Erith manufacturing history

 Erith was not on Watling Street (unlike neighbouring Crayford) and so until the arrival of the railways it was restricted in industrial activity to that enabled by the Thames, so brick works and loam quarrying principally to provide ballast for ships.

The first manufacturing industry was the engineering factory of Easton, Amos and Anderson in 1864; the last named being also Director General of Ordnance Factories and I wrote about him in the context of the modernisation of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. The factory closed in 1904 but left well made pumping engines some of which were still working after the Second World War.

A significant early industrial newcomer was the Callender Bitumen, Telegraph and Waterproof Company in 1880. At this time electric cables were being run for telegraph and soon power transmission. A little further upstream at Woolwich, Siemens was much involved in the same area. The company became Callenders Cable and Construction Company and in 1945 merged with British Insulated and Helsby Cables itself a product of the British Insulated Wire Company which had been founded in Manchester in 1890 by Sebastian de Ferranti, Colonel Pilkington of St Helens and others. British Insulated Callender Cables or BICC (as the combined company became) and its predecessors can claim credit for much of the national grid. In 2000 BICC changed its name to that of its construction subsidiary Balfour Beatty. It had previously disposed of its cable interests.

In 1887, the Nordenfeldt Gun Company built a factory in Erith and a year later combined with Maxim at Crayford. The combined business was then bought by Vickers. The business was renamed Vickers, Sons & Maxim and manufactured many machine guns during the First World War including the heavy 'PomPom' which had been used in the Boer War. Production was moved to other Vickers factories in 1932.

Fraser and Chalmers were to be another Erith manufacturer. They had originated in the USA and had focused on the manufacture of mining machinery. They set up in Erith in 1891, but by 1903 severed all US connections and expanded their range of products into steam plants, milling machinery and general engineering. In 1918, the business was bought by GEC and its was repurposed into manufacturing turbines. In the mid twentieth century it employed 4,000 people in a site extending to thirty-four acres.

Turner's Asbestos Cement Company set up in 1912 to manufacture asbestos roofing material, guttering, piping and fireproof and thermal insulating material. The company was owned by Turner and Newall of Manchester. The subsequent discovery of the dangers of asbestos effectively ended the business.

Continuing with construction, Royal Doulton Potteries made salt glazed stoneware piping. British Plaster Board processed imported gypsum. The Hercules Powder Company and Borax Consolidated Ltd provided raw materials for glass enamel and pottery.

Further reading:

• John A Pritchard, A History of Erith Pt III 1837-1894 ( London Borough of Bexley Libraries and Museums Department 1978)
• John A Pritchard, A History of Erith Pt IV 1894-1965 ( London Borough of Bexley Libraries and Museums Department 1978)

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)

Kingston upon Thames manufacturing history

Kingston was possibly the most important market town in Surrey. Like so many places, its history was built on the wool trade. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it supplied London first with Surrey Whitewear pottery and then with Redwear. As London grew, Kingston supplied many of its needs using the Thames as the vital transport link. Turnpikes were built, but the Thames reigned supreme until the railways arrived in 1838. This first Kingston station was in Surbiton, but Kingston was becoming a centre for the growing residential areas of Surbiton, New Malden and Chessington.

Manufacturing came in earnest in the First World War, first with Thomas Sopwith manufacturing aircraft which would become iconic for the part they played in the war effort. It was all about the internal combustion engine. Racing driver, Kenelm Lee Guinness formed the KLG spark plug company to manufacture the version of the spark plug which he had invented. Bus and lorry manufacturer, Leyland, built their vehicles for the war effort.

Harry Hawker, who was Sopwith's chief test pilot, formed his own Hawker Aircraft Company after the war and it was agreed that the companies should be joined. Tragically he died in a flying accident in 1921 the year his company merged with Sopwith. Thomas Sopwith became chairman of the combined company which continued to develop aircraft in Kingston. In 1934 Hawker Siddeley was formed which drew together Hawker, Gloster of Cheltenham, Sir William Armstrong of Elswick, Newcastle and Armstrong Siddeley of Coventry.

In the Second World War, Hawkers manufactured their equally iconic Hurricane Fighter using also factory space at Langley near Slough. Leyland manufactured lorries and also tanks including Churchills, Centaurs and Comets. They built bombs at a rate of 400,000 a month. John Perrings made radio sets in a secret workshop above his furniture shop using employees seconded from the Hoover factory at Perrivale to teach his staff the necessary skills. Siebe Gorman in nearby Chessington made rubber suits for navy divers.

After the war Hawker Siddeley went on to produce further acclaimed aircraft not least the Harrier and it became part of the British Aircraft Corporation and then British Aerospace. The successor, BAE Systems, closed the Kingston factory in 1992. I write of the post war aircraft industry in Vehicles to Vaccines. The Hawk jet, produced by BAE Systems flown by the Red Arrows, was developed under Hawker ownership.

Decca Radar had a significant presence in Chessington and Tolworth and also in nearby Addlestone. The company emerged from the Decca Record Company in 1947 and moved to Tolworth in 1951. Three years later premises were taken in Chessington. Heavy radar for air traffic control and air defence was based in Tolworth. In the mid fifties, government informed the company that any further expansion had to be outside the immediate Surrey area and a site was taken on the Isle of Wight. Heavy radar was sold to Plessey in 1964. The remaining Surrey operations were focused on marine radar and this was bought by Racal in 1979. The legacy of Decca radar is now within BAE Systems.

Further reading:

• Shaan Butters, The Book of Kingston (Cardiff: Baron Books, 1995)
• https://woottonbridgeiow.org.uk/decca-legacy/index.php