Letchworth Garden City was conceived by Sir Ebenezer Howard who set out his thinking in a book, Garden Cities of Tomorrow. His aim was to combine town and city advantages. Thinking reached reality in 1902 when a company was formed to buy land and lay down designs for the new city. This was at the time of the Arts and Crafts Movement and echoes of the movement were to be found in the new city. There had to be industry providing jobs for the new population. The site chosen was on the railway line from London to Cambridge, but the route to the northern industrial areas was at nearby Hitchin. Many thought that the new town was too far from London and indeed later new towns were nearer. Writing in 2025, it may well be that a position between Cambridge and Oxford may turn out rather well.
Back to Edwardian England. The planning of a brand new conurbation required a return to first principles and the sourcing of water and also the routing of sewerage disposal. In was though 1900 and so a gas works was built. Electricity wasn't ignored but neither was it embraced. A generating station was built which provided for industrial users only DC current at 500 volts. It wasn't until the coming of the national grid in the twenties that the country as a whole adopted AC and standardise the voltage of supply.
The first company attracted to the new town was Idris, the soft drink company which was based in Camden in London. The first industries attracted to the new town were printers. A co-operative group of printers from Leicester set up Garden City Press and Joseph Dent whose company produced Everyman editions which had outgrown their factory based in Bishopsgate in the City of London. WH Smith brought to the town the Arden Press which picked up on the Arts and Crafts connection through the work of Bernard Newdigate and the type style of Eric Gill but also Morris's Kelmscott Press.
It was the time of the early motor car enthusiast and the town attracted the Lacre Motor Company from Long Acre in Covent Garden which built chassis. A successor company went on to produce mechanical road sweepers under the name Shelvoke and Drewry. Phoenix Motor Company came from its base in Finchley. Phoenix hand built beautiful cars each carrying the Phoenix Crest. Sadly with so many other motor companies chasing customers they ceased production in 1928.
The Westinghouse Morose Chain Company set up a factory in 1920 to produce chain drive for vehicles and were bought by Borg Warner after the Second World War. Borg Warner became one of the town's biggest employers and only ceased production after the recession of the 1980s.
Herz and Falk made embroidered textiles and St Edmundsbury Weavers again picked up Arts and Crafts in their handloom produced fabrics for churches, cathedrals, country houses and theatre sets. Another textile related company was created by Californian Leslie Irvin who manufactured parachutes. It was estimated that these had saved 36,000 lives in the Second World War.
One company that was to have big impact on Letchworth was Meredew cabinet makers which also collaborated with Murphy making radios in Welwyn. During the Second World War they made glider panels.
The Spirella Company from the USA had developed a wire spring alternative to bone for corsets and these proved extremely popular to twentieth century's more active woman. They set up in temporary premises in 1910 - huts that had been used to house the workers who carried out of the groundworks for the town. Over the next three years they built a factory complex known as Castle Corset which once again drew on Arts and Crafts design. In time the company recruited an army of sales women who would achieve daily sales of 200,000 in 1950. Later the making of brasiers moved to Harlow and the Letchworth factory focused on surgical corsets.
The K&L company originated with Belgian refugees during the First World War. Led by Jacques Kryn they built a foundry and during the First World War made munitions with a workforce of 3,000. They became part of the Cohen 600 Group and by 1930 claimed they were the best equipped foundry in Britain making carbon steel castings for everything from hydraulic cylinders to bridges and cranes. During the Second World War they made secret miniature submarines. They closed operations in the 80's.
The British Tabulating Company manufactured Hollerinth machines capable of processing numerical data such as census returns. They moved to Letchworth from Lambeth and would employ some 4,000 people in their new factory. In the Second World War they were vital in helping to produce the BOMBE code breaking machines for nearby Bletchley Park. Spirella also worked on assembly. British Tabulating joined with Powers Samas and eventually became International Computers Limited ICL after they were joined by the Ferranti and the English Electric computer businesses. They left Letchworth in 1989.
Letchworth has repurposed unused buildings and is well placed to continue to support the technology sector.
Further reading:
Melvyn Miller, Letchworth Garden City (Stroud: Chalford, 1995)
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