For many Bristol historians, the nineteenth century in comparison with previous times was a period of economic inertia. Certainly Bristol had its problems; it had long ago lost its cherished status of the realm's second city and it lagged behind the fantastic development of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham. But in real terms it was hardly stagnant. As we have seen, the population doubled between 1851 and 1901 and also there were some conspicuous examples of industrial success. Unfortunately Bristol's problems, which centred to a large extent on the decline of its docks, have detracted from its successes.
One should realise, however, that by the 1870s companies like Frys, The Great Western Cotton Mills at Barton Hill and the Bristol Wagon Works at Lawrence Hill (also with a large and handsome showroom in Victoria Street) all employed upwards of 900 workers and there were many more firms with employees totalling over 500. Victorian industrial enterprise had not by-passed Bristol. Despite Brunei's self-inflicted wounds on the Great Western Railway, the railway's development was the very keynote to much of the industrial expansion. Mass production depended on the railways—our local industries could not have done without them. It is therefore not a coincidence that within half a mile of the new Temple Meads Station several companies were growing at a rate undreamed of a few years before.
Of the many firms clustered in the loop of the Avon that encompassed the parishes of Redcliffe, Temple and St Thomas perhaps Finzel's Sugar Refinery, Messrs ES & A Robinson and WD & HO Wills stand out as the industrial giants. Their products may have been dissimilar, but their style of management, their interest in technology and their commercial cunning ranked them amongst the best of Bristol's industry. The Finzel Refinery, which by the 1870s was the largest of its kind in England, was based at the Counterslip, on part of the site now occupied by Courage's Brewery. It was founded in 1836 by Conrad Finzel, a German by birth who had been a refugee from Napolean's army. 'The Good Conrad Finzel', as he was called by many, was a benevolent man. He was reputed to give at least £10,000 a year to Muller's Orphanage at Ashley Down and was also generous to his workforce who were paid more than anyone else in the country doing a similar job.
The social relations between Finzel and his workforce were described as 'liberality on the one hand and appreciation on the other'. Finzel's success came from his invention of the centrifugal process—a process that enabled him to be the first person to manufacture granulated white sugar. Prior to this all sugar had to be dried slowly in loaves, or baked, creating a somewhat inferior product. With Finzel's invention, however, treated sugar was put into a spin dryer and revolved at a remarkable 500 revolutions a minute, producing after two minutes sugar 'a pure and colourless appearance'. Although the factory suffered an almost disastrous setback in 1846 when it was entirely destroyed by fire, by 1873 the firm employed 700 people and had an output of 1,800 tons of sugar a week. The amount of raw material consumed was staggering. Merely to provide power for the operation, 1,000 tons of coal were delivered weekly by barge to the factory.
'There is something stupendous,' wrote the Practical Magazine in 1873, 'about the appearance of the street area in front of the building, where drays constantly come and go, and along the tramways at the entrance a continuous stream of raw sugar in boxes, bags and hogsheads are going in, whilst an endless successsion of tierces, bags and packages coming out is like the double procession of bees in a mighty hive'. And once inside the factory the view was equally impressive.'Some indication of the extent of the works is afforded to the visitor, who having passed through various general offices, cashiers departments, the sale rooms and the sampling room where raw sugars are inspected and purchased, is asked to inspect the engine house and the boiler house ... In order to see it properly we must ascend a spiral staircase through the very core of the building, where amidst a prevailing sense of stickyness and a general impression that we are taking in saccharine through the pores, we peer through long dim vistas amidst beams and apertures where the immense series of filtering cylinders are reached only by devious galleries and footways'.
Although the reporter was certainly inspired by what he saw there was one sour note amongst all this sweetness, for 'the recent enormous increase in the price of coal makes a very serious loss to the firm, who have not however raised their quotations for sugar'. A recent reduction of duty on sugar had enabled Finzels to keep their prices stable—but only just. Another of Bristol's staple imports was, and is, tobacco.
The great family-run tobacco firm of Wills had moved from Castle Street in 1791 to a triple gabled, ramshackle building in Redcliffe Street. The firm puffed along at an unremarkable rate producing snuff and pipe tobacco until 1861, when with the introduction of a steam engine, business expanded so rapidly that by the end of the decade new premises were needed again. It was in the 1870s that smoking cigarettes became popular and in the next few years Wills was to become a household name not only in Britain but throughout the empire. The introduction of the cigarette allowed women to sample tobacco with somewhat less stigma being attached to what had previously been considered an unfeminine habit. In 1890 H. H. Wills contentiously announced that smoking is a matter that every English woman must settle in her own conscience, and if she is married she must settle it between herself and her husband.
The fine new Wills factory built in Redcliffe Street in 1869 was not merely utilitarian—it was also an impressive monument to Victorian industriousness. Designed by the architects of Bristol's Grand Hotel, Foster and Wood, its facade was of a similar flamboyant renaissance style. Inside, the factory contained not only the most modern machinery but also, for the convenience of the management, a passenger lift. Every floor had toilets and washrooms and there was a library 'to which all have access'. Indeed, for some, conditions at work were probably healthier than those at home. 'Instead of having to mount stairs innumerable, the aid of a friendly lift is called. A bell is sounded, and almost in less than no time down comes the machinery with its attendant: the visitor takes his place alongside his guide and in a twinkling he finds himself at the top of the building.. . This part of the manufactory faces Redcliffe Backs, and here the trollies land the hogsheads, tierces and bales in which the leaves are packed. By means of a hoist they are hauled up to the top of the five storey building . . . '
As with many other Bristol factories both men and women were employed, though departments were usually segregated by sex (sometimes boys would work alongside women). Thus, in Wills, the sorting of tobacco was done by women, the cutting by men and then it was the women again who did the packing into tins. An enthusiastic reporter from the Bristol Times and Mercury was most impressed by the quality of the Wills workforce—numbering about 500 in the Redcliffe Street factory in 1883—and wrote: 'Looking at these trim tidy girls with their smiling faces and nimble fingers, one somehow instinctively feels the system of work adopted must have a wonderful influence for they are far removed from Midland and Northern types of factory 'hands' as can be imagined.'
And it was not only the girls that took the reporter's fancy for on his tour of the factory he remarked on the men: 'that judging from their general physique there must be something decidedly invigorating in their work for a finer set of men it would be difficult to find. The reporter's visit was concluded by noting that: 'In management there is an enormous amount of vigour and business capability that augurs well for future prosperity'.
In that observation the reporter was certainly correct. The third large firm of the area was Robinson's, a printing and stationery firm based at the top of Redcliffe Street, just a stone's throw from Bristol Bridge. The firm was founded on May 1st, 1844, a significant date also marking the opening of the Bristol and Exeter Railway. Robinson's most important products were stationery and paper bags. The introduction of the penny post in 1840 had done much to encourage sales of envelopes and stationery. Robinson's Ancient Vellum boasted that it 'contained none of the colouring matter so common and objectionable in cheap writing paper'.'2 With regard to paper bags it may come as a surprise to find that they were a novelty in the 1840s.
Until Robinson's rectified the matter, paper bags were rarely used; grocers would merely place loose produce on a sheet of wrapping paper and fold the edges. A grocer might occasionally make a few bags in his spare time but few bothered for there was really little or no money to be made in packaging. Or so it was thought. Elisha Robinson, however, saw the potential for manufactured paper bags and with clever marketing and hard sales work he soon generated a need for them. In 1846 Robinsons moved to 2 Redcliffe Street and in the following years took over many of the adjacent properties. With the widening of Redcliffe Street between 1875 and 1877 the opportunity was taken to build, on the same site, smart new premises to the design of William Bruce Gingell the architect also responsible for the Bristol General Hospital. Like the rest of Victoria Street the building was in a robust style, built largely of brick with a corner tower topped by a cupola. It remained a landmark on the Bristol horizon for nearly 90 years and is still remembered by some for its frieze illustrating the various stages of paper making.
Robinson's, like Wills, were not afraid to be technologically innovative. A machine was devised that produced 100-200 bags a minute, the factory producing, in all, one and three quarter million bags a week in 1883. The more expensive bags, however, were still made by hand. 'The process', wrote the author of Bristol at Work, 'must be witnessed with a great amount of pleasure owing to the marvellous dexterity of the women'.ls The women also worked with some of the machinery such as the ingenious envelope making machines. Printing, however, was the men's domain, Robinsons being involved in both letterpress and the finer art of lithography. Every year the firm would buy paintings, usually more sentimental or moralising than artistic, from the Royal Academy. The staff of ten artists would then assiduously translate them into lithographs to be used for Robinson's famous calendars and advertisements. Sometimes the lithographic plates, made from blocks of stone, could take up to seven weeks to prepare and in the more elaborate prints twelve such plates would be used.
It is recounted that at Christmas time Elisha Robinson, in agreeably Dickensian manner would 'walk round the warehouse greeting all those he could, seeing that those who lived at a distance were in time to catch their trains and often giving Christmas boxes'. Indeed Elisha Robinson was quite a character—not only was he an astute and innovative businessman, he was also at times a man of few words. Whilst on a business trip, on being told that there was a fire in his warehouse he merely telegraphed the company 'Put it out. Robinson'.
Robinson's suffered two serious fires at its Redcliffe Street factory. The first, on April 1 st, 1903, necessitated the rebuilding of a large part of the premises including the famous corner tower; the second was started by bombs on the night of November 24th, 1940 during one of the most intense air-raids experienced by Bristol during the Second World War. What the writers from the Practical Magazine and The Bristol Times and Mercury omitted to mention in their glowing tales of industrial enterprise was just how hard the work was on the shop or factory floor. By today's standards the hours were long and exhausting. In the early 1870s the day at Robinson's commenced at 6.00am and continued until 7.00pm. Until 1857 it had been a six day working week, but from that date onwards a half day off on Saturday was allowed. There were no other days off, no summer holidays, except for public holidays. Even so, not all employers were ruthless exploiters. Smothering paternalism largely kept the labour movement at bay, though when employers did overstep the mark the unions were quick to get involved.
A dispute arose in 1892 at Sanders chocolate factory in Redcliffe Street when the women workers, who were already doing a long day, were expected to work another hour until 7.00pm. The women quickly enlisted the aid of the Gas Workers Union who helped bring about a suspension of the extension of hours. The problem did not end there though, for any of Sanders women who joined the union were dismissed from their jobs. The whole affair culminated in what came to be known as the Black Friday March.16 So far we have looked at stories of industrial success, but as always there is another side to the coin.
Although the railways were of benefit to the majority they did not help everybody. In the older Southern Parishes some of the traditional smaller industries were being elbowed out, whilst many of the retailers suffered from the loss of the Welsh trade. Until the coming of the railways Bristol's trade hinterland had spread over the River Severn to South Wales; with the railway's penetration into that area this trade was lost. But these setbacks were minor compared with the failure of Finzel's. 1879 was a year of industrial slump nationally—this, combined with a series of other factors, had a calamitous effect on the firm's trading position. Finzel's profits were not high, and by the end of the decade they had deteriorated even further.
Over-investment in new property and warehouses had already weakened the company; this, together with fierce product competition from Liverpool, where charges for sugar importation were half those at Bristol, and a committed policy of free trade by Disraeli's government had further contributed to the firm's downfall. Despite several rescue attempts by local businessmen the refinery was finally and disastrously closed in 1881. With Finzel's closed, the once flourishing sugar trade of Bristol disappeared. Alongside a direct workforce of 800 there were many other related workers—coopers, draymen, warehousemen who were also laid off. Perhaps a thousand jobs were lost in all.
Although other companies were thriving, such a large number could not directly be assimilated into their workforces. It hit the Southern Parishes hard; many houses, crowded a few years previously, became untenanted, large warehouses were left idle and property generally depreciated in value. 'It is difficult to imagine' wrote the Times and Mercury 'the poverty and scale of dire misery that followed'.
Other companies did continue to prosper. Elisha Robinson, on completion of a new building at 1 Redcliffe Street, announced 'Gentlemen, I have the finest printing factory in the West of England and neither I or those who come after me will ever want to enlarge it'.
How wrong he was. For just eleven years later Robinsons were building further premises in less crowded Bedminster for the lithographic and colour printing department. Likewise Wills, whose production rocketed from six and a half million cigarettes in 1884 to nearly 14 million in 1886, also looked southwards to Bedminster where they built their new factory, the commanding redbrick monolith, part of which still dominates East Street today.
Of Wills' many brand names, Woodbines which sold at five a penny in paper packets and Three Castles were the most famous. The name Three Castles came from Thackeray's novel 'The Virginian': 'There's no sweeter tobacco comes from Virginia, and no better brand than Three Castles.' In Redcliffe Street, in Bedminster and further afield both Robinson's and Wills continued to thrive.
