When Wolston Business Park was developed by Wimpey for housing, an interesting set of buildings was demolished. The main building on the site was originally a large artificial silk factory, set up by Cash’s at the end of the 19th century. The building was of red brick with decorative roundels and 10 bays with roof lights (providing lighting from the NE). It originally had cast iron windows; the roof was slated and there were iron downspouts. There was one large chimney and this factory site appears on some old post-cards of Wolston.
Silk spinning factory
The first mention I can find of this ‘Silk Spinning Factory’ was in March 1899 when the Wolston Baptism Register records Samuel Moss as ‘Manager of Silk Spinning Factory’ (he and his wife Maria had a child called Reginald). The 1900 Kelly’s Trade Directory for Warwickshire states that the ‘New Artificial Silk Company’ had ‘extensive mills’ situated in Wolston with Albert Edward Layzell as Secretary of the company. The artificial silk mill was recruiting staff in June 1900 when the Stretton on Dunsmore school logbook records children asking the schoolmaster, Mr William J. Hassall, for certificates to go to work there. The 1901 census for Wolston is difficult to read (which does not help!) but there is surprisingly little sign of workers at the artificial silk factory. I could only find a ‘Timekeeper at Factory’ Arthur Turner who lived in Meadow Cottages with his wife Lizzie and new baby Arthur.
There were also two ‘Out of Work/Employ’ Silk Factory Hands: 19 year-old Lizzie Wallace of Brook Street and Annie Ash. S O P was written beside both (perhaps paupers ‘Signing On Parish’). So it is possible that the new factory was already in difficulties in 1901. There were also ‘labourers’ who could possibly have been working in the factory, though this seems unlikely as the census clerk has not written ‘MAN[ufacturing]’ beside them. In April 1903 Arthur Turner was recorded as a ‘caretaker at factory’ when his son, Harry, was baptized. The artificial silk company had disappeared by the time Kelly’s 1904 trade directory was compiled. This must have been one of the first artificial-silk factories in Britain, but sadly it only lasted a few years (much more successful artificial-silk factories were set up by both Cash’s and Courtauld’s in Coventry shortly afterwards).
Cycle accessories
Messrs C.W. Bluemel and Bros took over the Wolston site to manufacture cycle accessories in 1904, and the 1905 Ordnance Survey 25” map showed their ‘Celluloid Factory’. Members of the Bluemel family lived in Hillmorton Road, Rugby for some years. In the Baptism Records for December 1904 we find Milford Osborn ‘Cyclist Repairer (New Works)’ with his wife Susy and child Ivy; on the same day is recorded a baptism for the daughter of Albert Charles Allkin (wife Louisa and child Louisa Doris) with the same occupation, which confirms the activities of the new factory. Later on Bluemel’s started producing motor accessories; they added more buildings including a fine office block (now a listed building that fortunately has been retained and turned into flats). The firm appeared in trade directories from 1904 onwards; they also had a London office and continued operation in Wolston until the 1980s. More recently the buildings have been used by a variety of small businesses.
I took some photographs of the older factory buildings just before they were demolished, and deposited one set (plus the negatives) with Warwickshire County Record Office, and one with Rugby Library. The photographs include a map of the site with a list of the small firms operating there.
Comments
I have a bakelite bowl marked as being made by Bluemels of Wolston, which I believe was used in Post Offices for holding change. It is dated 1937. On this basis Bluemels must have made a wider variety of goods than the car and cycle parts for which they are well known. http://www.paperandplastics.co.uk/plastics/itembasinbluemels.php
Many thanks David for your interesting information. Cellulose – derived from wood – was used to make rayon (in the artificial silk factory) and also ‘Celluloid’ (an early form of plastic). So your bowl suggests that Bluemels continued making a range of plastic objects (as well as the cycle & motor accessories). Does anyone have any other Bluemels’ items or memories?
Have picked up a small bluemels airweight brass pump at an auction. Lots of wear and the brass plate is eroded in places. Can anyone put an age to this. I think it could be a football pump.
As a point of interest Celluloid (American name) was predated by the British Xylonite product.
According to the 1911 Census, 37 people from Stretton-on-Dunsmore were employed at Bluemel’s – and possibly more: these 37 have employment details specifically referring to ‘Bluemel’s” or “celluloid factory” or “cycle works” but others have the vaguer reference “factory worker”, which might signify Bluemel’s.
The 37 people are listed below. The initial number is the 1911 Census Sequence Number for Registration District 391 (Rugby), Sub-district 3 (Dunchurch), Enumeration District 12 (which includes Stretton-on-Dunsmore):
8 Freadrick Hobday age 40
23 Sarah Howkins 18
24 Ellen Howard 32
28 Harvey Warren 24
28 Isaac Warren 20
28 William Oldham 13
32 William Atkins 25
32 John Atkins 16
36 Alfred Manton 24
37 Emily Wise 16
37 Thomas Robbins 24
42 George Clarke 38
51 Harry Chater 27
54 Frederick Wells 39
54 William Brooke 29
56 Fred Orcherton 34
56 Charles Ludford 14
65 George Blundell 33
65 Albert Barnwell 20
80 John Harris 27
83 Harry Nix 15
84 Charles Maycock 23
86 George Rainbow 20
92 George Turrall 16
96 Samuel Sutch 25
99 George Quaterman
104 William Gascoigne 41
109 Henry Wilson 55
109 May Griffin 16
110 Thomas Boneham 40
110 Harry Boneham 18
116 Thomas Hobday 22
119 James Boneham 19
120 Edward Boneham 28
124 James Hobday 40
127 Nellie Brookes 18
127 Elsie Brookes 15
An error seems to have crept into my 1911 Census posting: both references to Stretton on Dunchurch should read Stretton on Dunsmore. Sorry.
Many thanks Robert for an interesting comment (and I’ve corrected the error for you). I wonder how many of these people cycled the few miles to work!
Tom Walton used to live in Wolston and worked at Bluemel’s. Here are some extracts from his 1970s memoir A Wolston Walkabout: ‘Bluemel’s first came to Wolston in 1903-4 from London and were, at that time, makers of walking stick and umbrella handles, etc. They brought their old employees with them, all of whom I became acquainted with as years went by; first as a boy and then as one of their workmates…During the First War and the Second they made Munitions of a very high quality and the manpower was 800-900 which is four times the present day staff [i.e. in the 1970s]. When I started the wages were very small. Males earned between twelve and sixteen shillings per week of 51½ hours, females between eight and nine shillings and juniors – I earned six shillings a week! Most villages supplied the labour and some of them walked to Wolston from Ryton, Stretton, Church Lawford and Princethorpe.’ (A copy of this memoir can be consulted at the Warwickshire County Record Office PH 1213.)
I remember Bluemels bicycle mudguards very well from my childhood in N London. Cheap and cheerful but very brittle. After a few months and a few shunts they’d be held together by the wire stays, not the plastic guard itself. They were essentially superseded by German ‘chromoplastic’ guards that were far more flexible and yielding.
Thank you for the above revelation Philip, both Nellie and Elsie Brookes are my great aunts – well I never! Late 60’s early 70’s, us young lads used to recover lots of new bicycle parts, especially mudguards, that had been discarded by Bluemel’s on Wolston refuse tip.
They were the local factory making parts for bicycles and my granddad Harry Orton was a member of their own fire brigade. Most village people at some time worked at Bluemels. It’s not often that you get a factory in a village.
I’ve just purchased an early 1920s? pram that has a black (ebonite?) covered handle, marked as Bluemels patent, with a feather design logo. I have only found one article on a pram collectors site, suggesting Bluemels supplied several prestigious pram manufacturers.
Does anyone know if the factories were re-purposed during either of the world wars in support of the war effort?
My Mum, Pauline Dudley, Lived at the Half Moon during the war and remembers it as being used to support the war effort. She said that one day, a German fighter plane fired at the school girls leaving the school, mistaking them for Bluemels workers.
My Grandad worked here during and after the war he was also on the Royal Observers Corps manning the watch building on the road south of Wolston. My mother Pam Treen also worked on munitions at Bluemel’s for a while.
Very interesting read thank you. Do you have any information regarding large clocks that were in/on any of the buildings?
I lived in Wolston in the centre by the brook from around 1954 until I got married in 1969. I can remember the Bluemels “hooter” going off every morning at 8 am.
Lily, william and Joseph flowers listed in 1911 census as workers in
celluliod accessories. Wolston.
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