100 YEARS OF PRODUCTION AT HAINAULT - Kelvin Hughes · arranged that stopped at the station once in the morning and again in the evening speciﬁcally for the company employees. The

EARLY FACTORIES

100 YEARS OF PRODUCTION AT HAINAULT

https://www.kelvinhughes.com © 2017 Kelvin Hughes

2017 sees Kelvin Hughes celebrating two milestones. Not only is it the 70th

anniversary of the installation of the company’s first commercial Marine Radar but also the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Henry Hughes &

Son HUSUN works at New North Road, Hainault, Essex.

This site remained the home of Kelvin Hughes for nearly 100 years.



In the early years of the company’s history,

the Hughes family operated initially from

120 Fenchurch Street, London moving

later to Number 59. This later site gained

such a reputation for the supply of maritime

equipment that the area became known to

mariners as ‘Hughes Corner’.

The company also had a sales office in

the Royal Albert Docks and a smaller

factory in Forest Gate however most of

the manufacturing was carried out at

Fenchurch Street.

Central London may seem a strange

location to base the company’s offices but,

at the time, Fenchurch Street was close to

the London Docks which was the heart

of London’s shipping trade.

As well as navigation equipment,

Hughes were also at the forefront of

aerial navigation being one of the main

manufacturers and developers of aircraft

compasses for civilian aircraft and the

Royal Flying Corps.

The range of products the company

supplied were reflected in the HUSUN

logo from 1918 which shows sailing ships,

airships and aeroplanes.



A NEW SITE

A report from 1919 1 noted that during and after WWI, aircraft were being built by the thousand

adding that the compass manufacturing facilities at the Hughes head offices in Fenchurch Street

were stretched to their limits. In response to this demand the company decided to build a new

manufacturing facility on the outskirts of London.



RURAL HAINAULT

GETTING TO WORK

A green field site was purchased in Hainault in 1915 and, despite a shortage of labour and

materials, was opened in 1917 as the HUSUN works. There are no records explaining the

site name so we can only assume that it is a very shortened version of Henry Hughes & Son.

At the time of purchase, the site on New North Road was described as being out in the

country with ploughed fields on all sides with hardly a house in sight. One exception being

a farm house called Orchard House located directly opposite the site entrance. This was

surrounded by orchards at the time and the owners apparently used to sell their produce to

factory employees at lunch time.

At the time, Hainault is within easy cycling distance of several well populated districts.

The nearest public road transport was via the tram network that terminated at the

Chequers Inn at the far end of Barkingside High Street. This was a 1½ mile walk from

the factory with the High Street described as being a narrow lane with a village store, a

blacksmith, a few wooden cottages and a pleasant panorama of elm trees and meadows.



The site also benefited from being close

to Hainault Station on what was then the

Ilford-Woodford branch of the Great Eastern

Railway. Hainault station opened in 1903

but was closed in 1908 due to lack of use.

However, it appears that the company

had an agreement as ‘special’ trains were

arranged that stopped at the station once

in the morning and again in the evening

specifically for the company employees.

The morning train left Ilford at 7.23 am but

if you missed this another left at 7.53. The

fare for this later train was double and the

train only stopped at Fairlop station meaning

employees had to walk along the track to

Hainault. Arriving late meant the loss of

an hour’s pay so lateness was reported as

being almost non-existent.

Hours were long but work at the site stopped at 1 pm on Saturday and football played on

a company owned field near the site started at 3.30 pm. The period between 1 and 3 pm

was apparently spent drinking in the Old Maypole pub and the Hughes team often turned

out inspired in a manner that would be frowned on today!



1914-1918

THE HUSUN WORKS

During the First World War, the factory reportedly employed about 600 people with the

workforce comprising mainly women.

During this period, records in the company archive show that the company produced

“100,000 ship & Aeroplane compasses, 2,000 sextants and 1,500 semaphores which

caused an embarrassing demand for seasoned wood. 1,000 station pointers, 250 torpedo

deflector sights and other instruments of a number and variety too great to be described”.

As the demand for compasses dropped after the war, the company had to change many

of the manufacturing processes to peace time work so whilst continuing with the supply of

maritime equipment, they added the manufacture of drawing instruments, binoculars and

clocks to the products supplied.

The factory consisted of two principle

buildings each being approximately

70ft by 190ft. The main buildings

were described as being of red brick

construction with the two main shops

having ‘saw-tooth’ roofs with lights on

the slopes facing north.

A 1919 article1 carried an outline

image of the site showing each of

the workshop areas. This gives a

fascinating insight into the early days

of the factory and also the social

arrangements of the times. This is

particularly notable in the canteen

building where there are separate

dining rooms for men, women and

staff. Presumably the staff dining

room was for the senior management.



ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

There was no electricity supply in the area

when the site first opened so power was

generated on site by two Crossley 75

horse-power engines running from the local

town gas supply. These engines each had

ten-feet diameter flywheels and drove the

overhead shafts for the machine shops as

well as DC generators that supplied light

to the factory and power for additional

equipment motors around the site.

The whole site could be run from one

engine with the other acting as a backup

supply. A third much smaller engine was

used to run essential equipment during

meal times and to support the main engines

when the lights were all switched on!

In a set of personal memoirs held in the

company archives, Mr Long2 described

the efficiency of these engines writing

that “During the twenty years I knew

it, I doubt whether its breakdown time

totalled fifteen minutes”.

The engines were eventually discarded

and destroyed. Commenting on their

destruction, Mr Long noted that it was

“Much to the distress of its driver of

many years. Progress is sometimes

very hurtful to the human being”.

3



EASTERN BUILDING

NO. 2 MACHINE SHOP

This building was used for the manufacture of binoculars and similar optical instruments.

There the rough pieces of glass which are used in making the lenses are received into the

central shop, where they are rough ground and progressed through the smoothing and

polishing shops.

This workshop contained a number of lathes for general work and stood next to

a coppersmiths department.

Most of the machines were connected to overhead flywheels by leather belts. When

you wanted to stop a machine, you used a wooden lever to knock the belt off the pulley

leading to the phrase ‘knocking off’ meaning to finish work.



The machine shop manufactured parts

for compasses and the casing tubes of

binoculars. A further observation on the social

situation at that time can be seen in the report

that stated that the delicate and repetitive work

of manually cutting threads into the binocular

housings was carried out by women.

Equipment made in this building was varied

and included such things as chocolate

coating machinery, petrol lighters,

watchmakers’ lathes, motor lawn mowers

and a range of electrical switches and fuse

gear.2

THE FOUNDRY



The foundry was stated as being one of the most important parts of the HUSUN works. The

foundry was equipped with a cupola (the device used to melt cast iron) that could produce

15cwt which is roughly about 760kg of molten iron per hour. In addition to this, there were

six high pressure gas-fired crucible furnaces that could produce 100lb of molten brass.

The foundry had enough capacity that it could also be used for producing castings for what

was described as ‘outside customers’. At the time of the 1919 revieww, the workshops were

producing a number of iron castings for electrical cable junction boxes as well as some

smaller castings for lathes. The quality of the castings was noted as being so good that very

little machining was required after production to produce finished goods.

During the depression of the 1920, the foundry was also reportedly turning out man-hole covers.

The machine shop located in the West building was almost entirely devoted to the production

of drawing instruments. These were manufactured out of nickel alloy and finished by hand and

machine processes.

WEST BUILDING



THE TOOL MAKERS’ SHOP

WOODWORK SHOP

The tool makers’ shop had a number of working areas including machine, compass and

sextant shops. Work included the hand finishing and cleaning of the brass frames used in

sextants which was reported as being tedious work.

In the days before plastic boxes, almost all the equipment manufactured at the site was

delivered in a wooden box with the cases for sextants and compasses being made of teak

or mahogany with brass fittings. This work was all carried out in the central building of the

factory and only closed in the early 1960s.



Drawing again from Mr Long’s memoirs2, he makes reference to binnacle manufacture

in the 1920s. “Most indelibly printed on my mind is of the section of the shop used

for binnacle making and the sheet metal workers who worked in it. The handmade

binnacles called for great craft skills and this was supplied by five men.

They were the aristocrats of craft skill at that time; they were all older men and the

need of their craft skills was already being eroded by the advent of spinning and

pressing techniques. These men would arrive at work, never late, wearing long cloth

overcoats and bowler hats. Upon arrival their outdoor clothes would be carefully

folded and placed under the bench, white bib-type aprons were donned; most of

them wore a bowler hat or cap whilst working. They would take a sheet of brass,

make a few cuts and bends, and effect some brazing in preparation for the beating

work. This would be carried out on various pillars fixed to the bench, with the beater

standing on a stool or box. The beating would take about a day, by which time a

domed or conical binnacle cover would emerge, with barely a hammer mark visible.

The barest amount of hand finishing was necessary to prepare it for polishing. These

men were proud and dignified and would suffer neither liberties or cheek

from anyone”.



MAGNETIC/COMPASS TEST HUT

The Magnetic test hut was located in the corner of the HUSUN Works as far from the

rest of the site as possible, This building was used to test all the compasses before they

were shipped. To ensure that there was no interference or stray magnetism, the site report

from 19191 noted that “Such pains have been taken to make this establishment

non-magnetic that even iron nails for fastening the boarding have been excluded

in construction”.



THE CLOCK SHOP

This is one of the earliest photographs we

have of the site taken as the site was being

constructed. The building to the left was

used to make Blick Time recorders, taxi

meters and was known for many years as

the ‘clock shop’. The building in the centre

(by the gate) was the collection office for

transport to the city office (59 Fenchurch

Street) and to the shop in the Royal Albert

Docks in London.



THE CANTEEN

The canteens where segregated into women’s and men’s with the mens dining room used

at Christmas for theatrical entertainments and also as a venue for staff receptions.

Once again we can draw on Mr Long’s memories for details of the canteen as he reported

that “The Canteen facilities were minimal and were only designed to meet the

requirements of supplying tea and somewhere to eat your own food. It was usual

for employees to bring a pre-prepared meal with them contained in an enamel dish.

This was left in the canteen in the morning and for ½d it was returned at lunchtime

either cooked to cinders or as cold as it was when you left it in the morning. The

employees also had to supply their own cutlery and an enamel mug for tea”.





DELIVERY

A picture of one of the Henry Hughes & Son delivery trucks photographed outside the

HUSUN works.



NEARLY 100 YEARS IN NEW NORTH ROAD

Over the next 95 years, the site was continuously developed and modernised to adapt

to new manufacturing processes and technology. However, the core layout of the site

remained largely unchanged until the company relocated to Enfield, North London in

August 2012 thus ending nearly a century old association with New North Road.

The site has now been developed for housing but traces of the old company are

preserved in the names of the houses and streets as you access the buildings called

Echo House and Sonar House via Hughes Way.







NOTES

Images and data from the archives held by Kelvin Hughes Ltd

1. The Engineer, October 1919.

2. Mr A Long retired from Kelvin Hughes in March 1973 after 49 years

with the company, many of them working in R&D. His memoirs,

presumably written in 1973, are held in the Kelvin Hughes Archives.

3. Image courtesy of the Wallis family. The British Matthews and WC

Pantin was a manufacturing company based initially at South Woodford

later moving to Epping, Essex.

Kelvin Hughes was acquired by HENSOLDT in September 2017. This is the new company

logo which marks the next stage of the companies evolution.

Documents

100 YEARS OF PRODUCTION AT HAINAULT - Kelvin Hughes · arranged that stopped at the station once in the morning and again in the evening speciﬁcally for the company employees. The