Aberdeen manufacturing history

 Granite City, and any visitor will know immediately why Aberdeen is so called. Yet at the start of the nineteenth century this was not the case. Aberdeen like so many towns was built largely of wood. It had enjoyed a degree of prosperity since the twelfth century thanks to its agricultural hinterland. It was ready to move forward.

Communications were not good. In the city the roads were narrow, steep and poor, outside the city they were if anything worse. The saviour came in the shape of the turnpikes which transformed access to the city and inspired the city fathers to take action within the city boundaries. This they did with a revolutionary thrust. Union Street with its 135 ft bridge carved a route right through the decaying wooden dwellings; King Street too. The old and new towns were connected. Thomas Telford was at hand to advise.

These better routes for raw materials and finished goods made the way clear for growth in both woollens and linen; jute was tried but Dundee had bagged that one. The mid nineteenth century saw the cotton areas of Lancashire, the wool of Yorkshire and the linen of Belfast move ahead of the pack largely because of the economies of scale which they could enjoy. Aberdeen slipped back to concentrate on low volume and high quality.

Aberdeen had three paper mills and I wrote of Stoneywood paper mill in my book MacRobert's Reply. It was in the late nineteenth century one of the highest regarded paper mills in the world. It belonged to the Pirie family whose company became part of Wiggins Teape.

Communication improved further with massive work on the harbour which encouraged the building of fine clippers ideal for the long journey to the far east around the cape. The railways followed with a direct route to London in 1849. The city's buildings were replaced with fine granite brought in from the hinterland and cut and polished using an Aberdonian's own invention. The fine streets became lined with fine granite buildings. Even housing for the poor was granite and so much better than the brick back to backs in so many of England's industrial towns. Granite was exported as far as the USA.

Aberdeen's improved harbour proved ideal for trawlers catching herring and, later, white fish. The railways could have a catch in Billingsgate market by the following day. Cattle raised in that hinterland could be sent by rail down to Smithfield. The city began to feed the hungry nation.

The close of the nineteenth century saw further granite building not least the Marichal College

Marichal College

Aberdeen played its part in both world wars and in the second suffered from enemy bombing especially the Aberdeen Blitz of 1943.

In the 1970s Aberdeen became the onshore focus of much north sea oil production. I recall spending time on the audit of American oil drilling companies. One of my friends was designing oil rigs, Kelvin Bray, of whom I write in Vehicles to Vaccines, ran the company manufacturing the gas turbines necessary for the rigs. I explored the story further in Vehicles to Vaccines and found to my disappointment that British manufacturing had not fully exploited the opportunity oil offered. Aberdeen though was a busy and prosperous place.

Visiting recently, the granite city is looking tired with the problems facing so many high streets. However it is now home to British Energy and the move to net zero. It is a city well capable of reinvention and so the opportunity of the green revolution is likely to be grasped with accustomed energy.

Further reading:

Aberdeen in the Nineteenth Century - the Making of a Modern City John S. Smith and David Stevenson (eds.) (Aberdeen University Press, 1988)

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

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)