Washington, Peterlee and Newton Aycliffe manufacturing history

In the late forties the New Towns initiative got under way with the objective of providing housing to those made homeless by enemy bombing or whose housing was seriously substandard. They were also aimed at addressing the unemployment arising from the closure of coal mines. The residential areas were to be combined with industrial estates to provide local employment but also with the necessary social infrastructure.

Newton Aycliffe and Peterlee came in the first phase in 1947 and 1948. Washington would follow in 1964. Washington comprised Chester le Street and fifteen villages, some existing and some new. Aycliffe (the word Newton was added later) was located within ten miles of each of Bishops Auckland, Darlington and Shildon. Peterlee was originally to be called Easington but was renamed after the miners leader Peter Lee.

Washington coming later than the early new towns had an updated employment agenda. The coal mines were closing, ship building was in decline as was related heavy engineering. Washington would seek lighter new industries to complement what was already present plus a good proportion of service industry.

The larger companies already in Washington were Newalls which provided insulation for shipping and Cooks Iron Foundry. With the first of the new town's industrial estates, Tube Products and Calders followed. Turner and Newall as it became had purchased the Washington Chemical Company which had exhibited at the Great Exhibition and had deep roots in the town.

The Dutch Philips were one of the first overseas manufacturers to come to Washington and were a mainstay until closure in 2003. The image is of the exterior of the Philips Factory (With thanks to Tyne & Wear Museums Reference: 5417/240). The Japanese JATCO which manufactures transmission established a plant in Washington to support the main Nissan plant nearby. It is now part of the North East Automotive Alliance with a focus on the transition to EV. BAE Systems manufacture sub components in a former Dunlop factory which had originally been built for Avon Rubber. Timex followed with a state of the art factory; as with a number of other industries, what was in demand in the sixties became the victim of technological development. The same was true of the RCA record pressing factory. Both closed.

Hitachi looked to build a plant to manufacture televisions. I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines about the role of the Japanese in this sector. For Washington and the North East there would have been clear benefit in a large manufacturer supplying a growing market. The British television manufacturers disagreed and lobbied the government to block the investment. They succeeded and after much work and expenditure Hitachi went away. As I note below the company did eventually gain a foothold in the North East.

Newton Aycliffe had at its heart a major Royal Ordnance Factory which had filled shells in the Second World War. In 1946 the government persuaded the British Bakelite company to move to the former Royal Ordnance factory in this area of high unemployment. The company began producing PVC by batch processing using old machinery but, as demand grew, it invested in new equipment, initially from the British company Francis Shaw Ltd. In the early sixties, Bakelite merged with British Xylonite jointly owned by Union Carbide and Distillers. The factory, known as Hydro Polymers, became part of Ineos in 2008.

EBAC is the only British manufacturer of washing machines and it also makes Heat Pumps, Dryers, Dehumidifiers and ventilation equipment at the factory they set up in Newton Aycliffe.

Newton Aycliffe is home now to Hitachi Europe, one of the few remaining UK railway locomotive works, and the government owned semiconductor plant, Octric. The Second World War Royal Ordnance engineering factory at Birtley was nearby and the town is now home to Komatsu (UK) manufacturing medium sized diggers.

Peterlee is home to a large Caterpillar factory employing robot technology. It also hosts the North East Enterprise Park and other companies in the Nissan supply chain.

Further reading

Stephen Holley, Washington: Quicker by Quango - The History of Washington New Town 1964-1983 (Stevenage: Publications for Companies, 1983)

 

Stockton manufacturing history

 The town prospered with the opening of the Stockton to Darlington railway opening up the South Durham coal field to sea going vessels especially when the line was extended to Middlesbrough.

Stockton’s early industry was timber, both imported and exported. However, it was iron that would fire the prosperity of the town. We can trace the Bowesfield Steel Company to Dorman Long and the building of the great steel bridges not least that over Sydney harbour. Two engineering companies of significant technological importance were Head Wrightson and Whessoe. The latter was based in Darlington but the former had its origin in the Teasdale Ironworks at nearby Thornaby-on-Tees. The connectivity of manufacturing is perhaps evidenced by the fact that Arthur Head had been apprenticed to Ransome and Sims in Ipswich and Thomas Wrightson has been trained at Armstrong’s in Newcastle. Their company grew to supply the world with blast furnace and steel works plant, constructional iron and steel, pit head gears, picking belts, tipplers elevators, coal crushers, disintegrators and general colliery and mining plant. It went on to be part of the early nuclear industry as I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines, as indeed did Whessoe.

Another strand of iron working came through William Ashmore who, at his Hope Iron Works, manufactured Gas Holders (the remains of some can still be seen by the Oval cricket ground and near the railway line from St Pancras), Boilers and Bridges. In time, Ashmore was joined by R.S. Benson and Edward Pease who invented the telescopic gas holder. The company became the Power Gas Corporation of which Ludwig Mond took control in 1901. Power Gas and Head Wrightson later became part of Davy International and then Trafalgar House.

The South Durham Iron and Steel company produced a large proportion of the plates used in Newcastle shipbuilding as well as in Stockton’s own industries. One of these was to produce enormous pipes, 30ft in length and 96 inches in diameter welded by a water-gas process.

There were many other iron works which did not decline until the old staples were hit in the mid interwar years. Iron works in Stockton cast rails for the Indian rail system. Examples of such rail stamped 'Stockton 1891' were re-used in the single track railway in what was Persia.

One possibly unsung hero was John Walker who invented the friction match. It was said that Michael Faraday visited Stockton to meet the inventor and to encourage production which Walker declined.

Further reading:

• Robert Woodhouse, Stockton Past (Chichester: Phillimore, 1994)
• Tom Sowler, A History of the Town and Borough of Stockton-on-Tees (Teeside Museums and Art Galleries, 1972)

Stockport manufacturing history

 Stockport was a cotton town which perhaps embraced progress more readily than some others. Traditional spinning and weaving would take place in people's home. With mechanisation, Mills would be built but then demolished when new processes came in which demanded more or different space. In 1851, the textile industry employed half the working population. In the second half of the century it was said that Stockport was building mills on a ‘monumental scale’ and many of these along the Ashton canal which provided fuel and raw materials and took away the finished product. Among many others two families come to be mentioned. The Gregs, whose father built Quarry Bank Mill in Styal, and the Houldsworths whose mill is a classic example of great industrial architecture; it was designed by architects AH Stott. It also offered a more efficient configuration and was in effect a double mill with a central section housing the steam power used by a factory on either side.

Stockport had become, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the great centre for power loom weaving. Manufacturers often carried on both spinning and weaving until weaving became concentrated on East Lancashire. Stockport shifted its efforts to spinning and embraced the spinning of cotton waste and doubling (spinning two or more yarns together to produce greater strength). Spinners also adopted the ring frame which worked much faster than the mule.

In the mid nineteenth century the weaving of silk was taken on in a number of mills to supply the manufacturers of Macclesfield until, with a downturn in demand, Macclesfield took over all their weaving. The weaving of wool had been done for many years as a cottage industry. This too was explored in the mill context with two mills in production until 1939. A further innovation falls to be mentioned. As mills got bigger they did of course cost more and a number of companies adopted a joint stock status following the lead of Oldham.

What was successful was hat making. The mid nineteenth century saw a fashion move from silk hats to those made from felt. Here, Stockport companies such as Christys and Battersbsy stepped in and in the last thirty years of the century employment grew ten fold. Stockport manufacturers embraced the latest American machinery and prospered until fashions changed once more.

Engineering followed textiles with manufacturers of the ring frame and power looms. They also made machinery for hat making. Cravens manufactured cranes, Simon-Carves made mining equipment and Lancashire boilers were built at the Wellington boiler works.

With the coming of the First World War, National Aircraft Factory No 2 was built in the town and run by Crossley. The associated airstrip was also used by Avro from their Woodford factory. Later Fairey manufactured aircraft in the Second World War in nearby Heaton Chapel. The company moved to wheeled armoured vehicles and now operates as KNDS UK.

Further reading:

Peter Arrowsmith, Stockport - A History (Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council, 1997)