Measuring the Electronic World

Tech industries were thriving during the 20th century's first quarter, and Guglielmo Marconi was ahead of the game when in 1896 he brought to the world the concept of wireless telegraphy.  He delivered and set up the first Marconi Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company in Chelmsford the following year.  

St Albans folk are, of course familiar with the name Marconi as one of its companies was a major employer here, but we are perhaps short on the detail as the company was associated with several sites.  So, we will explore exactly where in our East End and elsewhere, the Marconi name came to rest.

Result of the blaze which destroyed the Hill End Brick Works in December 1928.
COURTESY HERTS ADVERTISER

The first homes to be advertised in Longacres in 1937.

Making way for new buildings at Longacres HQ by inventive manoeuvring of the portable canteen building to its new location on the site.
MARCONI STAFF JOURNAL VOLUME 1    

The completed Longacres HQ buildings on the former brickworks site.
COURTESY MARCONI HERITAGE GROUP

An early commercial connection Marconi made was not in St Albans at all, but in Southend.  This was the home of E K Cole, the sole manufacturers of electronic testing instruments in the UK. Many of us may remember their radios under the EKCO brand name.  As electronic equipment became more sophisticated the need for more complex testing instruments proved increasingly essential.  In 1936 the two firms joined forces, but in 1939 the E K Cole/Marconi team were moved, on government instruction, away from Southend's potential enemy danger to a temporary works site in High Wycombe.  A short time later the two teams became one as Marconi purchased Cole shares and a new company formed as Marconi Instruments Limited (MI).

Manager's Secretary Hilda Wallace who was featured
in the staff journal's first edition in 1951.

This is where St Albans enters the story – well almost.  A young song and dance lady by the name of Hilda Wallace – ex Cook's Tours – joined the formative MI as the Manager's Secretary, working from a small house in Radlett.  Whether this cottage was also Hilda's home I'm not certain. Remember, this was wartime and business space was where it was available, not where you would like it to be.

Within a short period space was found in part of a large house in Hatfield Road, St Albans, called Elmhurst, later simply number 29.  This building will be familiar to many citizens as it became the formative home of St Albans College of Further Education – before all the 1959 new buildings went up.  Hilda led a small team of Marconi typists from here and it is from this point that the very necessary company departmentalising was formulated to develop efficiency over multiple sites.

Former straw hat factory featured in a Heather & Heather promotional brochure. Here looking
rather more attractive than the actual building shortly after WW2.

The manufacture of electronic instruments and equipment required the availability of a huge variety of components in ever-increasing quantities and sourced from all over the UK.  But a number were made from scratch at a building in Ridgmont Road.  Not one of the sizeable villas which fill both sides of that road, but the very much  larger former straw hat manufactory which many commuters would have remembered as Heath & Heather (H&H), the herb specialists, whose four-storey building stood next to the Midland railway line by the the City Station.

The work of H&H had been downsized or squeezed into smaller spaces, and Marconi assemblers were installed wherever space could be found. And storage space was required for a large range of components prior to shipping to the High Wycombe works.

Back at the end of 1928 a serious fire had resulted in the closure of the Hill End brick works between Hatfield Road and Hill End Lane (Station Road).  [see top photo] The site remained desolate and unused for some time.  Nearby, housebuilding had begun nearby in 1936 to provide residential accommodation in a new road named Longacres. Work was undertaken in 1939 to clear and level the brickworks site next door and temporary buildings were brought in to become the company's warehouse.  There is no connection between the 1936 Longacres housing development and the Marconi Instruments factory site adjacent to that road, other than the street name.

Day-to-day operation of the company was hardly efficient under such dispersed war-time arrangements, as Miss Wallace discovered; therefore no sooner had the Longacres' residents' 1945 street party taken place than two years of building and moving began on the brickworks site to add the first generation of works buildings to the existing stores.  The entire company of Marconi Instruments Ltd came under one set of roofs for the first time in mid 1947.

Work stations at the Hedley Road service department.
MARCONI STAFF JOURNAL VOLUME 8

Except, that the one roof concept was short lived for a company whose reputation and size kept expanding. The next site which came into the frame; behind Beaumont Works, which was the Nicholson coat factory, was a single storey brick building with its own former basement air raid shelter and ready for new occupants.  MI opened its service department here.  It was quite a complex operation, where equipment arrived for repairs, replacement of parts and investigations about reliability.  The department was undoubtedly hugely significant, as its proved the baseline for all departments. The experience garnered here fed back to improve designs, increase standards and create modifications leading to new models at the main works at Longacres.

Left: part of the Ballito building originally built by T E Smith's Fleet Printing Works.  Right:
the post war expansion building of Ballito and subsequently taken over by Marconi Instruments.
COURTESY MARCONI HERITAGE GROUP

Probably the first of the company's post-war advertising in 1945, and too early to add
the name Longacres to the street address.
    COURTESY GRACIES GUIDE

We're not finished yet, because Fleetville featured more than just Hedley Road.  Even during the dispersed period of wartime the embryonic MI was using space at the large Ballito factory, which itself had turned over to shell casing manufacture.  Later, the post-war Ballito multi-floor block built for new ranges of woollen wear and nylon products, was partly, and then entirely used for MI components and assembly.  Finally, when Courtaulds acquired ownership of the main Ballito mill by acquisition, the site, but  was promptly sold again to MI.

While 1970 was the high-point of MI's occupation of buildings in St Albans' Own East End, the company continued to run a successful business.  There is, of course much more to the MI story, but the only part which remains to be included here, is a mention of prefabs brought to Hill End Lane and St Julians for key workers from the High Wycombe works, who for a few years had commuted to St Albans by special coaches laid on each day. As  building licenses became available a number of permanent homes in Charmouth Road and other locations were made available for a number of MI key employees.

Probably the most well known of the company's buildings, Marconi House on the corner of The Strand and Aldwych, has not been further mentioned, along with buildings in Stevenage, Colchester and Chelmsford.  They might make a blog on another occasion.

Finally, there may be a number of former MI employees who are able to fill in gaps in the firm's location story – for example, whereabouts in High Wycombe were the two entities sent at the beginning of hostilities?  Or perhaps that is still a state secret!