Watford manufacturing history

 Dating from Anglo-Saxon times, Watford was probably originally a crossing place traversing the marshy Coln Valley and it was this valley that gave birth to the industry for which Watford became famous: printing. At one time at was known as the printing capital of the world.

The printing companies to be found in the town included Waterlow and the Sun Engraving Company. Odhams arrived in 1938 and dominated the town until it closed in 1983. The Coln Valley had been a centre of paper making since the eighteenth century. John Dickinson made Croxley Script nearby.

I write about the development of printing and paper making in my book Charlotte Bronte's Devotee about William Smith Williams the Reader at Smith Elder who first recognised her genius.

Watford is very much on the cusp between London and Hertfordshire. It is well connected to London being both on the LMS London to Birmingham line and also is on the London Tube map. historically its presence on the Grand Junction canal gave it access to both raw materials and markets.

Scammell trucks, which did so much heavy lifting in the Second World War with the Pioneer, tank transporters and recovery vehicles, relocated to Watford from near Liverpool Street in London.

Furniture makers Hille moved to Watford in the fifties and now manufacture in Ebbw Vale. de Havilland manufactured at what became Leavesden aerodrome.

Smith + Nephew has its headquarters in Watford.

Further reading:

Dennis F. Edwards, Watford: A Pictorial History. (Chichester: Phillimore, 1992

Ware and Hertford manufacturing history

The traditional industry of this Hertfordshire town was malting and Ware’s maltings supplied most of London’s breweries. The maltings, principally Henry Ward’s, and Henry Page & Company, attracted supporting industries.

With the availability of water and local labour, the pharmaceutical company Allen and Hanbury, which had been founded in the city of London in 1715, acquired a former mill in Ware in 1898 and there built itself into one of the major manufacturers of surgical instruments and medicines. The company became part of Glaxo and then GSK which still manufactures in the town. The Ware and Hertford website has an image of the factory from the twenties.

Another significant company was the railway passenger car builders D. Wickham & Co. The company had started as motor engineers and then moved into bottling equipment before identifying the opportunities in worldwide railways. They sent their rail cars as far afield as Peru and Zimbabwe. In the Second World War they repaired tanks.

Hertford had a history of paper making with Sele Mill, thought to be Britain's first.

William Addis is credited with inventing the modern toothbrush and he set up in business manufacturing these in 1780 in East London. The company provided toothbrushes to the forces in the First World War and this is thought to have introduced the habit of regular teeth cleaning. Demand grew and the company moved to premises in Hertford. Plastic brushes with nylon bristles were introduced under the Wisdom brand after the Second World War and the company expanded into household brushes and products. A factory in Swansea was added and later moved to Bridgend where it now carries on its business. The Hertford Museum holds the Addis archive. The factory was a 1930s icon.

Further reading:

Maurice Edwards, Ware’s Past in Pictures (Ware: The Rockingham Press, 1992)

Basildon manufacturing history

 The new town of Basildon was only eight miles from Tilbury Docks with good road links to the east of London. This location clearly attracted the Ford Motor Company, which was outgrowing its Dagenham site, to move its tractor manufacture to Basildon. The proximity to the docks also attracted cigarette makers, Carreras. In 1964 New Holland completed their first tractor factory in the town, followed by Standard Telephones, MK Electric and Yardley.

The development corporation produced a promotional brochure encouraging other businesses to the town. Highlighted were the availability of good housing and community facilities for employees and their families. The businesses mentioned in the brochure were not only the big names although Marconi was highlighted a building a factory for the ‘meticulously accurate construction of delicate precisions equipment’ for radio, radar and other electronics.

Albert Mann’s Engineering Company manufactured rolling mills, Nufloor manufactured floor sanders and polishers and Teleflex of Shadwell Heath built a new factory manufacturing conveyors and remote controls. The new town also attracted old skills such as Engineers Patternmaking and Thompson & Foster cardboard boxes and corrugated paper.

Further reading

Industrial Development in Basildon New Town (Basildon Development Corporation)

Harlow manufacturing history

 Harlow was a village to the north of the industrial areas of east London and on the London to Cambridge railway. It was chosen as one of the new towns designed to relieve the pressure on greater London.

As with other new towns, it sought a spread of industry to avoid the concentration that caused problems in Corby. Although it was not thought suitable for heavy industry, two of its early arrivals were on the heavy side : Johnson Matthey the precious metals company and United Glass manufacturer of bottles.

They were followed by Revertex resins, and Schreiber furniture founded by a Polish immigrant, which would compete with Lebus and Hille and become part of GEC Domestic appliances before moving to MFI and finally Sainsbury.

Shenval Press were an early arrival joined in time by book binders Dorstel Press. Publishing later received a major boost when Longman Green arrived in the late sixties.

Standard Telephones became the largest employer in the town with 3,000 at one time. They were joined by the Standard Telecommunications Laboratory. Another electronics business came to the town by default after de Havilland had to cancel a new factory as a result of cuts in defence spending. Cossor was moving out of valves into radar and so needed new premises; they later became a subsidiary of the American Raytheon Corporation. The AEI research division was based in the town but moved to Manchester when AEI joined with GEC.

American office equipment manufacturer Pitney Bowes moved their manufacturing in 1962 and head office a year later. They were joined by Minnesota 3M Research and educational suppliers ESA.

In the sixties, Gilbey's Gin built a striking new factory moving its production from London. The family had a long connection with the former village. Gilbey became part of International Vintners which was bought by Grand Metropolitan. The Gilbey brand is now within Diageo. Rank Hovis McDougal built an administrative headquarters. GSK has a research facility in the town.

Further reading:

Frederick Gibberd, Ben Hyde Harvey, Len White Harlow: The Story of a New Town (Stevenage: Publications for Companies, 1980)

Stevenage manufacturing history

 This agricultural community on the Great North Road just outside London became prosperous from the business generated by coaches stopping for refreshment. The mid nineteenth century saw the arrival of the Great Northern Railway which encouraged the building of homes for those working in London. The late nineteenth century witnessed the arrival of an organisation very much of its time. The time was marked by the spread of education to the population as a whole and this demanded resource in the form of furniture, books, laboratory equipment and the general supplies a school needs in order to function. It was the Educational Supply Association and would remain the town’s most significant employer until after the Second World War. Another old town company was Hertfordshire Knitting known for its provision for the employment of women. Yet another was Vincent HRD Motorcycles.

Stevenage was perfectly placed to become one of the New Towns to be designated under the 1946 Act. The first employer to be tempted to the new town was Geo. W. King from Hitchin. They manufactured cranes and hoists and would later become part of TI plc. Kings were followed in 1952 by Hawker Siddeley Dynamics, ICI and Pye Ether a manufacturer of controls and owned by Pye Radio. Next was a longer term resident of old Stevenage W.H. Saunders an electronics company which later became part of Marconi. There followed ICL, Kodak, Bowater Packaging, English Electric aircraft and Mentmore Manufacturing which came from Hackney and would become Platignum makers of writing implements. English Electric became part of the British Aircraft Corporation which would merge with Hawker Siddeley aircraft to become British Aerospace.

This aviation capability has now become MBDA manufacturer of complex weapon systems and Airbus Defence and Space which manufactures space vehicles, satellites and related equipment giving Stevenage the nickname Space City. The science credentials of the town are underling by GSK R&D Hub, one of only two worldwide.

Further reading :

• Margaret Ashby, Stevenage: History and Guide (Dover: Alan Sutton, 1994)
• Margaret Ashby, Stevenage Past (Chichester: Phillimore, 1995)

Hemel Hempstead manufacturing history

 The site of Hemel Hempstead has revealed Roman remains and the town not only was prosperous but had a proud heritage. So to be identified as a potential new town was not particularly welcome. The town enjoyed the employment of its large and long standing paper manufacturing business, John Dickinson, at Apsley Mill. I wrote about this in the context of nineteenth century publishing in my book Charlotte Bronte's Devotee about the man who discovered her genius. John Dickinson would go from strength to strength and was not alone in local manufacturing although much larger probably than the others taken together.

The designation as a new town was proposed in 1947 along with a first plan. Argument raged for five years until a final plan was agreed in 1952. Scott Hastie's and Lynne Fletcher's book Hemel Hempstead The story of New Town Development 1947-1997 is particularly helpful since it covers not only the first waive of industry but also the transition from manufacturing to high tech and service industries.

The long term prosperity of the town had a good deal to do with communications. The canal arrived in 1797 following by the railway in 1837. Now the M1 motorway passes nearby and has an exit direct to the industrial area. The M25 is also close and provides vital connectivity to London's airports but also the seaports of the southeast. Anyone driving through Hemel and unfamiliar with it may well be bemused by the Plough (or Magic) roundabout shown in the image.

New industry began to take units in the first designated area on Maylands Avenue and first off the block was the Central Tool and Equipment Company, a manufacturer of milling machines. There followed another engineering company, Alford and Alder, which supplied the motor industry. It seems that neither company survived after the sixties. Rolls Razor, another early arrival, had a colourful end to its production of razors when it went into the direct selling of washing machines and I write of this in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Addressograph Multigraph, an American company, moved from Cricklewood and employed 800 people. The largest of the early factories was for Rotax which later became part of Lucas Aerospace and of which I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines. Multicore Solders moved from Slough in 1952; I certainly remember using their product.

Following a further number of smaller companies, the big move was the arrival of Kodak in 1957 with their colour film processing plant. Kodak increased its presence in the town over the years until the move of colour wprocessing to France and Germany in 1985. Another large arrival was Dexion with storage systems. Hastie and Fletcher pause in 1961 to list the industries then represented in the town:

• office machinery
• photographic equipment and materials
• clothing
• paper moulding
• scientific laboratory apparatus
• electronic equipment
• rubberised goods including hot water bottles
• surgical appliances
• accumulators
• printing equipment

1962 witnessed the arrival of a big employer, although not wholly a manufacturer, BP Oil. The American Du Pont company followed as did the Swedish Atlas Copco.

The gradual move to services is evidenced by the arrival of BOC Transhield for the transport of Marks & Spencer food products and the move to higher tech by Honeywell Ltd, Epson, Apple, ACT, Crosfield Electronics and McDonnell Douglas. Crosfield made electronic equipment for the graphic arts industry.

Hastie and Fletcher again pause this time to look at the 1991 census which reveals a total workforce of approximately 65,000 comprising 58% classified as professional, managerial or office based and only 17% working in manufacturing.

A third stage in Hemel's Development followed the closure of Kodak's film processing and also Lucas Aerospace providing sites for Dixons Head Office (then the high street retailer) and the Rank Organisation's leisure business.

Further reading:

• Scott Hastie and Lynne Fletcher, Hemel Hempstead: The story of New Town Development 1947-1997 (Hemel Hempstead: Dacorum Borough Council, 1997)

Welwyn Garden city Manufacturing History

 The founders of Welwyn had the experience of Letchworth Garden City, built some twenty years earlier, to fall back on. Work began in 1920 and the first manufacturing companies soon followed.

Of most enduring importance was Shredded Wheat, a Canadian company which had set up in Britain in 1908 in London's Aldwych. It was said that the company decided to take a considerable chance by moving to the new Garden City. Work started on the first three-storey block in 1924 and really very soon the factory was operating with great success. The business prospered and in 1928 was bought by Nabisco which added further products including Shreddies.

The next name that would become equally well known was Murphy which began in a garage making radios. As I wrote in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World, demand for radios was strong and so the company grew and by the thirties had five hundred employees producing 33,000 radios a year. By 1939 it was one of the six biggest manufacturers of radios in the world. It was bought by the Rank Organisation in 1962 and in 1969 moved production to Ware and the premises was taken by Rank Xerox with a workforce of 1,400.

Nivea runs a close third. Beiersdorf took premises in Bessemer Road in 1931 and manufactured Nivea products. They then became Herts Pharmaceutical Company before becoming part of Smith + Nephew.

A big win for Welwyn was when they persuaded the American Norton Grinding Wheels to build what was then the largest factory in the town in 1931. Norton prospered in Welwyn until 1982 when manufacturing was moved abroad. Norton was another company bought by the French St Gobain, a former client of mine, and I recall a ceramics plant in Stoke on Trent.

Another American company, Lincoln Electric, began production in Welwyn in 1935. It later became part of GKN.

Under the New Towns Act of 1946, Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield were to be two distinct towns. In practice they are so close as to be a single conurbation. Sir Geoffrey de Havilland moved his aircraft company to Hatfield from Edgware in 1934. It became by a long way that town's largest employer. I tell its story in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines. The company was famous for the Mosquito aircraft in the Second World War and the first commercial jet, The Comet, in the fifties.

Plastics came to Welwyn in 1938 when ICI created its Plastics Division and took a 10 acre site in Welwyn. In the next ten years it became the largest producer of plastics in the Commonwealth. In the fifites ICI relocated plastics to the north of England and the Welwyn site refocused on research.

Staying with chemicals, Hoffman La Roche manufactured Redoxin and then Librium and Valium. Smith Kline and French moved from Camberwell in 1939 and built the then tallest building in the town.

Other manufacturers include the Danish Bacon company, Allied Bakeries, Knorr soup and Suchard confectioners.

Further reading:

• Roger Filler, A History of Welwyn Garden City (Chichester: Phillimore, 1986)
• Hatfield and its people Pt 12 The Twentieth Century (The Hatfield WEA, 1964)