North London manufacturing history

 As Inner London turned its attention more and more to finance and service industries, manufacturing moved north, much of it into the Lea Valley which, hitherto, had market gardens working hard to feed a growing population. There was also brick making to house that population.

Enfield

Manufacturing came to Enfield in 1809 in the form of the Grout and Bayliss factory for dyeing and finishing black crepe for mourning wear.

Enfield became home in 1816 in the wake of the Napoleonic wars to the Royal Small Arms Factory of which I wrote in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Ordnance and which Jim Lewis explores in detail in his London's Lea Valley - Britain's best kept secret. The factory has recently been restored to 'its former glory'. Lewis highlights the shortcomings in small arms manufacture and how the Factory first sought to impose quality standards on the many manufacturers. I found it both interesting and disappointing that the Board of Ordnance looked to American machine tool makes when the factory took on its own production. I write about London's machine tool companies in this blog piece. Graham Dalling in Enfield Past adds that Joseph Whiteworth had a hand in planning the factory. The development of the rifle was key and was witnessed in action in Africa as the European nations struggled for supremacy and which I discuss in my blog on the Scramble for Africa.

Brimsdown, Enfield was the former home of the Edison Swan Laboratory. Joseph Swan moved from Newcastle where he developed the incandescent lamp and joined with the American Thomas Edison in exploiting their invention at Ponders End in 1886. They manufactured under the Mazda brand. I write of Edison in this blog. Working with him, Ambrose Fleming invented the first thermionic valve, a diode, from which the development of wireless grew. Also in Brimsdown was Cosmos, valve manufacturers.

In 1890 Frederick Walton bought the former black crepe factory to exploit a French invention of flexible metal tubing which was met with high demand from the railway manufacturers with their need for steam pipes and airbrakes.

Enfield was where Cornishman, Charles Belling, in 1922 set up to manufacturer domestic appliances and he also worked with Edgar Lee to produce one of the first wireless sets using Edison valves. In the Second World War this company switched to radar components and VHF aerials. Their successors, Thorn Industries, were at Enfield as was their television manufacturing subsidiary, Ferguson. They later became part of Thorn EMI of which I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Warburton have their massive crumpet factory in Enfield

Edmonton was home to CAV, part of Lucas and to MK the manufacturer of electrical fittings set up by Charles Belling's business partner.

Ponders End was home to Wright's Flour Mill which dated back to the seventeenth century. Its story is interesting for it took good advantage of developments. It used the Lea Navigation and then steam road vehicles. It moved from stone milling to electrically driven roller mills. It now offers speciality flours.

Coca Cola built a plant in Edmonton in 1975

Walthamstow

Walthamstow was home to Britains Toys. In 1914, William Britain had developed a technique for the hollow-casting of toy figures, which leant itself perfectly to all manner of toy soldier. Phillips Records and Ever Ready batteries were also in Walthamstow. It was where the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) began manufacturing buses before the company moved to Southall.

In the First World War, Peter Hooker Ltd in Walthamstow developed a speciality for forging components from a new alloy of aluminium 'Y alloy' which had been used for the pistons of aircraft engines. The business collapsed with the failure of the airship programmes and was succeeded by High Duty Alloys in Slough run by their former employee Wallace Devereux. The company would have a fundamental impact on aero engine manufacturing.

The Royal Gunpowder Factory was at Waltham Abbey and closed in 1967. I write about the factory and its place alongside Woolwich Arsenal in Ordnance. Matchbox Cars were originally made in Chingford.

Hackney was the place where the first British plastics were manufactured. The material, Parkesine was invented by Alexander Parkes and then exploited by British Xylonite which later became know as Halex. It was a challenger to the American Celluloid. Clarino in Hackney had 2,000 making sweets. Marconi had a factory at Dalston. Also at Dalston was one of the two Siemens English Electric Lamp factories.

Tottenham

Tottenham was where John A. Prestwich set up (JAP) motor cycles employing 'the very latest of machinery'. Prestwich was a gifted inventor and his engine was used by Avro in the first flight of a British aircraft piloted by a Britton. Colin Chapman set up his Lotus company in Hornsey in 1952 before moving to Cheshunt in 1959. The fifties and sixties had seen the focus on motor racing with victories with Stirling Moss and Jim Clark at the wheel. Tottenham was also where Lebus manufactured furniture after moving from the East End. The Thermos Flask was manufactured in Tottenham. It was said that whenever there was a thousand bomber raid in the Second World War there would also be some 12,000 thermos flasks in the air at the same time. Much later Amstrad’s head office was at Brentwood House, Tottenham, although it had started life in Hackney. I write of Amstrad in Vehicles to Vaccines.

In 1906 David Gestetner moved the manufacture of his duplicating machines to Tottenham. He was Hungarian and had lived in the USA but moved to Britain in 1881 where he registered a patent for 'Improvements in Cyclostyle pens'. He developed his ideas and eventually became the largest manufacturers of duplicators in the world.

R.W. Munro was a precision engineer with a business in Bounds Green where in 1892 he made an anemometer which was used to measure wind speed for the next century. He also manufactured presses for the Bank of England. His successors were commissioned by IBM to make a replica of the Babbage Difference Engine which Babbage had conceived whilst at school in the Lea Valley.

Hendon

Moving west from the Lea Valley we come to Standard Telephones which were at Hendon and Jim Lewis offers some history. It was the American Western Electric that bought a 2.7 acre site in Southgate in 1922. This company then manufactured telephone equipment under license from the Bell Telephone Company. It was from a hut next to the factory that the first trans-Atlantic telephone call was made. Western Electric was bought by ITT and the Southgate company changed its name to STC and became one of the main suppliers to the GPO. Hendon was also where Geoffrey de Havilland designed his first aircraft for Airco in 1912. Geoffrey de Havilland founded the de Havilland Aircraft Company at Edgware on 25 September 1920 with financial assistance from his old boss at Airco.

Stanmore attracted many industries including GEC Research Laboratories and Solex Carburettors (my first job!). Wealdstone was where Winsor & Newton artists paints were made.

Islington

George Bassett founded a sweet factory in Islington in 1848 but expanded into the former Allsopp piano factory in Wood Green in 1880. The company expanded further making its famous Liquorice Allsorts amongst much more. It merged with Trebor to become Trebor-Bassett in 1966. I wrote of another Trebor merger in my piece on Maidstone. The Wonder Baking Company began making Wonderloaf in 1937. In 1936 the first television broadcast was made from the nearby Alexandra Palace.

In nearby Highbury, Stephen’s ink was produced

Finchley, Willesden, Acton and Cricklewood

Finchley was home to F.R. Simms who obtained the rights to build Daimler cars in England and I wrote about this in How Britain Shaped the manufacturing World. Simms went on to invent armour plating for Vickers and Maxim and the first powered lawn mower for Ransoms, Sims and Jeffries. In 1907 he took the rights to manufacture magnetos to Bosch design and from there set up the company that would later merge with CAV and become part of Lucas as I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Rotax manufactured in Willesden shifting their focus to aerospace. They moved to Hemel Hampstead and became part of Lucas Aerospace.

New Southgate was the place to which Robert Paul moved from Hatten Garden to partner Cambridge Instruments which made measuring instruments and was bought by Brown Boveri in 1974 and at its peak employed 750 people. Paul also exploited the invention of the kinetoscope which Edison had failed to patent in the UK. It made very short films of sporting events. Cambridge Instruments which had been founded in Cambridge had a distinguished history in advanced instrument making. Paul was also known as a film industry pioneer.

The North Circular Road attracted a good number of factories. Jack Olding supplied earth moving vehicles and during the Second World War prepared and modified tanks in their art deco factory known as 'tank central'.

Willesden and Cricklewood were home to Staples whose owner John Heal designed Ladderax furniture which also made mattresses at Staples Corner.

Hadley Page at Cricklewood produced in the Second World War, first the Hampden bomber and then the more successful Halifax which were manufactured by a production group comprising: English Electric, Rootes at Speake (Liverpool), and Fairey in Stockport. At peak production there were some 660 subcontractors and 51,000 employees completing a new aircraft every working hour, some 6,177 aircraft in all.

David Napier motor company was at Acton and had re-emerged near the beginning of the era of the motor car, as manufacturers of high quality vehicles. By 1914, they were making seven hundred cars a year from their Acton factory and selling from their New Burlington Street Showroom, including many to the London Taxi trade. David Napier & Son continued to develop aero-engines culminating in the Napier twenty-four cylinder Sabre, which, at 3,500 hp., powered the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest. The company was bought by English Electric in 1942. Famously Napier developed the Deltic diesel engine which was used in railway locomotives and other applications including electricity generation in remote places. The Deltic had originally been designed for naval use.

Lucas Diesels and CAV were also in Acton.

Thomas Wall made sausages and came up with the idea of making ice cream in the summer months when sausage sales dipped. The idea took off and production began at the Acton factory soon after the end of the First World War. The company became part of Unilever in 1922 and expanded by building a factory in Gloucester in 1959..

Nearby Neasden had NCR and British Oxygen. In Willesden, Rotax had a factory and Rolls-Royce acquired Park Ward and H.J. Mulliner coachbuilders. In the 1920s British Thomson Houston built a large engineering works in Neasden which was later closed when it became part of GEC contributing to the run down of manufacturing in that part of London. In 1928 F.W. Hall built his factory for making the telephone equipment for the iconic red telephone box (buttons A and B!)

Harlesden was home to McVitie's biscuits, which became part of United Biscuits, the formation of which I write about in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Decca's recording studios were in West Hampstead.

Wembley was home to GEC Research laboratories set up in 1923, and Johnson Matthey. Wembley had a Marconi components factory and Cricklewood had Smiths Industries.

Dollis Hill was home to the General Post Office Research Establishment and Tommy Flowers, a senior engineer of the General Post Office which then had the monopoly of telecommunications in the UK and probably the greatest concentrating of electronic engineering expertise. Flowers brought into reality the concept behind the Colossus which was the successor to the BOMBE which Alan Turing designed to crack the Enigma code.

Park Royal

In the First World War this area had a huge munitions factory. In the twenties the site was cleared and a huge industrial estate built. In the years of depression elsewhere, the estate bucked the trend with a steady stream of new tenants to replace those who left. Park Royal had the English home of the Guinness brewery. Heinz had a factory there but more so smaller companies in the new industries.

Further reading:

• Jim Lewis, London's Lea Valley - Britain's best kept secret (Chichester: Phillimore, 1999)
• Len Snow, Willesden Past (Chichester: Phillimore, 1994)
• John Heathfield, Finchley and Whetstone Past (London: Historical Publications, 2001)
• Albert Pinching, Wood Green Past (London: Historical Publications, 2000)
• Graham Dalling, Enfield Past (London: Historical Publications, 1999)
• Stephen Inwood, A History of London (London: Macmillan, 1998)

Northampton manufacturing history

 In my perambulation around the manufacturing towns of Britain, I have normally found the presence of raw materials and water, ideally navigable. Northampton had no coal nearby and its river, the Nene, was only navigable some miles toward the sea. It was, though, on road routes from London to the north and so enjoyed the trade from passing coaches, much like Stamford. Unlike Stamford, it was the shire town and carried on all the administrative functions. It was in the middle of livestock farming country and so had a market, but also access to hides, of which more later.

Poor communications were hard to address. The Grand Junction Canal passed the town by as did the north-south railway. Anyone visiting Northampton by canal boat will know well the reason: the link from the Nene to the Grand Junction Canal demands some seventeen locks to descend one hundred and twenty feet. This link to the canal system completed in 1815 did open the town to more trade and that is where hides come in.

It was of course the shoe making industry that provided the economic growth that Northampton needed. It was a cottage industry, but quite substantial. Boots and shoes were made for the local market, but also further afield including the plantations of the West Indies. The Peninsula war created a strong demand for boots for Wellington's army. A strike by London boot makers added significantly to Northampton's business since wage rates were much lower. It wasn't only boots, it was said the Northampton lace was superior to that made in Nottingham.

The railways were a bone of contention. Land owners hated them; townsfolk knew they would be good for business. They were also not very good on steep inclines like that up from Northampton. For this reason Robert Stephenson chose to route the London Birmingham railway around the town. Nevertheless, the town did get a railway in 1845, linking it both to Peterborough and to the London Birmingham line. This enabled the cheaper import of coal and export of agricultural produce and footwear.

The footwear industry did take off, but still in small cottage units except for a very few factory employers such as William Parker and John Groom each producing 80,000 pairs of footwear a year with 800 employees. Moses Philip Manfield was not far behind. Their employees were said to be better off than their home working counterparts, given the opportunities the factories had for better ventilation of noxious fumes. Child labour was more prevalent in smaller businesses, indeed schools tried to include work based learning in their timetables.

The mid-point of the century brought to Northampton, as elsewhere, the issue of mechanisation. With footwear production it was the American invention of a sewing machine for shoes. The fear, as elsewhere, was the loss of jobs, particularly for men since the view was that women could manage sewing machines. A little later, machines for riveting soles were on offer, but not enthusiastically welcomed by masters for in the beginning they proved slower and less reliable than hand work. Finally machines to stitch soles to uppers came along and the battle was lost; the industry had become mechanised. Interestingly it seems that home working continued, but with machines in the home. It seems also that this was the case in Wellingborough and Kettering as well as Northampton and its surrounding villages.

The turn of the twentieth century witnessed a great change. Home working was nearly a thing of the past. Manfield, run by Moses's sons, employed 1,000 men and women in a single story building. Crocket & Jones and Truform (part of Sears & So) employed about the same number. Charles and Edward Lewis employed nearer 1,500, whilst Barratts were still comparatively new but distinctly ambitious. Church & Co boasted 'every conceivable style and material'. William Wren made shoe polish and Horton and Arlidge, cardboard boxes. Some seven manufacturers had come together to form Northampton Shoe Machinery Co first supplying American machines but then manufacturing them under licence. Machinery also came from the International Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company.

Other businesses made cycles and motor cars. Mulliner made the bespoke car bodies for manufacturers to add to their engine and chassis. Bassett-Loake made beautiful model trains and yachts. Importantly for the future, Smith, Major and Stevens made lifts.

The First World War saw Mulliner's factory producing munitions and military vehicles. Of far more significance, the Northampton shoe companies produced 23 million pairs of footwear for British, French and Belgian forces including infantry boots, flying boots, ski boots and canvas shoes. The other shoe manufacturers in the county topped this production at 24 million and together they made up two thirds of the British footwear output between 1914-1918.

The 1930s saw Express Lifts of Leicester buy Smith, Major and Stevens but to continue to manufacture in Northampton. Other arrivals included Rest Assured with beds and Mettoy which later manufactured Corgi toys. Mettoy was encouraged to come to Northampton by Bassett-Loake whose owners played a major role in the civic community which was keen to reduce the town's dependence on shoe making.

The Second World War saw shoe factories producing an ever increasing range of footwear, including shoes designed for deception, so flying boots which could have their uppers removed to reveal ordinary well worn shoes should their wearer be shot down in enemy territory. The Birmingham British Timken company set up a shadow factory near Northampton and this reverted to peacetime work after the war.

The post war years saw the growth of earth moving equipment supplier Blackwood Hodge (owned by house builder Bernard Sunley), but the steady decline of the mass production of shoes. Manfield was bought by the British Shoe Corporation of Leicester and I write in my blog on Leicester of the gathering of former brands into this company owned by the property developer, Charles Clore.

Avon Cosmetics was encouraged to the town in the sixties a little before its designation as a 'new town' under the third wave of such towns in the post-war era. A good number of businesses came to the 'new town'. Black & Decker, set up warehousing and distribution, as did MFI; Henry Telfer employed 2,000 in food manufacturing. The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation helped to fund the Blackwood Hodge Management Centre at Nene College.

In 1960 Electronics Weekly reported that 'the extended factory of Plessey Nucleonics at Northampton, officially opened in 1959, has doubled facilities for R&D is this rapidly growing field. During the year, Plessey Nucleonics received an order from the UKAEA for the supply of all nuclear instrumentation for the advanced gas-cooled reactor at Windscale.' This business eventually became part of Ultra Energy. Plessey also manufactured Connectors in their subsidiary Plessey Interconnect.

At the time of writing there are shoe factories still manufacturing in Northampton and neighbouring towns. In the town itself there are Church & Co, Crocket & Jones, Trickers, Edward Green and Jeffery-West. Outside Northampton there are Dr Martens in Wollaston, Grenson in Rushden and Barker in Earls Barton all just outside Wellingborough; then Loake in Kettering and Joseph Cheaney in nearby Desborough.

Express Lifts still has a presence in the town through its lift testing tower built in the seventies and shown in the image.

Further reading:

Cynthia Brown, Northampton 1835-1985: Shoe Town, New Town (Chichester: Phillimore, 1990)