Metroland manufacturing history

 John Betjemin used the term to describe those areas made accessible to London by the building of the extensions to the London Underground. For me it also describes those areas just outside and to the north of the Thames in what were in my childhood referred to as the Home Counties. The image is of a model of a tube station at Bekonscot in Beaconsfield. From the point of view of manufacturing history, it was where many business moved out of London. It was home to New Towns.

Luton

Where Vauxhall moved from south London; in the Second World War, they manufactured Churchill tanks here. Commer trucks were made here and later became part of the Rootes Group. Also Lucas Aerospace had a presence along with a former English Electric factory beside Luton Airport. The town's origin was in hat making. You can read more in this blog piece.

Dunstable

Home of Bedford, the commercial vehicle arm of Vauxhall with a main base at nearby Luton.

Hertford and Ware

Glaxo bought Allen & Hanbury which had its main manufacturing facility at nearby Ware having moved from Bethnal Green . Follow this link to find out more.

Letchworth

The first Garden City before the First World War. You can read more by following this link

Baldock

A town founded by the Knights Templar with the intention of making it the English Baghdad. Nonetheless it was a busy market town known for its malting and brewing.

Royston

The world’s first catalysts to control vehicle pollution were produced at Johnson Matthey’s Royston plant

Hitchin

A town, the product of its soil. Read more by following this link.

Stevenage

One of the new towns designated after the Second World War. Now home to GSK, Airbus and MBDA the missile joint venture between BAE Systems, Airbus and Leonardo. Stevenage has been given the nickname Space City recognising its role in satellite manufacture. You can read more by following this link.

Radlett

EMI set up a factory to manufacture its CAT scanner. Handley Page aircraft moved to nearby Radlett Aerodrome from Cricklewood and manufactured many great aircraft before falling into voluntary liquidation in 1969.

Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield

One of the first designated new towns which became home to Shredded Wheat, Murphy television and a Unilever research laboratory for food stuffs. Nearby Hatfield was home to de Havilland aircraft which later became part of Hawker Siddeley and then BAE Systems; production ceased in 1992. Read more by following this link.

Harlow

One of the new towns designated after the Second World War, former home to the Edison Swan Laboratory as a legacy of their joint venture in incandescent bulbs. In the sixties Gilbey's Gin built a striking new factory moving its production from London. Follow this link to find out more.

Hemel Hempstead

This was one of the new towns designated after the Second World War building on the substantial and long standing John Dickinson paper mill at nearby Aspley Mill You can find more by following this link.

Watford

The home of printing. You can read more by following this link.

St Albans

Before the Roman invasion, Verulamium (St Albans) was capital of Catuvellauni under king Cunobelinus (brought to life for us by Shakespeare in his play Cymbeline). It was occupied by the Romans and destroyed by Bodeca.

Waltham Abbey

The Royal Gunpowder Factory was here.

Borehamwood

During the Second World War the Admiralty enabled Elliott Brothers to take a redundant fuse factory in order to increase their production of fire control systems. Elliott Automation, as it became following a merger, was in 1957 the largest automation and instrumentation company in Europe, with some 35,000 employees. They are one of the few companies still active in the fifties who exhibited at the Great Exhibition; then they offered drawing instruments, theodolites, transit instruments, slide-rule, azimuth and altitude instruments. During the war, Elliott had worked with the navy on fire control and had developed electro-mechanical devices. In 1947, Elliott created their Borehamwood Research Laboratory and there pursued an advanced digital system building on their earlier naval work. They became part of GEC Avionics. Ugo Foods, manufacturers of pasta, moved from Holloway in 1998 where the company moved in 1952 having set up in Soho in 1929.

Slough

Home to light industry and much inward investment. Read more by following this link.

High Wycombe

Home of furniture making including Gomme with their famous G Plan, and William Hands. You can read more by following this link.

Princess Risborough

Ercol furniture moved their offices, design and factory here from High Wycombe in 2002.

Denham

Home to Martin-Baker ejector seats for aircraft and Bosch UK.

Beaconsfield

Rotax (part of Lucas) moved magneto production here after its Willesden factory was bombed in the Second World War. Wiggins Teape research centre was founded at Butlers Court. Perkin Elmer made instruments in the town.

Amersham

Home to the nuclear diagnostic company that bore the towns name and which became part of GE Healthcare whose UK HQ is at nearby Chalfont St Giles.

Hayes

Fairey Aviation was founded here in 1915. The Gramophone company set up in 1906 and would become part of EMI. You can read more by following this link.

Uxbridge

The town that made the flour for London's bakers. You can read more by following this link.

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)