East London manufacturing history 19th and 20th centuries

 

Docklands

The first decade of the nineteenth century saw an expansion in docks which would guarantee London's position as the world's trading city. The first was a West India Docks which had in addition to the docks themselves, warehouses all surrounded by a secure wall. The work was privately funded and financed by a 21 year monopoly of West Indies trade. They were located on the then marshy Isle of Dogs. Next came London Docks serving Europe and North America located in Wapping. Lastly the East India Company opened their walled and policed dock at Blackwall.

The East India docks speak of the vast international trade that poured through London and I am drawn to John Masefield’s poem Cargos which I quote at the start of How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. I also remember from childhood sailing from the docks on a banana boat bound for Tenerife.

We are still talking of ships made of wood and powered by sail for which London shipbuilders were rightly famous. Anthony Slaven in his book British Shipbuilding 1500-2010 suggests that eight major yards on the Thames were in the van in building iron hulled ships. These yards had the skills in shipbuilding but also engines. The 1860s were a boom time for London's yards with at one time as many as 27,000 people employed in shipbuilding. 1860 saw the first British ironclad, HMS Warrior, built by the Thames Ironworks, clad with armour by John Brown and armed with guns from Armstrongs. The boom came to a grinding halt as the Clyde, Tyne and Tees took over the lead largely because raw materials were close by and so vastly cheaper that those London shipbuilders had to buy in. I write in another blog piece of Henry Maudslay's influence on machine tools; his company Maudslay Son and Field were highly influential in steam power for ships. In Greenwich, John Penn owned the largest marine engine business in Britain.

In shipbuilding 1,700 worked in John Penn’s boiler works at Greenwich and many more at Wigham and Green’s yard at Blackwall.

Joseph Rank saw the vast quantity of grain imports coming through London docks and saw the opportunity for flour mills which he built by the river. These worked alongside huge warehouses and markets. London had cornered world trade, for example Australian wool was shipped to London for onward sale. The domination in trade was mirrored and amplified in banking and finance where London took an unassailable lead until 1914.

The docks needed expanding again, this time to fit the larger steam powered steel hulled ships and the Victoria and Albert docks were built.

The final expansion of the docks on the Thames can look to Tilbury docks in 1886 which provided a massive deep water dock east of the then docklands. Somewhat later Samuel Williams created a huge industrial development around Dagenham Dock. Tilbury would once again take the lead in 1967 in the move to containers which transformed the docks from a community ruled by dockers to an international business controlled by computers.

Woolwich

Woolwich was of course home to the Arsenal where some 75,000 worked in 1917 and I write of this and more in Ordnance and How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. At the start of the Crimean War an engineer, John Anderson, was appointed to undertake a major programme of modernisation and expansion. He introduced steam power into the Foundry and the Royal Carriage Factory. Similar building programmes and modernisation were undertaken at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, which had been set up after the Napoleonic Wars following bad experience with commercial suppliers, and the Royal Gunpowder Factory at Waltham Abbey. Another key appointment was made in 1854, when Frederick Abel took the office of Ordnance Chemist which had fallen into disuse in 1826. Under Abel, the technology of ammunition took major strides with Woolwich as a centre of excellence.

William Siemens was another major employer in Woolwich. As I write in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World, William was the British end of the German family and took on the manufacture of cables for telegraph. In time cables crossed the globe with Siemens purpose built ship The Faraday laying them. Siemens worked in partnership with steel rope makers, Newall & Company of Newcastle. This latter company became part of British Ropes which later changed its name to Bridon. Siemens factory became part of GEC but was closed by Arnold Weinstock attracting acrimony from the community and unions. The factory had also produced telephone equipment. As well as hand-sets, they supplied their first public automatic telephone exchange in Grimsby in September 1918 handling 1,300 lines. This was followed by exchanges in Stockport, Southampton and Swansea; in all some forty-three out of one hundred exchanges brought into service by the Post Office up to 1927. They also set up exchanges in Canada and Australia. Such was the demand that they took new space in Hartlepool and Spennymoor.

In the Second World War in order to protect the Clyde, Siemens were commissioned to supply not only the five miles long loop cable through which high currents would be passed to explode such mines, but to commission and build all the necessary switch-gear and power plant. They also supplied cables equipment for radar and line communications. They were of course the perfect company to produce a submarine cable which could contain petrol at high pressure for the PLUTO project. For the HAIS pipeline (Hartley, Anglo-Iranian, Siemens) cable of seventy miles in length was required and a whole new building had to be constructed to contain it. Elsewhere, lamp production became even more specialised for the war effort, and the research laboratories were kept busy with demands by the British Aircraft Establishment for specialist bulbs for aircraft signalling.

Shoreditch and Bethnal Green

The furniture trade continued stongly into the nineteenth century. Timber would be provided from local saw mills such as Lathams which prospered and is now a leading UK timber supplier. One or two larger establishments emerged. In the lead was Lebus, but Hille and others would follow. Herrmann was said to have the largest furniture business in Europe; they were also in New York. The Lusty family made Lloyd Loom furniture.

It was a mixed economy with some warehouses making space for manufacturing. West End retailers, like Maples, began to source their products from East End makers. The large hire purchase companies like Times and Great Universal Stores dealt with the warehouses and the larger makers. Mechanisation came with electricity and, with the establishment of the National Grid, larger makers took advantage of cheap land in the Lea Valley, leaving little furniture making in the East End. When Lebus moved they had 1,000 employees. They now manufacture in Scunthorpe. Hille, which employed two of Britain's most talented designers in plastic injection moulding, moved to Watford and now manufacture in Ebbw Vale. Meredew moved to Letchworth.

Barking, Silvertown, Dagenham and Shadwell

Barking had an unhappy start to industrialisation. In How Britain Shaped The Manufacturing World I wrote in the context of communication of the great stink, the Thames doubling up as a massive open sewer. The river attracted all sorts of industry and processes often highly polluting especially outside the county boundary where by-laws restricting offensive trades did not apply. In Barking this meant chemical and related industries. Barking's other problem was that the sewerage from north London carried by Bazalgette's new sewer emptied to the west of Barking creek, creating, along with market gardens (where some of the sewerage was used raw as fertiliser) and polluting industries, a massive public health problem. In time local authorities were established which could enforce regulations and act together to improve the environment with sewers but also railways and means of communication. J.B.Lawes discovered a method of making fertiliser from treated sewerage, thus overcoming the health hazards.

The coming of the railways opened up east London and Essex for development. Barking attracted the largest gas works in Britain and much later a massive coal fired power station. Handley Page’s first aeroplane was made in Barking. After the First World War a number of new companies opened factories: P.C. Henderson doors (subsequently relocated to County Durham and now part of the Finish ASSA Alloy company), A.F. Bulgin radios and Dicky Birds crackers and ice-cream. Abbey Match works became part of the British Match Corporation.

In the Second World War, Barking creek was used for building Mulberry Harbours; companies in the borough also produced chemicals, life jackets, wood craft including Mosquito aircraft, and steel drums.

The local authority built the largest council house estate at Becontree which leads on to....

Dagenham which became home to Ford UK which moved manufacture from its plant in Manchester; many employees from Manchester moved into the Becontree estate. The Dagenham plant was vast with its own furnaces for casting engine blocks. One of their paint suppliers, Lewis Berger, was at nearby Shadwell Heath (I remember well working on their audit in the seventies). Dagenham also had an industrial alcohol distillery run by the Distillers Company, a May & Baker factory and pharmaceutical research facility drawing employees also from the Becontree estate.

Whilst most manufacturing still took place in the home or in small workshops, Jerry White highlights some of the other larger factories. Silvertown had a factory employing 3,000 making tyres and footballs, and insulation from rubber. The company The India Rubber, Gutta Percha and Telegraph Works Company was bought by the American Goodrich who then sold it to British shareholders and it became the British Tyre and Rubber (BTR). The insulation was probably used by Siemens Brothers at Woolwich which employed 1,700 making cables. Rope making took place in Shadwell with Frost’s works being the largest in the world.

At the start of the twentieth century the Great Eastern Railway employed 3,100 at their Stratford works. The workshop was originally intended for repair, but went on to build locomotives. Their famous engineer James Holden built an early electric powered locomotive capable of reaching 30mph in 30 seconds. It never went into service for the rail infrastructure at the time was not up to the challenge.

Bryant &  May employed 1,400 in Bow making matches. Bow was also home to porcelain manufacturer Thomas Frye and Edward Lloyd's paper mill. The paper industry blossomed following the abolition of the newspaper stamp in 1855.

Plessey had their main factory was at Ilford and relocated during the war to Central Line Tube tunnels to escape enemy bombing. Ilford manufactured photographic film here. Britvic manufactured soft drinks in Beckton.

Further reading:

• Stephen Inwood, A History of London (London: Macmillan, 1998)

Slough manufacturing history

 A child of the War Office. Slough was one of many Buckinghamshire villages drawn to ever expanding London. London needed vegetables and Slough grew them. London needed houses and Slough had been making bricks for centuries; Eton College was built with Slough bricks. Slough wanted to be linked to the rest of the country by rail, but the Provost of Eton complained that the boys under his charge might use it to get away.

The Great Western Railway did come, but with no station for Slough; the nearest was in the neighbouring village of Langley. Trains did however stop in Slough, at a make-shift station, and then ran on through Langley without stopping on their way into London. The railway did slowly attract manufacturers, Slough was given its own station and trains began to stop at Langley.

James Elliman was already in the town as a linen draper and was producing his famous embrocation. He prospered and provided the town with a fire station and recreation ground. In contrast Lovegrove's chair manufactory closed. Halley's mineral water plant, the Gotha iron works and Fulbrook's engineering works all set up. Of more enduring benefit to the town, Horlicks, created in Canada but which nourished our forces in both world wars, chose to manufacture in the town. Naylor Bros. Paints came to Slough and formed the basis of ICI's paint division famously producing Dulux.

In 1917, the War Office commissioned the construction of a Mechanical Transport Repair Depot on a 600 acre site on which work began in July 1918. The depot was to collect, repair and repurpose the many thousands of vehicles used by the army in the war. In the months that followed the armistice, work continued until a parliamentary committee produced a report with the recommendation that the entire site, vehicles and all, be sold.

The site was bought by a consortium of businessmen and it became owned by the Slough Trading Company. Surplus vehicles were sold and buildings completed. The first factories were let to Gillette, Johnson and Johnson and the Hygenic Ice Company; Citroen Cars followed. The infrastructure of what had now become Slough Estates Ltd was added to, and further tenants arrived. St Helens Cable and Rubber brought its workforce from Warrington. Three Scots entrepreneurs set up Bitumen Industries but of greater significance Forrester Mars set up a confectionary factory and also a plant for producing food for the nation's increasing number of pets. Crane Packing followed with an Art Deco building echoing the design of the Mars towers. Workers came to Slough from the depressed areas of the country but the town struggled to build enough housing and community facilities.

In the Second World War nearby Langley was home to Hawker Aircraft's production of Hurricane fighter planes. After the war, Langley Park became the headquarters of Radio and Allied (later GEC Radio and Television) then run by Michael Sobbell, father in law of Arnold Weinstock. Both would become part of GEC which later also had in Slough Satchwell Controls. Langley also attracted the Ford Motor Company to build its commercial vehicle plant where the first Ford Transit was made. In order to house this further growth in the population, a good number of prefabs were erected.

Was John Betjeman right when he wrote: 'Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough'? The poem is a critique of places like Slough where fields were replaced by factories and to the benefit of 'the man with the double chin' who became rich as a result. The report on the parliamentary debate on the siting of the Mechanical Transport Repair Depot quotes members as lamenting the loss of 600 acres of fine wheat land.

Slough Trading Estate is the largest industrial estate in Europe under single ownership. It has some six hundred tenants from the UK and overseas countries including USA, Germany and South Korea. The estate receives electricity and heating from a dedicated power station fuel by refuse. Tenants now include Electrolux, GSK and Azko Nobel.

Further reading:

Judith Hunter, The Story of Slough (Newbury: Local Heritage Books, 1983)

Basildon manufacturing history

 The new town of Basildon was only eight miles from Tilbury Docks with good road links to the east of London. This location clearly attracted the Ford Motor Company, which was outgrowing its Dagenham site, to move its tractor manufacture to Basildon. The proximity to the docks also attracted cigarette makers, Carreras. In 1964 New Holland completed their first tractor factory in the town, followed by Standard Telephones, MK Electric and Yardley.

The development corporation produced a promotional brochure encouraging other businesses to the town. Highlighted were the availability of good housing and community facilities for employees and their families. The businesses mentioned in the brochure were not only the big names although Marconi was highlighted a building a factory for the ‘meticulously accurate construction of delicate precisions equipment’ for radio, radar and other electronics.

Albert Mann’s Engineering Company manufactured rolling mills, Nufloor manufactured floor sanders and polishers and Teleflex of Shadwell Heath built a new factory manufacturing conveyors and remote controls. The new town also attracted old skills such as Engineers Patternmaking and Thompson & Foster cardboard boxes and corrugated paper.

Further reading

Industrial Development in Basildon New Town (Basildon Development Corporation)

Who else shaped the Manufacturing World - The American System of Manufacturing

 Continuing my quest to discover who else shaped the manufacturing world, not unreasonably, I turn to America. 

An entry in the Oxford reference book is clear that America had a system of manufacturing that put it well ahead of other manufacturing nations. An academic article is more cautious looking at the American manufacturing system in the context of four products: guns, wooden timepieces, watches and axes. The system, in short, was to have interchangeable parts which could be machine made in bulk and then put together in the final product, the key being that all this could be done by unskilled workers. The article highlights one drawback that more time is needed for adjustment as interchangeable parts in practice don’t fit perfectly. Nonetheless, there it seems is the ‘system’.

The story of American manufacturing picks up from the accounts of the early settlements where the imperative was to secure food and shelter. Rebecca Fraser’s account of the Mayflower Generation focuses on the struggles with ill-health and the uninviting natural environment; relations with the native population were then not hostile. In time hostility grew as the native Indians took exception to the approach of some settlers. A third imperative was thus security.

As population increased and the infrastructure of society developed, American found itself as an exporter of agricultural produce not least tobacco, sugar and cotton. Imports were of slaves for the plantations but also manufactured goods. These goods would include weapons, agricultural tools, clothing and basic objects for the home.

The war of independence drew a line in the sand as the newly free nation weened itself off dependence on the old colonial power. This didn’t happen overnight and indeed had probably started before independence as Americans would invite in particular textile and arms manufacturers to help them set up their own facilities. As would be the case so often in the way Britain shaped the manufacturing world, the young countries would create new factories with new machinery and so not be incumbered with earlier processes or machines.

This opportunity to start with a clean sheet of paper surely contributed the what became known as the American System of Manufacturing where identical parts would be produced using machines instead of the then traditional more labour intensive and skilled manual process. Another driver of this was the need to move a workforce from agriculture to manufacturing without the time consuming learning of manual skills. The nature of the American republic is important. Where we talk of agricultural workers, we often mean small holders; men and women who had fought their way into self-sufficiency. There would therefore not be many prepared to give that up for the sake of a job in a factory. Equally in the agrarian society there were not skilled mechanics.

One name stands out in addressing this challenge and that was Eli Whitney whose career began in the southern states where he invented the cotton gin to improve the processing of raw cotton. He then moved north and set up in gun making. In order to meet the volumes needed, tasks needed to be undertaken by machines operated by unskilled labour.

Inventions alone were not enough, the creation of the American arms and textile industries was enabled by government purchasing for the needs of the army and so creating a level of demand that justified mechanisation. The position of US Ordnance is interesting. There were two main arsenals in Springfield, Massachusetts, and in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. In time these were supplemented by private manufacturers, principally Winchester Repeating Arms Company and Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing both of which became successful leaders.

The evidence is that by 1851 the American system of manufacture was a known quantity as there is the story of Colt visiting the Great Exhibition and meeting a steam engine manufacturer, Richard Garrett, who was so impressed by Colt’s manufacturing methods that he built the first British factory geared to mass production, the Long Shop.

I can fast forward to the Second World War when Ford tried to make Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. These were handmade, but Ford needed to mass produce. Ford and Rolls-Royce engineers broke down the engine into parts and then into the engineering steps required to make those parts. These steps would be carried out on machines by largely unskilled workers many of whom were women new to the workplace.

Going back to the nineteenth century, America was becoming self-sufficient in manufacturing with one major exception. America, whilst rich in raw material, had only a very small capacity to produce iron and none really for steel, and it was steel that was needed not least for the massive project of connecting American by rail. This meant that not only England, but Germany and Belgium exported steel rails, tyres and other railway equipment including locomotives and rolling stock. I have written in HBSTMW how this export trade boosted British steel making and this was also the case with the German Krupp which I write about in a separate post. The story of the American steel industry is thus another strand which I will cover.

The image is of my mother and father together with the president of Chrysler at their WW2 tank factory which surely epitomised the American System of Manufacturing. You can read more of this by following this link.