City of Makers

The Industrial Revolution transforms London.

Capital investment and labour turns London into a centre of diverse manufacturing (see below list of London manufacturing areas). writes Paul Coleman. London’s 21st century streets still mark the city’s former manufacturing processes, such as Threadneedle Street, Ironmonger Lane and Wood Street.

London’s industrialisation comes at a price. Capitalists and workers reguarly struggle against each other over profits, wages and working conditions. But they mutually need each other again after World War II. Bombs had destroyed swathes of London’s labour-intensive industries. Capital investment enables working Londoners to replace London’s factories and workshops with new manufacturing plant.

By the end of the 1950s, factories employ one-in-three working Londoners. Londoners form 20% of Britain’s engineering workforce – and make almost half of the clothes worn by British women. London’s seven docks employ 30,000 people – mainly men – in the early 1960s.

UK manufacturing centres outside London and foreign imports caused the 19^th Century decline of some of London’s traditional industries, such as silk weaving in Bethnal Green and Spitalfields. Railways, coastal steamships, and electric telegraph rendered London factories and workshops less advantageous to large industrial firms.

In the 20^th Century, land, property, fuel and raw materials also became more expensive in London compared to the Midlands and north. Manufacturers leave central London in the 20th century as London’s suburbs expanded thanks to arterial roads, like the North Circular Road and Great West Road. Cheaper spaces lead to large factories – Firestone tyres, Gillette and Hoover – being situated on the ‘Golden Mile’ on the Great West Road. Industrial estates with factories for lease or sale grow at Park Royal and along the Lea Valley and the A13 ‘corridor’ out to Dagenham and further east.

But during the 20^th century – and despite two world wars – other forms of manufacturing industry arise, survive, flourish and expand in London. ‘Made in London’ means a quality product in the 1960s and 70s.

In 1970, manufacturing represents 30% of UK gross domestic product and an astonishing 16.3% of total world exports. Manufacturing in London and throughout Britain generates 4-6% annual trade surpluses for the UK. Manufacturers employ 35% of UK workers.

However, oil price rises and recession in the 1970s, global competition from Hong Kong and the rise of a neo-liberal ideology begin to destroy the vast bulk of these industries in the 1980s.

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London and manufacturing

Acton: electrical equipment, bus lighting, thin wall engine bearings, cars, racing cars, sausages, pies, ice cream (Wall’s)
Albert Embankment: meat
Aldersgate: printed paper, books
Aldgate: clothing, bells, glass, cigarettes

Bankside: gas, electricity, hydraulic power, glass panes, printed books, papers and journals
Barking: fertiliser
Battersea: electricity, candles, chemicals, river boat steamers
Beckton: sugar refining (Tate & Lyle), gas, coke
Bermondsey: leather harnesses, saddles, shoes, hats, gloves, furs, coach lining, chair covers, bookbindings, paper-making machines, tin cans, water wheels, printed books, beers (Courage), biscuits (Peek Frean), jam (Hartley), vinegar, pickles, piccalilli, Worcestershire sauce, tomato ketchup, salad cream (Crosse & Blackwall)
Bethnal Green: clothing including silk, footwear, furniture, pharmaceuticals, surgical instruments, starch, flour
Blackfriars: river boat steamers, furs
Blackhorse Lane: buses
Blackwall Yard: merchant and naval ships
Borough: glass
Bow: matches (Bryant & May), gas, resin, nickel silver, soap, paper, horse-drawn carriages, railway carriages
Bow Bridge: porcelain
Bow Creek (Thames Iron Works): glass, steamer and naval ships, iron
Brentford: beer, gin, windscreen wipers, potato crisps (Smith’s)
Brick Lane: beer (Truman and Hanbury), clothing, gas, chairs
Bromley-by-Bow: citric acid, tartaric acid, paper, spirits, flour
Brook Green: electric lamps

Cable Street: dyes
Camberwell: beers
Camden Town: flour, spirits
Canada Water: hydraulic power
Canning Town: business stationery
Charlton: glass, telegraph cables, telephone cables, insulation
Chelsea: fine porcelain, beers, gin
Chiswick: high-speed naval vessels, beers
City of London: glass, candles
City Road: chairs, cigarettes
City Road Basin: hydraulic power
Clerkenwell: clocks, watches, precision instruments, jewellery, telegraph cables, beers, gin
Colindale: Leather trunks, fridges, illuminated neon signs,
Covent Garden: coaches, high quality furniture, cabinets, paper, beers
Cricklewood: cars (Bentley), airplanes (Handley Page), potato crisps
Cubitt Town: ships
Curtain Road: furniture, lime juice

Dagenham: cars (Ford motor works)
Deptford: naval ships, naval ship engineers, anchors, pumps, electricity, water, copperas (used in ink and as dye), chemical fertilizer

Eastcheap: printed books
East Smithfield: coins (Royal Mint)
Edgware: airplanes
Enfield: flintlock muskets, swords, rifles,
Erith: pottery
Euston: tube making machinery, printer roller moulds, camera stands, violin case moulds, gun boring machines, tea packing machines, gas engines, musical instrument parts

Farringdon: printed books
Finsbury Park: clothing
Fleet Street: clocks, newspapers, mathematical and scientific instruments
Fulham and Hammersmith: sugar refining, gas, electricity, pottery, river boat steamers, tapestry, beers, biscuits (United Biscuits), ice cream (Lyons)

Great West Road: tyres and rubber (Firestone)
Greenford: synthetic dyes, bicycles
Greenwich: telegraph cables, dock crane treadmills, Isle of Dogs windmills

Hackney: toys (Matchbox cars), footwear
Hackney Wick: plastics, rubber capes and groundsheets, resin, dyes, oil refining, silk, confectionery, jam
Haggerston: clothing, gas
Hampstead: water
Harlsden: biscuits (McVitie), baked beans (Heinz)
Hatton Garden: bank notes, thermometers, barometers, telescopes, rain gauges
Hayes: helicopters, electronics
Hendon: aircraft, aerated drinks
Holborn: dog biscuits, aerated water, mineral water
High Holborn: watches
Homerton: knife handles, brooches, cable insulation, paint
Hounslow: candles, biscuits
Hoxton: wardrobes

Ilford: chemicals
Isle of Dogs: torpedo launches
Isleworth: soap (Pears)
Islington: rubber

Kennington: pickles, gin (Beafeater)
Kensal Green: gas
Kentish Town: false teeth
Kings Cross: varnish

Lambeth: water, vinegar, wine, frames, engineering (Maudslay and Field), steam hammers, screw-cutting machinery, printing machines, marine engines and boilers, bullets, cars, pottery (Royal Doulton), Coade stone reliefs, river boat steamers
Lea Valley: furniture, engineering
Lewisham: gun barrels
Limehouse: lead, soap, ships, lifeboats, river boat steamers, rope, beers
London Bridge: water, paper

Mayfair: guns
Marylebone: pulley block making machines
Mile End: brushes, beer (Charrington)
Millwall: telegraphic cables, merchant ships, fertilizer, liquid metals for coins, river and sea ship engines, jam, flour
Minories: insulated conductors, electrical apparatus, glass
Mitcham: varnish
Mornington Crescent: cigarettes (Carreras)
Mortlake: tapestry, beers (Watney)

Nine Elms: gas, river boat steamers

Old Kent Road: gas
Old Street: beers

Paddington: milk
Park Royal: baked beans (Heinz), beer (Guinness), bus bodies, Pepsi Cola, Schweppes
Pall Mall: clocks
Peckham: pickles
Petticoat Lane: clothing (DAKS, later Simpson’s)
Perivale: vacuums (Hoover)
Pimlico: vinegar, wine, gas, hydraulic power
Plaistow: sugar refining, disinfectant
Poplar: ships, dog biscuits
Poultry: watches
Putney: candles

Ratcliffe: glass
Regent’s Park: cognac brandy
Rotherhithe: ships, including steamships
Royal Arsenal: cannons, guns, gun carriages, munitions, rope, steam locomotives
Royal Victoria Dock: flour

St Giles in the Fields: high quality furniture
St James’s: boots
St Martin in the Fields: high quality furniture
Shadwell: water, paint, brushes, cigars and cigarettes, biscuits
Shoreditch: gas, boots and shoes, cigars
Silvertown: sugar (Tate & Lyle), telegraphic cables, sulphuric acid, rubber, oil lubricants, soda crystals, caustic soda, soap, marmalade
Spitalfields: silks
Soho: cabinets, beers, light industrial goods
Stepney: clothing, footwear, furniture, vinegar, wine, beers, crystallised sugar
Southall: buses, electronics (Thorn EMI)
Southwark: water, beer, vinegar, wine, gin, leather, coaches, silk, furniture, clocks, watches, pottery, water pipes, lead sheets and pipes, pavement lights, coal hole covers, iron staircases, wirebound hoses, nails, utensils, steam engines, printed books and paper, animal medicines, sausages, pies
South Kensington: candles
Spitalfields: clothing (including silk), footwear, furniture
Stratford: railway locomotives, sulphuric acid, borax, copper carbonate, arsenic sulphide, ether, soap, matches
Stoke Newington: boots and shoes

Temple: water
Thurrock: cement
Tilbury: container docks
Tottenham: pencils, motor cycle engines, copying machines
Tottenham Court Road: beers
Tottenham Hale: furniture
Twickenham: sulphuric acid

Upper Thames Street: beer

Vauxhall: gas, candles, vinegar
Victoria Park: brushes (toothbrushes)

Walthamstow: combs, hair pins, tooth brushes, shaving brushes, toys
Wandsworth: graphite crucibles, paper
Wapping: soap, hydraulic power, newspapers
Wealdstone: glass
West Ham: chemicals, gas, calico, rubber
Westminster: gas, printed material, river boat steamers
Whitechapel: beer, bells, clothing, telegraph cables, glass, crystallised sugar
Woolwich: naval ships, submarine telegraph cables, monoplanes, biplanes

Sources: London’s Industrial Heritage: Geoff Marshall, History Press, 2013. Museum of London.