Wellington Bomber production in Accrington?

[Accyborn]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Thank you for that Philip...I was beginning to wonder if I had dreamed it.
No-one I know can remember it being that.

No Margaret, you are not dreaming, I am not quite sure if the Factory was built before or just after the start of the war. I understand it was built by Bristol. I knew a bricklayer who lost an eye whilst working on the building. Bristol also built the flat rooftop brick houses in Gloucester Avenue Accrington which were known locally as the Bristol houses, for their workers. After the war when Bristol moved out of the factory, it was taken over by English Electric. The houses in Gloucester Ave. were taken over by Accrington Corporation and rented out to their clients.

[Hill Walker]

Here is the film mentioned on the WIKI page earlier, its well worth a watch:-

[gpick24]

I`ve googled this a few times but can only find one other mention of Wellington Bombers being made in Accrington, on this website - Vickers Wellington - bomber

Part way down there is this reply -
"During WW2 my mother was engaged in production of Wellington Bombers in Accrington, Lancs.
If anyone is interested I have several pictures that I believe are of her and her co-workers taken at the time."

It looks like there are two pages of replies but annoyingly when I click on page two it just reloads page one so don`t know if the photos were ever displayed there, maybe someone else will have better luck with it.

[Margaret Pilkington]

No, it does the same when I try it too.
Thank you Accyborn....I do vaguely remember being told that the flat roofed houses were for the workers at Bristol Aircraft.
I am glad I did not imagine it all.

[Norahs Lad]

Originally Posted by Accyborn

No Margaret, you are not dreaming, I am not quite sure if the Factory was built before or just after the start of the war. I understand it was built by Bristol.

The (Bristol) building was built by the Ministry of Aircraft Production (MAP) as a shadow factory for the Bristol Aeroplane Co. Another shadow factory for Bristol was built at Weston Super Mare.

The Clayton factory foundation can be seen in this extract:
english_electric_at_clayton-le-moor.jpg

HTH

Mike

[Margaret Pilkington]

Thank you for that information.
It confirms what my Grandad told me.

[Norahs Lad]

I have a photo of my mum on what I presume is a works outing. Before the war, she worked at the cotton mills before moving to H&B to "rivet Wellingtons" as she would put it. As such, I'm not sure whether it is a Mill outing or an H&B trip; they both must have given the workers some breaks; also I had heard that H&B looked after their workers.

My mum, Honora Maguire at the time, is seated front centre; with her older sister, Margaret, immediately behind


Here is another photo of Honora and Margaret (both on the right) which, I believe, was taken near to their house in Plantation Road.


Margaret lived in Huncoat and married a gentleman called Harold but I'm sad to say that I've left it too late to find out anything more about them, except that they moved to Towneley Avenue.

cheers

Mike

[Margaret Pilkington]

What a lovely happy picture.

[Norahs Lad]

Mum looks to be about 23-24 years of age in the top photo and, being born in 1917 would make the year about 1940-41. If my guess is correct then it is more likely to be H&B.

Mike

[Margaret Pilkington]

I was just going to ask you when the picture was taken.
I have just done a little search on Ancestry and brought up three members of the Maguire family....Honora, Margaret and Robert, located at Nelson Street in Accrington, but these Maguires would be too old to be the ones in the picture.
Honora from my search was born 1891, Margaret 1914 and Robert 1917.
So no joy there.

[Norahs Lad]

Hi Margaret,
thank you for doing that search. Amazingly, my mother and siblings were called Robert (1914?), Margaret (1916) and Honora (1917). How much of a coincidence is that?? This is going off-piste though so I'll pm you to take this further, if I may. I have a photo of mum as a tiny little tacker at St Anne's school, possibly 1922-23.

Edit: I've just done another check and my mum's mother was also called Honora and she was born in 1891! Perhaps I have my birthdates wrong for Robert and Margaret; if so then I believe you may have found my family!!

Thanks

Mike

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by Norahs Lad

Hi Margaret,
thank you for doing that search. Amazingly, my mother and siblings were called Robert (1914?), Margaret (1916) and Honora (1917). How much of a coincidence is that?? This is going off-piste though so I'll pm you to take this further, if I may. I have a photo of mum as a tiny little tacker at St Anne's school, possibly 1922-23.

Edit: I've just done another check and my mum's mother was also called Honora and she was born in 1891! Perhaps I have my birthdates wrong for Robert and Margaret; if so then I believe you may have found my family!!

Thanks

Mike

Sorry to be off thread.

Mike, I didn't find your Mother Honora....it was her mother I found....born 1891.
I found Margaret, born 1914....and Robert born 1917.
I really would need to find out if the birthdate you have for your Mum is correct before I assumed they were twins.
This has piqued my interest.
I will be in touch.
MP

[Norahs Lad]

Hello again Margaret,
I would go by the names and dates that you have found in your research. In the photo's I have, I would certainly think that Margaret was the elder, followed by Robert and then my mother. Checking through what I have, I now realise that my mothers birthdate was 7th June 1918 and not 1917, sorry about that.
I have sent you a pm with more details.......... and a big THANK YOU!

All the best

Mike
Accrington Web is a lovely site, with lots of helpful people. Thank you all.

[landhusweg]

Below are a few photos taken during my visit in 2016.
As you can see the factory was 1 Million sq. ft.!

The shot below shows some of the buildings. There were 5 of these production buildings, along with various offices, canteens etc.



Somebody wrote about the buses taking workers to and from destinations around the whole area. The photo below shows where the bus station was, now the grass verge with trees in the background.



Hope you enjoy

Cheers

Phil Kenyon

[landhusweg]

Sorry no pictures. Still having problem with uploading them. In my original post the photos were all shown as a line with IMG etc, but after posting they wern't shown?

Cheers

Phil Kenyon