Vickers. My mother included in her diaries (transcribed in my book Dunkirk to D Day) her account of travelling in a flying boat in the Second World War.

At Woolston, Supermarine in the thirties designed Spitfires and built their fuselages, the remainder being subcontracted to other aircraft manufacturers around the country. Avro had built aircraft at Hamble in the First World War. The site was subsequently used by Hawker Siddeley Aviation for their advanced training aircraft.

In electronics, Phillips (formerly Mullard) made integrated circuits in their Southampton factory. BAE Systems manufacture radar with its Digital Intelligence unit on the Isle of Wight and Combat Management Systems at Portsmouth. They were building on the legacy of Marconi whose experiments on the Solent resulted in wireless radio as I wrote in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World.

Southampton has been the recipient of inward investment from Pirelli with their cable works, Goodyear Tyres, Ford Motor Company, IBM, Apple and GE of America. BAT has made cigarettes in Southampton since 1912, but now the focus has shifted to non-combustible nicotine products.

As elsewhere, Southampton major employers are now in the service industries

Further reading:

A. Temple Patterson, Southampton - a biography (London: Macmillan, 1970)

Hayes manufacturing history

 Hayes was, in the early nineteen century, an agricultural town untouched by industrialisation except for the Grand Union Canal along the banks of which bricks were made to meet the demands of London's builders. The Great Western Railway passed through Hayes in the 1830's, but it would be another thirty years before the town got its own station and a further thirty years before the factories arrived.

The industrial development was to the south of the town with the Grand Union Canal to the north and the GWR running across it. Unlike the New Towns or even Letchworth, which was broadly comtemporary, Hayes industry grew with little regard to infrastructure. By 1915 the working population was 7,000, 4,000 of whom came daily by train from as far afield as Paddington and Windsor.

J.A. King and their fireproof partitions were the first manufacturers on site, followed by the British Transformer Company which moved from Paddington; Arthur Lee with slate, marble and granite working moved from Bristol. The Gos Printing Company of Chicago made newspaper printing machines.

The most significant arrival was the Gramophone and Typewriter Company which took an eleven acre site for a factory because their German factory couldn't keep pace with demand for gramophone records; the company adopted the 'His Master's Voice' HMV label. Hayes was to be a place of music, for HMV was joined by manufacturer of pianolas, the Orchestrelle Company. A pianola was a piano operated by a music roll; these were also made in Hayes by the Universal Music Company. A further link to HMV came through the printers Harrison & Sons who not only printed postage stamps but also the sleeves for records.

Food manufacturing came to Hayes in the shape of Scott's Preserves which grew strawberries in the Clyde valley. R&W Scott prospered as a family company for five generations before selling to Hero. A management buyout returned them to independence in 2022 with a plant back in Scotland.

The First World War saw factories turned over to the war effort and with three significant additions. Army Motor Lorries and Wagons employed largely Belgian refugees and made the bodies with chassis provided by motor manufacturers. Part of their premises was taken by Fairey Aviation which during the war assembled Short Model 827 planes. The other wartime addition was shell filling factory No 7. In my book Ordnance I write in detail about the shell filling factory at Chilwell just outside Nottingham. In Hayes the factory comprised 397 buildings giving a floor area of 14 acres in a site amounting to 200 acres allowing enough space between huts to avoid explosions spreading.

After the war, Fairey continued to expand and built an aerodrome near Harmondsworth; this site would become part of Heathrow Airport. In terms of music, pianolas declined in popularity as records and record players found their way into more and more homes. HMV merged with the UK arm of Columbia Gramophone Company to become Electric and Musical Industries. EMI set up their Central Research Laboratory here and produced remarkable discoveries in television but of most enduring importance the CAT Scanner which enabled doctors to examine internal tissue.

A great deal of much needed housing was built.

The Second World War saw an ICI plant in Hayes producing for the war effort as well as a Royal Ordnance Factory. Fairie manufactured many aircraft most notably the Swordfish bi-plane which proved itself especially effective in attacking enemy shipping.

After the war, the Smith Crisps factory, which had been built in the twenties, was moved to Corby with associated job losses. Fairey merged with Westland eventually moving to Taunton. EMI merged with Thorn but then de-merged and focused on music publishing rather than the associated hardware. I write more about Thorn and EMI in Vehicles to Vaccines. As was the case elsewhere, distribution and service industries gradually took the place of manufacturers.

Further reading:

Catherine Kelter, Hayes Past (London: Historical Publications, 1996)

Hull manufacturing history

 ‘It presents the eye an interesting spectacle of numerous vessels floating to and from the port of Hull: while that opulent and commercial town in its low situation close to the banks and surrounded by the masts of the shipping in the docks seems to rise like Venice from amidst the sea, the whole comprising a scene which for beauty and grandeur can scarcely be exceeded.’

This quotation from Bradshaw’s Guide had, behind it, a profound change in the lot of the British home. The railway had opened the inland but had also made accessible the shore to inland dwellers, and, in particular, had brought to the tables of ordinary people food never previously dreamed of. Hull, which had been a home of whaling, became the home of the British fishing fleet landing vast quantities of cod and haddock which would be whisked away by railway train to all parts of the country. That though is for later in the story.

Hull was first and foremost a port. In his book History of Kingston upon Hull, Hugh Calvert writes that Hull along with Liverpool were the major ports serving the Industrial Revolution and so were busy with both imports and exports. Hull at the mouth of the Humber was by the eighteenth century linked by rivers to Sheffield, Leeds, Huddersfield, Wakefield and Halifax. Soon canals would also link to Birmingham, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and Leicestershire and East Lancashire. Exports comprised iron, lead and metal goods but also pottery, hosiery and beer. Imports were of Swedish and Russian iron, timber, corn, linseed, flax, turpentine and tar. The Continent of Europe was the major destination but Hull also competed with Liverpool for the trade with America. With trade grew banking and the Smith's Bank also in Nottingham and Lincoln was just one of the progeny.

Shipbuilding had flourished in Hull since the fourteenth century or even earlier. Ships built included whalers, ships for the carriage of wine and naval vessels. The most important shipbuilder by the eighteenth century was the Blaydes family. Notoriously, a Hull shipyard built the Bounty later known for the mutiny against Captain Bligh. Steam and iron came successfully to Hull at the hands of the Earle family. In terms of shipping companies, it was the Wilson family that took pride of place.

The Earle family was also responsible for bringing the making of Roman Cement to Hull just three years before the invention of modern Portland Cement in 1824. The company would become part of the Blue Circle Group.

Manufacturing was the order of the day and Hull was not to be left out. It tried mills for both flax and cotton, but neither took off. Seeds for the oil they contained were more promising and factories for rolling and crushing seeds began to be built alongside businesses manufacturing the machinery required. In terms oil for margarine and soap, much later Unilever bought into the local industry. Oil was also used for paint, especially when combined with lead, and a paint industry emerged with Blundells, but also Reckitts which would become Reckitt and Colman manufacturing laundry starch, black lead and household polish.

The latter part of the nineteenth century saw a dramatic increase in the number of ships fishing from Hull. A rich area of fish had been discovered, growing urban areas were seeking sources of food and the technique of trawling for fish had been adopted. Ships powered by steam and then diesel added to the activity as did the invention of a means of making ice. Fish had to be kept cold from the point of being caught up to the point of sale at the fish market, and ice had been imported from Norway to achieve this. The Hull Ice Manufacturing Company began making its own ice in 1891. The Fylde Ice Company may take issue and suggest that its founder Joseph Marr, a Hull trawler man, had begun importing ice in 1860 and his son James set up the Ice Company in Fylde in 1908. That company expanded in to cold storage and still makes ice. One spin off from deep water fishing was the processing of cod liver oil, much 'loved' by those of us of a certain age.

The twentieth century saw Distillers set up plant to produce industrial alcohol and other chemical products of which I write in Vehicles to Vaccines. Smith + Nephew started out in Hull and still manufacture in the town. Hull is also still home to Ideal Heating formed in 1906. In nearby Brough, BAE Systems run the engineering centre for the Hawk trainer. This builds on the legacy of Hawker Siddeley and before then Robert Blackburn who set up the Brough factory at the start of the First World War.

Further reading:

Hugh Calvert History of Kingston upon Hull (Chichester: Phillimore, 1978)