Manufacturing: Bustling busy Derby ensured that business back in the dynamic 1940s was booming

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These days it seems as if everything is made in China or some other far flung place where labour is cheap. But, back in the 40s, Derby’s manufacturing industry was a hive of activity, bringing jobs and prosperity to the town. Harold Richardson, of Derby, was prompted to recall this successful period when he came across an old booklet dating back to 1947.

AFTER the bleakest winter on record and all the misery of snow and flooding, I recall the spring of 1947 as being much warmer than usual.

And with the return of the sun, there came new hope in this country’s fight for economic survival.

This renewed confidence was just as great at a local level, which is revealed in a booklet, Spotlight on Derby, published at the time by the estates and development committee of the County Borough. Its message is couched in true wartime Churchillian style, claiming: “In Derby, at the very heart of Britain, manufacturing concerns, great and small, are working with urgency and determination, and in many respects this book is a frontline despatch...

“Behind this great industrial effort lies a town, a big-hearted people and a system of town management of which Britain is proud.”

To give some further idea of that different world and Derby’s place at the industrial heart of a still great county, the first 40 pages of the booklet are given over to advertisements from firms that were not only household names then but world-renowned.

There were, according to the booklet, 120 different manufacturing processes in Derby at that time and unemployment in those post-war years was practically unknown.

In 1947, Ministry of Labour figures reported only 124 men and women were out of work in the town and some of those were elderly or infirm.

Among the firms appearing in its pages are Brown’s Foundry on Nottingham Road, a name that exists now only on street grates and manhole covers; E W Bliss (England) on City Road, makers of power presses that sold worldwide.

Qualcast Ltd in 1947, we are told, was the largest manufacturer of lawn mowers in the world.

Leys Malleable Castings Ltd, whose wartime production included making parts for armoured vehicles, guns and torpedoes, turned post-war into making agricultural tractor and heavy commercial vehicle parts.

Derby Brick Company at the Rowditch was then at full stretch in providing the basics for rebuilding on bomb sites throughout the country and, after all its efforts, is itself now covered in new housing.

British Celanese at Spondon, suppliers of yarns and fabrics, textiles, plastics and chemicals, from a very small beginning in 1917 had, 30 years later, spread itself over 300 acres with 10,000 employees.

Walter Evans and Co, at Darley Abbey, established in 1783, became one of the best-known manufacturers of quality industrial sewing cottons in the country.

Page after page, they come back to life. International Combustion, makers of boiler plants; Aiton and Co, pipe manufacturers; Newton Brothers on Alfreton Road, electrical plant specialists; Parker Foundry, which made steel frames for trolley buses as well as for the railways; Cox Brothers and Co on Normanton Road, whose lead paints were known and used universally.

Smaller firms still remembered included Hawley and Son, colour works, at Duffield, and Riley’s soap works on Bridge Street. Then there was Wild and Brown of Moss Street Mills, makers of webbings and silk and rayon ribbons, and the Standard Manufacturing Co at the Rowditch with only 15 employees making all types of horticultural tools.

Derby even had a hand in the making of paints and wallpaper (for export only then). There was Joseph Mason and Co on Nottingham Road and the Mica Branch of Wallpaper Manufacturers Ltd on Gresham Road

Sixty years later, all of these, along with a host of others, have gone for good. Older people will easily bring to mind other famous names from the past because, for a great many, they were also part of their working lives.

In a section of the booklet called A town to be proud of, Derby is described as “...a great industrial centre, renowned for the supremacy of its engineering products and peopled by a generation virtually born with a spanner in their hands...”

And with remarkable foresight, it informed us: “Derby’s railway engineers have recently built and tested a new diesel-electric locomotive which may revolutionise railway traction...”

It also drew attention to “Derby’s fine new civic centre, the Council House, built at a cost of more than £200,000.”

And special praise was given to the Central Omnibus Station “of semi-circular design with four platforms, shops and a restaurant. Deputations in all parts of the country have travelled to Derby to inspect this unique and serviceable station.”

A list of the chief officials of the borough in 1947 is another reminder of legendary names.

Col H Rawlings for instance, well-known pigeon fancier and Chief Constable; C Middleton, director of education: Arthur Exton, magistrates’ clerk: T S Wells, parks superintendent; and J E Frith, omnibus manager, whose name, as I remember, was carried on all Derby Corporation buses.

After the war, there were more than 2,000 families on the waiting list for council-built houses and, despite “strenuous efforts that have been made, and Derby has achieved a record hardly surpassed in the country, it is obvious that the provision of houses must remain its first priority”.

The rent for a three-bedroomed council house from 1945 onwards was 16/6d (83p)to 19/2d (96p) per week.

A statement with undertones of authoritarianism and finger-wagging warned applicants: “Trained women officers are employed to give help and advice to tenants of Corporation houses in all matters affecting the home, to investigate and settle neighbours’ quarrels and to ensure that the houses are kept in a reasonable state of cleanliness.”

In these times, when the problems of the NHS are constantly being aired in the media, it is a revelation to read that in 1947 Derby supported, not only the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, the Sick Children’s Hospital, Women’s Hospital, City (General) Hospital and Kingsway Hospital, but also an Isolation Hospital and Sanatorium. Even a Smallpox Hospital with 40 beds, provided by a joint board (Derby and Burton), was “kept in excellent condition,” we are told, “and ready for immediate emergencies”.

On top of that, there were child welfare clinics – Nightingale Road, Green Street, Boulton, Roe Farm and Temple House being opened before the war began. Two others at Normanton and Firs Estate were deferred until the easing of building restrictions.

Officially opened in June 1939 by Sir Kingsley Wood, Secretary of State for Air, was Derby Airport at Burnaston.

This was owned and controlled by Derby Corporation.

However, shortly after this opening ceremony, the Second World War began, forcing the prohibition of civil flying. In the meantime, Derby Airport, the booklet tells us, then “assumed the mantle of war” and became a training centre for the RAF, where more than 12,000 pilots and other aircrew received their initial training.

Post-war, it was demilitarised and returned to civil aviation. I know many people will remember with some nostalgia its Dakotas and Canadair C4 Argonauts taking off from its grass runways. When East Midland Airport opened in 1985, Burnaston closed three years later and Toyota now occupies the site.

We all know that change is inevitable but how did it become so complete? And where along the way did we lose our independence and pride?

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