The story of the vast electrical empire begun by Sebastian Ziani de Ferranti, born in Liverpool in 1846, is complex, but many Mostonians remember the firm’s local connection. When the wireworks of Johnson, Clapham and Morris, off St. Mary’s Road, was put up for sale in 1934, Ferranti’s domestic wireless (radio) market was already booming, more so than the Wickentree Lane factory could cope with, and so the Moston site was purchased, refitted and enlarged considerably.

Said to be the best-equipped radio works in Europe, it opened on 29 April 1935 and initially employed around 1,000 people. Within 4 months the workforce had reached 3,000 and it was notable at the time that three quarters of the staff were women.

The wireless had become the essential news and entertainment console in most homes, and was considered a stylish item of furniture, to boot. Cabinet-making and glass-working skills were as much in demand as metalwork and electrical assembly. The range at Moston soon expanded to include meters and all kinds of domestic appliances: portable radios, gramophones, televisions, radiant fires, clocks and even electric irons.

Ferranti were also major producers of components for other manufacturers. When war was declared in 1939, the Moston site concentrated on instrument panels for aircraft and naval vessels, and were leaders in gyroscopic guidance systems, military radio systems and the development of radar. Other factories were opened to continue this work, in Edinburgh and elsewhere.

Although not directly involved in aircraft production, there was encouragement during the war for large firms to sponsor the building of aircraft, often supplemented by voluntary donations from the staff, and the St. Mary’s Road workforce ‘did their bit’. In 1940 they raised funds for the building of Spitfire P8465, which served with the RAF 303 (Polish) Squadron until shot down in 1941.

Not only in the air, Ferranti instruments were to be found on the bridges of Canadian and Royal Navy ships and many terrestrial defence systems. A spin-off from wartime research, particularly in the USA, was the development of the computer, an early use of which was in trajectory calculations for gun and missile aiming.

The essential quality of a computer, as opposed to a calculator, was that the same machine could be set up to do many different types of calculation, and that each set of instructions (program), and its results, could be displayed and stored electronically for future use. With the guidance of Dr. Alan Turing, a frequent visitor to Moston, a prototype computer was built by Ferranti for Manchester University in 1949.

Later refinements led to the Ferranti Mark I, the first reasonably successful commercial computer to be made in Britain – also at St. Mary’s Road. Although these early machines used valves in their logic circuits (and could easily fill a large bedroom!), Ferranti were in the vanguard in developing solid-state components such as transistors and, later, silicon devices and integrated circuits; much smaller, faster and cheaper than valves. Today, the average smartphone has far more computing power than the Mark I, but the essential operating logic is the same.

The Moston factory continued to diversify, particularly into telephones, automated switchboards and scientific instruments, and the Ferranti Group established several general divisions, such as the large transformer works opened in 1955 on Hollinwood Avenue. In 1958, the domestic appliance business was sold to the (then) well-known ‘Ekco’ brand (E.K.Cole Ltd) and the focus turned to military, commercial and industrial equipment.

By the 1960s, Ferranti was producing guidance systems and radar equipment for the Bloodhound missile, and had opened other plants at Wythenshawe and Cheadle Heath. From the 1980s they were making integrated circuits for (amongst others) the Acorn and BBC home computers, as well as their own ‘Advance’ range of IBM-compatible machines.

Defence work, telecommunications, instrumentation and component manufacture were all money-spinners, and at their height Ferranti owned twenty-two sites in England, Scotland, Wales and other countries. The Moston site was enlarged several times and as recently as 1986 was extending its training centre at Moston. Then – it all went wrong!

Ferranti made a disastrous investment in USA-based International Signal & Control, whose valuation proved to be completely bogus; they were ultimately prosecuted in the U.S. for fraud. Ferranti inherited massive debts, their share value plummeted and redundancies began in 1990. A last-minute rescue plan by GEC failed and receivers were called in during December 1993. Asset-stripping followed, some divisions being sold off entire (continuing to trade under Ferranti and other names), other parts being acquired by Siemens, Plessey and others.

The Moston site had closed completely by December 1994 and over a few short years was erased from the landscape and replaced by housing. The vast empire was no more.

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St. Mary’s Road, Moston, is almost entirely residential nowadays, but not so long ago it housed several industries, including one which is almost completely forgotten.

John Johnson of Manchester, an iron wire-drawer and maker of nails and pins, had a business in the early 1800s on Shudehill, and later in Ancoats and Dale St. In 1838, he handed over the business to his younger sons, Richard and William (born in 1809 and 1811), the firm being named “Richard Johnson and Brother”. An older son, Thomas Fildes Johnson, became a cotton spinner, taking no part in the wire trade, but Richard and William expanded the business and made their reputation by supplying the wires for the first cross-Channel telegraph cable in 1851.

In 1853 the brothers took over the Bradford (Manchester) ironworks on Forge Lane and after William’s death in 1860, Thomas’s son John Thewlis Johnson became a partner, the firm now becoming “Richard Johnson and Nephew”. This is a name still familiar to many, as it thrived right up to the 1970s, when it was acquired by Firth Brown Ltd. The brothers also held shares in the nearby Bradford Colliery.

In addition to producing wire and cables, which now included copper and brass as well as iron, around 1860 Richard co-founded another firm to make hardware items such as wire gauze, netting, brick ties, concrete reinforcing mesh and many other items for domestic as well as industrial use. Two new partners joined him in this venture: William Clapham and Joseph Morris (from Swansea) – this firm, based at the old Dale St premises, was named Johnson, Clapham and Morris. The combined operations employed around 550 people in 1861.

The company enjoyed continued success and after St.Clement’s church on Lever St closed in 1878, it was acquired for their main office and warehouse. By 1880, Richard had earned enough to buy a grand house in Chislehurst, Kent, where he died in Feb 1881, although his body was brought back to Cheetham Hill Wesleyan Cemetery for burial in the family vault. An only son, also Richard, had died in 1865, so once again it was a nephew, William Henry, that carried on the Johnson name.

Phenomenal business expansion prompted the establishment of a new, larger works in Moston, (sometimes referred to as Newton Heath), begun in 1902 off St.Mary’s Road, close to Tymm St. The new – appropriately named – Clapham St and Wireworks St (now Beechdale Close) were later added. Miner’s lamps, bedsteads, galvanised dustbins, lawn-mowers and all manner of other products supplemented their range, under the brand-name “Jacem”, formed from the initial letters of the company name.

William Henry Johnson had four sons, of whom two were killed in action in Belgium during the First World War. Since their father had died six months before the war started, each in turn briefly became managing director. William Morton Johnson was a Captain in the Manchester Regiment, and died on 2 July 1916; Capt. Ronald Lindsay Johnson, Royal Field Artillery, was killed on 29 May 1917. Ronald, in his will, desired his estate to be shared among the workers at J, C & M – this was later effected by purchasing part of the Broadhurst estate and creating playing fields for the works staff, named in his memory.

Around 1925, the company acquired premises next to St. Cuthbert’s church on Third Avenue, Trafford Park, which they named “Jacem House”. By now they were acting as general hardware wholesalers, and this became their head office and warehouse, while retaining the works in Moston and elsewhere for manufacturing their own-brand items. At their height, they also had premises in Liverpool, London, Middlesbrough and Glasgow, and offices in Australia and New Zealand.

As “Jacem”, they continued to supply hardware goods and were reputed to be a good firm to work for – they even featured in a promotional film for Stretford Borough in 1933, showing off their well-equipped staff canteen. Gradually, however, the manufacturing side was scaled down, and the Moston site was sold in 1934 to Ferranti Ltd (another story, as they say).

The company continued to trade as wholesalers up to the 1970s at least, and although I have not discovered exactly when it closed, Jacem House was demolished during 1989, much of Trafford Park ‘village’ following soon after.

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Brownsfield Mill, by the Rochdale canal just off Great Ancoats Street, was built in 1820-5 as a spinning mill, but by the 1880s was already home to various small traders, making umbrellas, prams and other items. One such trader was William Payne, a wood-turner and chair maker originally from Berkshire, who settled there in 1889. Another was Humphrey Verdon Roe, who made surgical dressings and “Bull’s Eye” braces.

In the early 1900s, Humphrey let his younger brother, Edwin Alliott (who always preferred his second name) use his workshop for making experimental model aeroplanes, and later full-sized ones, William Payne often supplying the timber. William’s grandson, Jack Whitehouse, would occasionally hang around his grandad’s workshop, and many years later recalled Alliott as a very friendly young man, asking how he was getting on at school, and so on.

With help from his brother, in 1909 Alliott founded a company that was to become world-famous: A.V.Roe & Co, shortened to AVRO. Some of his early designs, including the “Bull’s Eye” triplane, which was the first successful all-British aeroplane, were fabricated in Ancoats. After being disassembled they were taken by horse and cart to London Road station, to be sent by train to places like Brooklands for assembly and testing.

In 1910, the firm moved to larger premises at Clifton Street, Miles Platting. By then, young Jack had left school and found work on the railway, but Alliott offered him a job as a wire splicer: early multi-wing planes needed a lot of wire bracing, to give strength while keeping the weight down. Three years later an even larger works at Newton Heath was acquired, at the corner of Briscoe Lane and Ten Acres Lane, in an extension originally built for Mather and Platt.

The First World War, of course, established Avro as major aircraft designers and manufacturers, and the experience Jack gained with them led to his being recruited into the Royal Flying Corps as a rigger, making netting and other ropework for reconnaissance balloons, which were still very much in vogue. After the war, he was offered his old job back at Avro, but said he preferred being in the open air. He went back to the railway, first as a shunter and eventually as a goods guard.

Avro’s went from strength to strength, with premises at Woodford, Yeadon and Hamble being used at various times. In 1939 another huge works was built at Greengate, Chadderton, although the Newton Heath works was retained until 1947. One of the best-known aircraft of the Second World War, the Avro Lancaster, was designed here, around half of the 7,000 built coming from Chadderton. Another famous design followed just after the war: the Vulcan bomber, also designed at Greengate.

AVRO became part of Hawker Siddeley Aviation in 1963, during which period my uncle, Albert Robinson, worked in the offices at Chadderton. In 1977, the year he retired, the merged company was acquired by British Aerospace (later BAe Systems), who continued making aviation equipment until 2011.

I have not discovered what became of the Miles Platting works, but the other three buildings mentioned are still standing. Brownsfield Mill, after many years housing small businesses, is now an apartment block. The Briscoe Lane works, once used by the Co-operative Wholesale Society as a repair depot for their vehicle fleet, acts as a clothing warehouse, and the huge Chadderton plant is now home to Mono Pumps and Kitbag Ltd (sports clothing).

The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester has an example of a “Bull’s Eye” triplane, although this is actually a replica, built from original drawings in 1964 for the film “Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines”.

In the 1950s, my grandad was interviewed by a reporter from the Manchester Evening News, recalling the pioneering days in Ancoats, so perhaps I should let him have the last word:

“Those machines looked for all the world like boxes on wheels, but we thought they were wonderfully up-to-date then.”

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A much more complete history of AVRO, its sites and products, can be found at their heritage centre in Woodford, Cheshire. Click here to view their website.

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