Local History – s The Margarine Work
B
y 1916 World War One was biting on the home front. In 1914 eighty percent of food was imported into Britain and with the onset of the war people had started hoarding food. With the hostilities impounding on the movement of food around the world people in Britain were beginning to feel the effect.
The demand for fats and oils had increased so much that the Co-operative Wholesale Society decided to build a works for the special manufacture of margarine. Margarine was developed at the end if the seventeenth century in France where they used vegetable oils instead of milk to produce a butter like spread. The works involved some £40,000 capital and it was hoped the turnout would be around 200 tons of margarine per week, arrangements had been made in that in an emergency this production figure could be doubled. A site was chosen in Higher Irlam, this was ideal for they had access to the canal, railways and road network. Also with the Soap Works just further along the canal they even had a disposal route for any fats which were not in the tight specification used in manufacture. Any rejected fats were sent down to the Soap Works to be made into candles. Work on the site was severely impeded by the shortage of men and materials and the Government were urging the builders to get the works into production as the demands for fats was of some major urgency.
Times Gone by.
Irlam and Cadishead Local History Society have
recently been sorting out their archives and have found some interesting old photos.
In this new series Times Gone by we hope to share some of these photos with you.
This is a photo of Wakefields Fish and Chip Restaurant. It was situated behind Hurst Fold. Hurst Fold was a row of houses where Higher Irlam Post Office was and Irlam Library now stands.
The CWS had to apply to a tribunal to hopefully get their men exempted from war work or claim temporary exemption to be able to get the works up and running. They were already working with less men than when they had started and were in need of around 40 to keep up with the work in hand. Since the outbreak of war, the CWS had supplied 7,000 soldiers and were paying £2,600 in allowance to dependants. The works opened in June 1916. By 1917, the works was producing margarine on a large scale and sometime later the manufacture of lard was transferred from the Soap Works to the Margarine works. Shortly after the end of the war in 1919 the works was enlarged (pictured) as the demand was increasing rapidly. By the 1930’s improvements were made to their products which included vitamins A and L. The distribution of orders was speeded up by obtaining a fleet of motor lorries and vans which delivered to every major town in the country. An extensive garage was built and was situated approximately where the Higher Irlam Toll Bar once stood. The works and offices, commanding a prominent view from the main road, appeared to assure one of the cleanliness and efficiency in the production of fats for an expanding market. In 1932 the Margarine works had a royal visitor (pictured) when the Duke of York paid a visit the Margarine works, as was part of a tour around Lancashire as patron of the Industrial Welfare Society. The Duke could not fail to be impressed with the spotlessly clean condition of everything he saw. The Duke visited most of the works seeing the laundry, cloakroom, warehouse, box shop, lard refining, advertising department, welfare section, margarine churning, cold stores and power house. The Duke was greeted by a guard of honour of the female employees dressed in their white overalls and left to a guard of the companies Fire Service. By the late 1970’s the margarine works was the second largest manufacturer of edible oils and fats in the country, employing 400 people. By the end of the 1980’s the margarine works closed down and there is now a housing estate on the site. All the roads on the estate have names connected with the production of margarine, to keep the works that started off helping with food shortages through both wars at then what was one of the biggest manufacturer of edible oils and fats in the country, in our hearts and minds. By Debbie Yates