Redditch manufacturing history

 From needle making to alloys for aerospace.

Redditch, to the south of Birmingham, was one of a group of towns and villages where needles were made. It was a labour intensive cottage industry, and one not conducive to good health with the sharpening of the needles. The needle makers were fiercely protective of their trade and resisted mechanisation even for ventilation which would transform the work environment.

As was always the case, mechanisation crept in with steam power. The coming of the canals and railways enabled Redditch to assume pole position, attracting needle makers from towns across the country as much as from neighbouring villages. It was big business; we are talking of five million needles a week in 1824 rising to fifteen million in 1840. Needles were made for textile workers but also for surgeons. Redditch became renowned the world over. The same skills were appropriate for fish hooks and from there, fishing tackle more generally.

Needle making demanded a range of metal working skills: wire drawers, file makers, tool makers, bellow makers, grindstone trimmers, and miilwrights. This held the town in good stead for it attracted light metal industry in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Metal workers could make springs which were in demand in the new industries of the bicycle and motor cycle. Royal Enfield and Herbert Terry bicycles were made in Redditch. BSA relocated their manufacturing to the town making motor cycles, motor cars and, of course, small arms. In the First World War, Nife Alkaline Batteries supplied power for the new submarines.

With the coming of the Second World War, a number of businesses set up in the town: Cadmium and Chromium plating, machine tools, wire drawing and springing machinery and air compressors.

High Duty Alloys were one of those companies which became part of the shadow factory initiative. Their business was the making and moulding of alloys used in aircraft production. They were based in Slough which was thought vulnerable to enemy bombing and so they built a factory in Redditch but also one in Cumbria. When the Slough factory was hit by bombs Redditch came into its own.

During the Second World War the company supplied pistons and other aircraft parts by the thousand to engine manufacturers including Rolls-Royce, Napier, de Havilland and Bristol. By 1945 the company employed 13,000 people over its three sites, Slough having returned to production and importantly research.

In the post war world it was the jet engine that demanded the skills that HDA had to offer. High temperatures, massive power - all these demanded the alloy with the right properties. HDA alloy castings were to be found in structural aluminium, Concorde and the British missiles of the Cold War. The company is now called Ferris Aerospace and it continues to supply the aerospace industry from Redditch.

In the sixties Redditch was designated a new town and attracted inward investment and the attention of a new generation of town planners and architects. The plan placed emphasis on public transport with residents working in the town where they live.

John James still make needles in Redditch as part of ENTACO (English Needle and Fishing Tackle Company) formed in the thirties from the combination of long standing needle manufacturers Milward and Hall. The main business of ENTACO are medical products including needles.

Further reading:

• https://www.aerosociety.com/media/21427/paper-2023-03-buttler-high-duty-alloys.pdf
• John G Rollins, A History of Redditch (Chichester: Phillimore, 1984)

Isle of Wight manufacturing history

 King Harold stationed his navy off the Isle of Wight to fend off the fleet of William the Conqueror. The attack was delayed by bad weather for three months and the fleet returned to port. William attacked at Hastings and the rest is history. The island had been a centre for pottery in Roman times. Shipbuilding and the sea were in its DNA

Samuel White shipbuilding based at Cowes originated at Broadstairs but moved to the island in 1802. The company built frigates and other vessels for the Royal Navy. It also built seaplanes before the First World War.

In the Second World War the island became famous for being the terminal for the PLUTO pipeline of which I wrote in War on Wheels.

The island has many smaller shipbuilding and repairing yards and remains at the heart of the yachting world. Clare Lallow built Morning Cloud for Edward Heath.

The seaplane originated across the Solent at Pemberton-Billing in Southampton. For the island it was Saunders-Roe which developed the aircraft eventually becoming involved in Helicopters and hovercraft which Christopher Cockerel invented on the Solent. I write more on Saunders-Roe in Vehicles to Vaccines.

In 1964 Decca built a factory to manufacture radar for non marine applications. Group Captain Edward Fennessy had worked in radar during the Second World War and then became managing director of Decca Navigation as they developed systems for both military and civil use. The Cowes factory was later owned by Plessey, then GEC and is now part of BAE Systems.

In the sixties Britten-Norman began manufacturing small aircraft near Bembridge. Production moved abroad but recently returned to the island.

Skills in shipbuilding and aircraft production are perfectly suited to the design and manufacture of wind turbine blades. Vestas manufacture wind turbine blades just outside Cowes.

Basingstoke manufacturing history

 Basingstoke was a small Hampshire market town with a history of wool and then malting. The industrial revolution arrived in the form of Wallis's foundry which produced farm equipment and in time powered threshing machines. The town had already been linked to the Thames via the Basingstoke canal and Wey navigation. Railways arrived between 1840 and 1854 and could have brought railway workshops but for the town's resistance. These went instead to Eastleigh.

In 1856 Thomas Burberry noticed that the coats that shepherds wore tended not to soak up rain and he concluded that this must be because of the natural oil in fleeces. He took the idea and began manufacturing coats that also did not absorb rain. This was a product of the process he invented to produce woollen material called gabardine. Coats made of this were, and indeed are, sold under his name. Some half a million were worn as trench coats by British troops in the First World War. The Basingstoke factories closed in 1959 but production continues in Castleford In Yorkshire.

John Isaac Thornycroft of Chiswick built ships and in the later nineteenth century built a vertical steam engine to power a wheeled wagon. In the early twentieth century he moved this activity to Basingstoke and developed petrol engines capable of powering trucks. In 1905 the company produced a bus with capacity for 36 passengers. In the First World War the company supplied 5,000 'J' type trucks for various uses including having an anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back. Further buses and trucks were developed and in the Second World War Thornycroft again provided many heavy vehicles. The company joined Leyland in 1962 with specialist vehicles going to Scammells in Watford. The Basingstoke factory was sold to the American axle manufacturer, the Eaton Corporation, and now manufactures power solutions.

In 1960 Basingstoke was designated as a London over-spill town and this required new housing but also employment. The companies which chose to set up in Basingstoke included the British fork lift truck maker, Lansing Bagnall, Honeywell, Thermo-Fisher, De La Rue, Albright International and the AA.

Paper maker Wiggins Teape had their headquarters in the town. The predecessor partnerships were founded in Aldgate in the eighteenth century. Gateway House was opened in 1977 by which time the Group had mills across the UK and around the world. It later merged with the French Arjo but was forced into administration in 2021 partly as a result of rising gas prices.

At nearby Laverstoke Henry Portal set up his second paper mill in the early eighteenth century. It began printing bank notes for the Bank of England. The company bought the Bathford mill in Bath in 1970.

Further reading:

Anne Hawker, The Story of Basingstoke (Newbury: Local Heritage Books, 1984)