Eastern Scotland manufacturing history

 Scotland became home to high tech in the area now known as Silicon Glen between Dundee, Inverclyde and Edinburgh. At Grangemouth it was home to oil refining and cracking for the plastics industry. Aberdeen was the heart of North Sea oil. Earlier, there was wool and iron and, in Dundee, jute.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh was a capital city of many trades: publishing, printing, paper making, bookbinding, wool, linen, cotton, glass and electronics. Read more by following this link.

Grangemouth

Grangemouth is home to the Ineos, formerly BP, refinery and cracker. The Distillers Company had its headquarters in the city but owned distilleries across the country. I tell in Vehicles to Vaccines of its involvement in chemicals, plastics and man made fibres. ICI also had a plant at Grangemouth (formerly part of British Dyestuffs).

Rosyth

The Royal Naval Dockyard at Rosyth was commissioned in 1909 and opened in 1916 in order to support the fleet in the North Sea just in time to deal with the aftermath of the battle of Jutland. Babcock International now run the Rosyth dockyard

Falkirk

Where the Carron Iron works, one of the earliest of which I wrote in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World, set up. I write more in this link.

Stirling

As wool production spread across much of Scotland in the eighteenth century, mills were established in Stirling using steam power. It was an important military centre.

Perth

The Glenturret distillery produces many of the malt whiskeys that are blended into Scotland's top brand Famous Grouse now owned by William Grant & Sons.

Livingston 'Silicon Glen'

A new town designated in 1962 and thought of as the capital of silicon glen. NEC set up a major plant but closed it as a result of the downturn in electronics in 2000. Its proximity to Edinburgh means that is is now benefitting from the growth in indigenous software development companies.

Galashiels

A centre of the wool industry and the place chosen for the Heriot-Watt University's School of Textiles and Design.

Hawick

In the early nineteenth century framework knitting of hosiery produced in Hawick accounted for half of all Scottish production which in turn was one quarter of the total for Britain. I write of framework knitting in my blog piece on Leicester.

Dalkeith

Home to Ferranti measurement and inspection equipment which was later sold to Plessey.

Dundee

Home to linen manufacture which in the eighteenth century accounted for nearly half of Scotland’s exports (much to England) and also to Jute manufacture for use in sail cloth now largely gone overseas except for Jute Products Ltd at Kidderminster. The coming of steam power caused a massive increase in coal imports into Dundee from the coal fields of Fife and the Lothians shipped from the ports of Alloa and Charleston on the Forth. The largest of the linen manufacturers was Baxter Brothers Dens Works said to be the biggest in the world in 1840. Paper manufacture also took place here. Ferranti made components and laser systems here. NCR set up cash register and adding machine manufacture after the Second World War. It finally left the city after the downturn in electronics in 2000.

Dunfermline

Home to fine linen manufacture. Marconi Electronic Systems established here in the Second World War and subsequently became part of BAE Systems.

Montrose

A Glaxo primary manufacturing factory

Kirkaldy

Linoleum was manufactured by the Nairn family

Glenrothes 'Silicon Glen'

One of the new towns designated after the Second World War 1948. Elliott Automation and English Electric semiconductor plants were based here. Rodime, founded by former American and Scots employees of Burroughs, pioneered the 3.5 inch hard disc drive in 1986. In 1960 Hughes Aircraft (now Raytheon) manufactured germanium and silicon diodes. General Instruments established a wafer fab

East Kilbride 'Silicon Glen'

One of the new towns designated after the Second World War in 1947. Home to CVH Spirits formerly Burns Stewart whisky distillers. Quartztec Europe's site in East Kilbride, Scotland has been operational for over 35 years (owned by Motorola), manufacturing and supplying the Semiconductor, Solar and Fibre Optic markets.

South Queensferry

Digital Equipment operated a semiconductor manufacturing plant and sold it to Motorola. It was closed as a result of the down turn in electronics in 2000.

Linlithgow

Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) set up a major plant but the downturn in 2000 caused its closure.

Hillend, Fife

Home to BAE Systems electronic engineering. Fife is also home now to the distilleries making Tanqueray and Gordon's Gin, owned by Diageo.

Aberdeen

Home to shipbuilding dating back to clippers for the tea and silk trades. The UK base for North Sea oil and gas and now home to British Energy. Read more in this link. In nearby Rothienorman, Mackie make ice cream and chocolate.

Inverness

Nearby Speyside is the largest centre of Scotch whiskey production. In Dufftown is the Glenfiddich distillery and headquarters of William Grant and Sons.

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 

Crayford manufacturing history

 The main route running through Crayford was Watling Street offering evidence of Roman occupation. It was also where Hiram Maxim built his first factory. In nearby Dartford Heath there is evidence of iron smelting using ores from the Weald.

An early industry was silk printing and in the nineteenth century David Evans won a reputation for the excellence of his product. The skill expanded into textile printing more generally. The Swaisland company was said to have made Crayford the 'Mecca of the printing industry in Britain'. The company was bought by G.P. & J. Baker which created iconic designs for their fabric printing. Their archive has been preserved in private hands and inspires some of today's fabric printers. In the nineteenth century this was big business employing massive steam driven machinery. The Calico Printers Ground became a well known place in Crayford where printing had grown out of the bleaching industry, itself the product of Hugenot weavers making their homes here.

Frederick Braby worked with sheet steel in the Euston Road in London and set up a works in Crayford in 1867 to take advantage of the transport facilitated by the Surrey Canal. The works lasted until 1964 latterly supplying the food industry.

Sir Hiram Maxim was also a Hugenot but came to Watling Street, Crayford in 1888 via Hatton Garden and America to which the family had fled. He would be best known for his machine gun, but William Carr also suggests that he took to the air in a steam powered aircraft. Nothing came of this. What did come was an amalgamation with the Nordenfeldt Gun Company which in 1887 had built a factory in nearby Erith. In 1888 Nordenfeldt and Maxim combined their businesses which results in Maxim-Nordenfeldt Gun and Ammunition Company close to St John's church in Erith. In 1897 Vickers acquired the Maxim factory and there developed the Vickers Maxim machine gun.

In the early 1900s the armament works were repurposed to manufacture Wolseley Siddeley motor cars. This came about because John Siddeley was looking for someone to put his all British 100 h.p. car on the market. To do this he joined with Wolseley, then run by Herbert Austin, and Vickers. Austin left to set up on his own and the motor business was moved to Birmingham.

Crayford closed until 1912 when Vickers reopened it for arms production. Crucially they designed a synchronising gear which enabled a machine gun to be fired through the revolving propellor of an aeroplane, also manufactured by Vickers in Erith. After the war, the Crayford factory assumed a key part of Vickers manufacturing capability and I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Of international significance, a Vickers Vimy bomber built at Crayford but modified at Weybridge made the first trans-Atlantic crossing with Alcock and Brown. The Vickers Vimy powered by a Rolls-Royce Eagle engine proved a success but then a decision was taken to focus aircraft production on Weybridge.

In the Second World War in Crayford, Vickers manufactured armaments including military fire control and aiming equipment and after the war diversified into petrol pumps and packing and bottling machinery.

Given its location much of Crayford's business derived from imports. This the Vitbe Flour Mill was in Crayford. A good deal of timber was imported and at Crayford a portion of this was made into a whole range of different plywoods by the Tucker Armour Plywood Company.

Dussek's Oil Refining and processing works, later bought by Burmah Castrol, had a range of products from which I infer a range of raw materials. Before the drilling for hydrocarbons, oil was derived from plants and seeds, from coal tar and from animal fats. Dusseks specifically used tar and, I infer from their production of putty, linseed oil. This oil is derived from flax and in the nineteenth century the seed was imported from Russia. There is evidence of its processing also in Maidstone. There was a large trade in palm oil from West Africa which was used in making margarine and soap. I wrote about this in the context of Lever Brothers and the United Africa Company in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World.

Further reading:

• J.D. Scott, Vickers - A History (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962)
• William Carr, The Spot that is called Crayford (Crayford Urban District Council, 1951, 1965)