All Discussions Tagged 'wood green industry' - Harringay online2024-03-28T20:25:41Zhttps://harringayonline.com/group/historyofharringay/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=wood+green+industry&feed=yes&xn_auth=noMaking a Song and Dance - Wood Green's Lost Piano Factorytag:harringayonline.com,2018-06-12:844301:Topic:10892052018-06-12T13:19:38.211ZHughhttps://harringayonline.com/profile/hjuk
<p>This is the last of my <a href="http://www.harringayonline.com/group/historyofharringay/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=wood+green+industry" rel="noopener" target="_blank">three posts about Wood Green's Victorian Factories</a>, occasioned by my curiosity about the vague outlines currently available for most of Wood Green's vanished industrial heritage. </p>
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<p>For a few years now I've come across mentions of a piano factory in Wood Green that was bought by Barratt's when they first set up…</p>
<p>This is the last of my <a href="http://www.harringayonline.com/group/historyofharringay/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=wood+green+industry" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three posts about Wood Green's Victorian Factories</a>, occasioned by my curiosity about the vague outlines currently available for most of Wood Green's vanished industrial heritage. </p>
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<p>For a few years now I've come across mentions of a piano factory in Wood Green that was bought by Barratt's when they first set up their confectionery factory. When I started to try and find out a bit more about it I read that it was the Allsopp factory, but there was no further information about it. By digging deeper, I've finally been able to unmask the true identity of the factory. It was in fact Henry A Ivory & Co.*</p>
<p>Ivory's was run by Henry Allsopp Ivory. Born in 1825, he married Eliza in 1848 or 1849 and soon after their first daughter was born. By 1851, Henry was living with his wife, his sister and two daughters at 52 College Place in Camden.</p>
<p>By all accounts he quickly made his way into the piano manufacturing business. But, the road, it seems was a bumpy one. By 1858, when he was 33 years old, he was winding up a piano making business he'd been running along with partners in Store Street, just round the corner from where Heals is today. </p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057358985?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057358985?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>From Perry's Bankrupt Gazette, 16 October 1858</em></span></p>
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<p>Three years later, it looks like he may have been beginning to prosper and had moved up the way to 275 Euston Road where he had partnered with former music teacher William Prangley and was trading as Ivory & Prangley. He was described in the census of that year as a "<em>piano forte maker employing 14 men and 3 boys</em>". In 1862, the firm was exhibiting at the International Exhibition, held on the site that now houses museums including the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057359087?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057359087?profile=original" width="298" class="align-center"/></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>From The Musical Times, 1 April 1865**</em></span></p>
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<p>Then, in 1868, ten years after his first firm had closed, Ivory & Prangley folded.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057359378?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057359378?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"/></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>From The Gazette, 17 July 1868</em></span></p>
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<p>Before long he had moved to Wood Green with his family. By 1871 Henry he was recorded as living in Mayes Villas in a terrace of houses on Mayes Road. With him were his wife Eliza, three daughters, three sons and his brother. The youngest boy was 7. His eldest daughter was now 22.</p>
<p>Just behind his house he had either built or acquired a factory and he was trading as Henry A Ivory & Co. (also known as H A Ivory & Co.).</p>
<p>In 1873 Ivory was one of the few British piano makers at the Vienna Universal Exhibition. The official Austrian report said "<em>The manufactory of Ivory & Co sent three pianinos, among them one with emroidery</em>".</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058777361?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058777361?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>From The British Mail 2 Jul 1877***</em></span></p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057360148?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="450" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057360148?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="450" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span class="font-size-1">A more contemporary photo which looks like it shows<br/> the 'Royal Grand Cottage' shown in the 1877 advert.</span></em></p>
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<p>Ivory continued in business in Wood Green until the end of the decade. The last we hear from him in Wood Green was in an advert placed in 1880. In the same year he sold his premises to Barratt's confectioners who went on to grow one the the 20th Century's biggest and best known sweet manufacturers. </p>
<p>Perhaps it was ill health that occasioned the sale since Ivory died just four years later living at Fasset Square in Dalston, aged 59.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057360248?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="600" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2057360248?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600" class="align-center"/></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>From The Examiner, 3 April 1880</em></span></p>
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<p><strong>NOTES</strong></p>
<p>*<span style="font-size: 8pt;">The 'A' in 'Henry A Ivory & Co' stands for Allsopp. It was often written as "<em>Ivory, Henry Allsopp</em>". As seems so often to be the case, one historian made a mistake and decided that Allsopp was the owener's surname. This mistake was copied time and again, by respected historians and by the local council until it became an established 'fact'. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;">**The patent referred to in the advertisement was apparently for a device invented by music professor William Prangley to improve the third finger. So much time and money was spent on securing this patent that Prangley went bankrupt in 1859. Described in court reports at the time as a "music seller", he was then based in Salisbury.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;">*** The link with the much better known Collard and Collard seems to be explained ny an 1860 advert Hnery took out in the <span id="newspaperTitle">Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News, 1</span><span id="newspaperDate"> December 1860:</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058778019?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058778019?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-center"/></a></span></span></p> A Turn of the Screw in Wood Greentag:harringayonline.com,2018-06-11:844301:Topic:10891632018-06-11T18:15:37.781ZHughhttps://harringayonline.com/profile/hjuk
<p>One of the key members of Wood Green's Industrial sector during the first half of the Twentieth century was Davis & Timmins.</p>
<p>Founded in 1876 by Henry Timmins and French-born Emile Davis, the firm specialised in <em>'turned work of all descriptions'</em> including screws, bolts, nuts, studs, washers, terminals, and later, small component parts for electrical work.</p>
<p>It was originally based in Bowling Green Road in Clerkenwell. The 1881 census shows that in that year Davis…</p>
<p>One of the key members of Wood Green's Industrial sector during the first half of the Twentieth century was Davis & Timmins.</p>
<p>Founded in 1876 by Henry Timmins and French-born Emile Davis, the firm specialised in <em>'turned work of all descriptions'</em> including screws, bolts, nuts, studs, washers, terminals, and later, small component parts for electrical work.</p>
<p>It was originally based in Bowling Green Road in Clerkenwell. The 1881 census shows that in that year Davis employed just 2 men and 12 boys. However, growth for the firm after this point was apparently rapid. In 1882, Timmins left and the factory moved to Charles Street, near Farringdon Station.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!4v1592737417871!6m8!1m7!1sY7H6kMlh9IvU6fo61gulvg!2m2!1d51.51965904721457!2d-0.1061569960798524!3f210.03867268470276!4f16.924181814898787!5f1.0843123685951128" width="600" height="450" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>24 Church Street premises (now 24 Greville Street)</em></span></p>
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<p>In 1892, the firm moved again, to premises at 34 York Road, King's Cross. Three years after the move the premises were enlarged.</p>
<p>By this time Emile was living at 14 Haringey Park Crouch End (<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Farringdon+Rd,+London/@51.5248062,-0.111159,15.67z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x48761b4efb8c2843:0x45b383b24f9a365a!8m2!3d51.5230636!4d-0.1079118" target="_blank" rel="noopener">still standing today</a>). </p>
<p>In 1899, the company wanted to expand still further and needed to acquire additional factory space for the purpose. To enable this growth, the company was publicly listed and soon after the premises in Wood Green were built.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="txtRed"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2162877906?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2162877906?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-center"/></a></span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>London Middlesex Gazette January 6, 1900</em></span></p>
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<p><span class="txtRed">The notice above from 1900 suggests the possibility that the company was in Wood Green shortly after the public listing. However, it also suggests that the company was expanding a factory they already occup</span><span class="txtRed">ied. Other evidence indicates </span><span class="txtRed">that the company had a small factory on Clarendon Road and a bigger one on Brook Road. So perhaps the small factory was a 19th century building which was already in situ and and they built the bigger one before in 1900.</span></p>
<p>By this point, the company's customers included several government departments, including the War Office leading engineering firms and some of the main railway companies, including the Great Northern Railway Company. </p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058772919?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058772919?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1"><em>Davis & Timmins advert 1905</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058773249?profile=original" target="_self"></a><a href="https://st6.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4532384598?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://st6.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4532384598?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058773249?profile=original" target="_self"></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>Davis & Timmins factory c1905 <br/></em></span></p>
<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4532371423?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/4532371423?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>The factory was between Brook Road and Clarendon Road</em></span></p>
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<p>Emile Davis died in 1900, aged just 56 and George took over as managing Director. The younger Davis also died young. He died from heart failure in 1922, aged just 48. </p>
<p>An advertisement placed in that year, guggest that the factory at Wood Green had continued to grow. It claimed that “<em>The works at Wood Green cover an area of several acres</em>”.</p>
<p>Below is a staff photo taken in around 1930.</p>
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<p><a href="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/6170383086?profile=original" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/6170383086?profile=RESIZE_710x" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><em>Staff photo at the Brook Road factory, c1930</em></span></p>
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<p>The factory remained at Wood Green until the mid-Sixties when it was taken over by Delta Metal.</p>
<p>In 1897, Emile Davis, George Davis and his French wife Charlotte had moved to Truro House (still standing at the junction of Green Lanes and Oakthorpe Road in Palmers Green). The Kelly's Directories list Charlotte as living there until her death in 1936, when she is succeeded by her daughter, Charlotte J. Davis. The younger Charlotte died, unmarried and childless, in 1995, at the age of 98, having lived for her whole life in Truro House<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058773480?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058773480?profile=original" width="400" class="align-center"/></a><span class="font-size-1"><em>Truro House, Palmers Green</em></span></p>
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<p></p> A Whiff of Tobacco - Wood Green's First Factorytag:harringayonline.com,2018-06-06:844301:Topic:10874112018-06-06T16:51:49.636ZHughhttps://harringayonline.com/profile/hjuk
<p>The building of the Great Northern Railway and the opening of Wood Green Station in 1859 stimulated the start of both residential development and industrial development in Wood Green.</p>
<p>One of the first factories to open was E Welch & Co Tobacco Manufacturer. I haven't pinned down the exact year they started operating, but it seems likely that it was in 1861 or 1862.</p>
<p>At the time London was the centre of tobacco manufacturing in the UK. Most of it was clustered in the East…</p>
<p>The building of the Great Northern Railway and the opening of Wood Green Station in 1859 stimulated the start of both residential development and industrial development in Wood Green.</p>
<p>One of the first factories to open was E Welch & Co Tobacco Manufacturer. I haven't pinned down the exact year they started operating, but it seems likely that it was in 1861 or 1862.</p>
<p>At the time London was the centre of tobacco manufacturing in the UK. Most of it was clustered in the East End and this is indeed where Edward Welch, the boss of the Wood Green company hailed from.</p>
<p>Born in 1814 near Shoreditch, by the time he was 32, in 1846, newspaper reports spoke of Welch as a "respectable tobacco manufacturer living at 15 Lower Whitecross Street". So things were clearly headed in the right direction. </p>
<p>Respectable, he may have seemed, but our Edward was far from straightforward. He was clearly happy to stray into illegal activities. In 1854 newspapers report that he was fined over £500 for adulterating tobacco with treacle, a practice used to increase its weight. A year later he and his brother were jointly fined for trading contraband tobacco.</p>
<p>Yet at the same time he was also involved in more productive endeavours. He took out a number of patents for his inventions of various tobacco manufacturing machinery, including an 'improved tobacco press'.</p>
<p>By the time of the 1861 census, Edward was living at 61 St John Square in Clerkenwell, with his wife Leah and his three children, Drucilla 19, Alfred 16, Richard 9. No servants were listed. His occupation is given as Tobacco Manufacturer, employing 13 men, 17 boys and 1 girl. (Two younger sisters, just 11 and 12 years old) were apparently pupils at a school in Gloucester Road Islington - now Almorah Road - with just seven pupils and two governeses). We know from other records that he had a tobacco manufactory next door at 63 St John's Square.</p>
<p>Things were clearly going well enough for him at that point for him to set himself and his family up very nicely in Wood Green. He built a factory and next to it a large villa called Cavendish Villa. From the details of the sale after Welch's death, we learn that the villa had a garden and a large vinery, amounting to nearly one acre. So not too shabby then!. In 1871 he was living there with his wife Leah, their son Richard and a twelve year old servant, Emily Sinclair*. By this point, oldest son, Alfred was living separately with his wife in Clarence Terrace Hornsey (which I believe was on Hornsey Road). He gave his occupation as manager of a tobacco works. I think we can guess which one!</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058772489?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058772489?profile=original" width="549" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>Excerpt from 1863 Ordnance Survey Map. The road running just north of Cavendish<br/> Villa is what is now Coburg Road. The trackway to its east is now part of Western Road</em></p>
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<p>I assume that the rail connection was one attraction for Welch bringing his business to Wood Green, and , given that he sited his factory right on the Moselle river and that Tobacco manufacturing required plenty of water, it may well be that the river was an equally important consideration.</p>
<p>The three pairs of houses just to the south of the factory were also built by Welch, In 1871, works foreman Walter Ralph was living at 2 Western Road. (A newspaper report tells us that in that year he was charged with retailing beer and and rum from his house without a licence).</p>
<p>As to the type of tobacco manufacture Welch & Co carried on, we know from the details of sale by Edward's executors that the business included a cigar room and a shag room (shag being the term used for loose pipe tobacco). We also know from a listing in the <em>The Directory of the Tobacco Trade in Great Britain and Ireland</em> that Welch manufactured snuff. This means that his business included the three main forms of tobacco manufacture (anyone got a Welch tobacco tin??)</p>
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<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058772673?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2058772673?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span class="font-size-1">Copes Tobacco Factory Liverpool at around the end of the Nineteenth Century. No doubt things would have looked rather <br/> more hectic and less civilised when the factory was in production!</span></p>
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<p>Edward died on 3 April 1878 and newspaper advertisements later that year show that the whole business was sold. We might assume that oldest son, Alfred, took the sale quite hard and tried to carry on in the same line of work trading on his father's name, since in 1879 a newspaper advertisement was taken out by the new owners disassociating E Welch & Co from Alfred Welch, both at the Wood Green factory as well as at the premises in Cable Street and St Johns Square. </p>
<p>It seems that the family did not thrive after the business was sold. The 1881 census has younger son Richard living in half of a small terraced house at 29 Stanmer Street, Battersea with his wife Phoebe. His occupation was given as 'tobacconist’s traveller – unemployed'. His mother was living alone a few doors up at number 35 listed as an annuitant. I'm wondering if the houses were bought with their share of the proceeds of the sale of the business. Was Alfred the main beneficiary? Was this what he did to care for the other family members? Was Richard perhaps renting out half of his house to make ends meet whilst he was out of work? Whatever the case, Leah died in April 1885, leaving <a href="https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/relativevalue.php?use%5B%5D=CPI&use%5B%5D=NOMINALEARN&year_early=1885&pound71=168&shilling71=&pence71=&amount=168&year_source=1885&year_result=2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a very respectable estate of £168</a>. We have no record of oldest son Alfred again till 1911 at which time, though still listed as a tobacco manufacturer and as married, he was recorded living alone as a boarder in a Brighton boarding house.</p>
<p>Back at E Welch & Co, the new owners carried on business for another ten years before putting the whole business up for sale in 1888. The sale notice published in various papers at the time also listed the inclusion of leases of wholesale and retail premises at Billiter Street, Wigmore Street, Carlton Bridge Terrace Westbourne Park, Mortimer Street, Kilburn High Rd, Cable Street, Walworth Road and a shop at 104 Old St St Lukes. Whether these were part of the previous 1878 sale or had been added since, I do not know.</p>
<p>The sale also listed the Hornsey Steam Laundry in a neighbouring factory also owned by Welch's. The business had apparently moved out recently before 1888 and from other records we can track it opening up in Albert Road at around that time as the Wood Green & Hornsey Steam Laundry. There is a note in the London Middlesex Gazette on January 6, 1900 that plans for the laundry in Albert Road had just been submitted. Surprisingly, the business paid for the move through a public share offer. Things didn't work out, however, and the business went bankrupt in 1916. The chimney of the laundry remains to this day.</p>
<p>Whilst other local historians have said that Welch's factory was sold to the Hornsey Gas Works, records on the National Archives make it clear that the sale was in fact to the Great Northern Railway (GNR). The records show the purchase of the business and 'Cavendish House' from E C Smith and M R Smith (mortgagees). GNR needed the land for works to add more lines to the railway, increasing the old dual trackway to four passenger lines and one goods line. At the same time they significantly enlarged Wood Green station. Both works involved considerable excavation and the site of the factory is now under the railway embankment.</p>
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