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)