Category Archives: Canned food

Canned food, Food

Oranges and lemons: Samuel Hanson & Son

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Samuel Hanson & Son traded independently for over 200 years.

The early years of the business
Samuel Hanson established premises at 47 Botolph Lane in the City of London from 1747. The Hanson family are believed to have originated from Yorkshire.

Hanson traded as a fruit importer, mostly dealing in oranges, but also importing lemons and dried fruits from the Mediterranean area.

Samuel Hanson’s son, also called Samuel Hanson (1744 – 1829), took control of the business from 1763. He continued the trade in oranges. The business remained modest yet profitable.

Samuel Hanson III
Samuel Hanson (1804 – 1882), grandson of the founder, became the senior partner from 1825. He was a dedicated Evangelical Christian.

Nathaniel Smith Machin (1775 – 1837) had joined the business by 1830. His daughter was married to Samuel Hanson in 1832.

Batger & Co, the sugar refining and confectionery business of Bishopsgate Street, London, was acquired in 1856. Frederick Machin, son of N S Machin, was appointed manager of Batger & Co.

Frederick Machin had assumed full control of Batger & Co by 1864.

Reginald Hanson (1840 – 1905) joined his father in the business from the 1860s.

Merger with Jones, Evison & Barter
Samuel Hanson & Sons merged with Jones, Evison & Barter, tea and coffee merchants of Borough, Southwark, to form Samuel Hanson, Son, Evison & Barter from 1871. Samuel Hanson took the opportunity to retire, and the business was operated by Reginald Hanson, Edward Evison (1833 – 1907) and Henry Barter (1831 – 1889).

A branded coffee, Red White & Blue, was introduced from 1872. It was to prove one of the most successful product lines.

The Botolph Lane premises were enlarged and refronted in 1882.

Samuel Hanson died as a highly wealthy man in 1882. His personal estate was valued at over £134,000.

Edward Evison left the partnership in 1885, and the firm was continued by Reginald Hanson and Henry Barter under the name Samuel Hanson, Son & Barter. Reginald Hanson was the senior partner. The firm traded in fruits, tea, coffee, sugar, spices and wine.

Frederick George Ivey (1845 – 1914) was admitted into the partnership from around 1885.

Supported by able partners, Reginald Hanson was able to pursue outside interests. He served as Sheriff of London in 1881-82 and as Lord Mayor of London in 1886-87. He was knighted in 1882 and created a baronet in 1887.

Sir Reginald Hanson (1840 – 1905) in 1899

Henry Barter died in 1889 with a net personalty valued at £149,000.  Upon his death the name of the firm reverted to Samuel Hanson & Son. That year Thomas Cameron Tanner (1848 – 1930) became a partner.

Francis Stanhope Hanson (1868 – 1910), son of Sir Reginald Hanson, and his cousin, Percy Machin (born 1866), entered the firm as partners from 1899.

Sir Reginald Hanson died in 1905 with a gross estate valued at £495,416.

Edward Evison died in 1907 with an estate valued at £142,916.

Red, White & Blue was one of the most successful branded coffee products in Britain by 1907.

Francis Stanhope Hanson was knighted in 1909. He died the following year, and left a net personalty valued at £159,055. He was the last member of the Hanson family line to work for the business.

Hundreds of people were employed in 1914. The active partners were Frederick George Ivey, Thomas Cameron Tanner, Percy Machin and R C Tanner.

Frederick George Ivey died in 1914 and left an estate valued at £70,667. He left £40,000 for charitable causes and about £10,000 to Samuel Hanson & Son employees.

Noel Percy Machin (1898 – 1977) joined the firm in 1921. He became a partner from 1929.

Thomas Cameron Tanner died in 1930 with an estate valued at £191,094.

Samuel Hanson & Son is incorporated
Samuel Hanson & Son was incorporated as a private limited company in 1932. Noel Percy Machin was made joint-managing director.

A large trade in tinned lobster from Newfoundland had been established by the early 1930s. Tinned salmon was imported from British Columbia from around 1933.

A large canning factory was established at Toddington, Gloucestershire, from 1934.

Samuel Hanson & Son went public from 1935, with Percy Machin as chairman. The head office was located at the same site as 1747. Share capital amounted to £550,000.

The company had approximately 14,000 regular trade customers on its books. The business had never sustained an annual trading loss.

Samuel Hanson & Son largely supplied the armed forces during the Second World War. Red White & Blue coffee production continued for the duration of the conflict.

Financial difficulties and acquisition by Cerebos
Samuel Hanson & Son entered into difficulties during the Second World War and in the post-war period. Owing to a national dollar shortage, the company was forced to end its £1 million a year trade in California canned fruits and in Alaskan and Canadian tinned salmon, with a consequential loss of around £100,000 a year in gross profit.

Following the Second World War Samuel Hanson & Son acquired Home Grown Chicory, a chicory processing plant at Lakenheath, Suffolk.

Samuel Hanson & Son employed 500 people by 1947.

Samuel Hanson & Son paid its last ever dividend in 1949. Despite its economic troubles, Samuel Hanson & Son was able to maintain its reputation for high quality goods.

Samuel Hanson & Son had largely made the transition from importing foods to manufacturing finished products by 1951.

Samuel Hanson & Son was subject to a friendly takeover by Cerebos for £195,000 in cash in 1965. By this time Hanson was engaged in citrus processing, canning, chicory processing and wholesale distribution. Hanson also owned a South African subsidiary in Durban.

References
* The British Newspaper Archive
* The Times Digital Archive
* The Financial Times Digital Archive
* Hansons of Eastcheap by George Godwin (1947)

Canned food

From little acorns: Ye Olde Oak

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Ye Olde Oak is the leading hot dog brand in Britain.

Origins of the business
Robert J Smith (born 1832) was a cattle dealer from Boston, Lincolnshire. He had relocated to Liverpool, which was a leading hub for the cattle trade, by 1871.

Rowland James Smith (1864 – 1926) succeeded his father as head of the business. Operations were transferred to London.

Frank Rowland Smith (1894 – 1945) joined his father and the firm began to trade as Rowland Smith & Son.

An extensive trade in fresh meat from Europe was developed.

Trade in processed meat begins; Ye Olde Oak brand is introduced
The British government established a trade embargo on fresh pork from mainland Europe in 1926. As a result, Rowland Smith & Son developed a large trade in imported Dutch bacon. From around this time the business also began to import tinned meat.

The Ye Olde Oak brand was first registered for tinned meats in 1933.

Frank Rowland Smith had entered into retirement by 1939, and he was succeeded by his two sons, Robert Frank Rowland Smith (1902 – 1968) and Rowland William Smith.

Ye Olde Oak became the first canned meat brand in Britain to be advertised on colour television in 1956.

Ye Olde Oak became the major tinned ham brand in Britain, with one third of the market by 1973.

Struik Foods of the Netherlands began to supply Rowland Smith & Son with frankfurters from 1979.

Rowland Smith & Son is acquired by Hans Struik
Hans Struik (born 1940) acquired Rowland Smith & Son in 1984.

The company name was changed to Ye Olde Oak Ltd from 1985.

Ye Olde Oak hot dogs were found to contain just 50 percent meat, but less than that when collagens and fat were excluded, according to an investigation by The Food Commission in 2005.

Ye Olde Oak tinned ham was found to contain 37 percent water and just 55 percent meat, according to a study conducted by Which? magazine in 2005.

Acknowledgements
This article was produced with kind assistance from Rowland James Smith.

Canned food

Preserving history: C & E Morton

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C & E Morton was a large packaged foods producer. Workers from C & E Morton established Millwall Football Club.

J T Morton
John Thomas Morton (1830 – 1897) was born on Oxford Street, London. He established a small factory at Clayhills, Aberdeen from 1849 in order to supply sailing ships with preserved foods.

Morton had established a base in London by 1851.

Almost all production was destined for the export market. A major early product was tinned sardines.

Morton was a dedicated Puritan, and was a devout observer of the Sabbath. He was a reserved man, with very few close associates, and his only known sentiment was towards his mother. He was emotionally cool, but just and honest.

The head office and factory in London were based at Leadenhall Street by 1858. The site was located nearby to one of the largest meat markets in the world.

The London premises were relocated to a larger site on Leadenhall Street from 1866.

Expanding sales saw Clayhills production relocated to a new factory on Mount Street in the Rosemount area of Aberdeen from 1870.

A manufacturing facility was established at Millwall from around 1872, in a former oil factory belong to Price & Co.

Millwall Football Club was established by J T Morton tinsmiths in 1885.

The Aberdeen factory employed hundreds of workers by the 1880s. It was one of the largest and best-equipped canneries in Britain by 1892.

The success of J T Morton was based on a quality product, slim profit margins, and a firm focus on export markets.

An additional factory had been established at Falmouth, Cornwall by 1897.

John Thomas Morton died as a highly wealthy man in 1897. He left an estate valued at £714,186. He dedicated over half of his wealth to churches and charities. His manager, who had been with the company for nearly 40 years, and helped to build his fortune, received nothing.

C & E Morton
The business was inherited by his two sons, Charles Douglas Morton (1861 – 1944) and Edward Donald Morton (1866 – 1940). The two men had previously worked as underwriters for Lloyd’s, the insurance business. A curious codicil of their father’s will was that the two sons were not allowed to trade under the J T Morton name, so the firm became known as C & E Morton.

C D Morton was an energetic and generous man. The two brothers established agents in overseas markets, which increased sales. They travelled the world extensively to attend to their overseas trade.

C & E Morton was a substantial supplier of food to the military during the Boer War.

C & E Morton was one of the three largest producers of tinned fish in the world by 1909, alongside Maconochie Brothers and Crosse & Blackwell.

C & E Morton was registered as a public company with a capital of £650,000 in 1912. There were premises at Leadenhall Street, Millwall, Lowestoft, Aberdeen and Mevagissey, Polruan and West Looe in Cornwall.

1,600 workers at the Millwall factory went on strike in March 1914, in protest against girls under the age of 18 being hired, which they argued threatened to undercut their wages. The strike resulted in a victory for the workforce.

Morton was singular among preserved provisions manufacturers in normally refusing to hire under 18 year olds. They claimed that they had been driven to do so because of difficulties in sourcing sufficient labour. They also asserted that their factory workers were among the most highly-paid in London.

Rations were produced for the British military during the First World War. The company continued to pay half-wages to its staff who were serving in the armed forces.

C & E Morton entered the home market from 1923-4.

Crosse & Blackwell planned to acquire C & E Morton in 1926, but the proposed deal fell through due to an uncertain economic climate.

Increasing import tariffs overseas hurt the business during the 1930s. Factories were established in foreign markets in order to circumvent such charges.

R S Murray & Co, a confectionery manufacturer, was acquired in 1936.

There were three large factories at Millwall, Cubitt Town and Lowestoft in 1939. Thousands of people were employed. The Lowestoft site was the largest herring cannery in Britain.

E D Morton died in 1940 and left an estate valued at £213,295.

Declining exports of tinned herring to Scandinavia saw C & E Morton enter into the production of tinned peas at Lowestoft.

Sale to Beecham and Hillsdown Holdings
Beecham, a large consumer goods group, acquired the struggling C & E Morton for £180,000 in 1945. Beecham concentrated production at Lowestoft.

C & E Morton was absorbed into a new subsidiary, Beecham Foods, from 1955. Lowestoft began to produce other tinned vegetables as well as peas, such as runner beans, broad beans and carrots. Processed peas; dried peas that were reconstituted; began to be canned.

Beecham struggled to build scale in canned foods, and the location of the Lowestoft site rendered distribution costly. The factory was saved from closure due to a sense of social responsibility by Beecham management.

The tinned vegetables market had become stagnant by the early 1980s, as supermarket own-label offerings had taken significant market share. Morton Brands was sold to Hillsdown Holdings for £8.5 million in 1986.

The Lowestoft factory, which employed 160 people, was closed down in 1988. Morton branded products were available in Britain until at least the mid-1990s.

The Morton brand name is still used for tinned goods in India, although the former subsidiary has been independent since 1947.

Canned food

Herring aid: Maconochie Brothers

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Maconochie Brothers was the largest tinned food manufacturer in the world during the late Victorian period. It was probably the largest supplier of food to the British armed forces during the First World War.

Establishment and early growth
James Maconochie (1850 – 1895) was born in Wakefield, the son of the chief prison warden. He established a fishmongers business in Lowestoft, Suffolk, in 1870. Archibald White Maconochie (1855 – 1926) eschewed his ambition to become an army officer, and joined his brother in the growing business from around 1872.

The Maconochie brothers entered into the canning of herring for the London market from 1873. In an age before widespread artificial refrigeration, canned fish was a much more important commodity than it is today.

Archibald White Maconochie (1855 – 1926) in 1901

The largest fish canners in the world
A new factory was established at Lowestoft in 1877. It was the largest fish and meat canning factory in Britain.

Archibald Maconochie, a colourful figure, soon took the lead in the venture, and combined a shrewd business mind with high energy (he professed to never feeling tired). An inventive man, he also developed many of the firm’s patents himself. James Maconochie took responsibility for export sales in the British colonies.

A second factory, for canning herring, was established at Fraserburgh, Aberdeen in 1883. Maconochie Brothers was the largest producer of tinned fish in the world. Maconochie Brothers also entered into the production of pickles, potted meats, soup and sauces.

The fish canning factory at Fraserburgh was the largest in Britain, and possibly the world by 1886, and employed over 350 workers during peak periods. 97 million fish were canned in the 1888 season.

The Lowestoft site employed over 1,000 people by 1889.

Archibald Maconochie was a strong-willed and uncompromising man. Even after making his fortune he continued to travel in the third class train carriage. When asked why he did this, he responded, “simply because there’s not a fourth!”

Archibald Maconochie was involved in an altercation with one of his tinsmiths in 1888. Maconochie punched his employee in the mouth in a blow that knocked him to the ground, and then proceeded to strangle, repeatedly punch, and threaten to kill him. As a result of the incident Maconochie was fined £2 and ordered to pay court costs.

Whilst undoubtedly an overreaction, Maconochie’s anger stemmed from the powerful position of the tinsmiths, to whom hundreds of production days were lost due to strikes. Maconochie invested heavily in canning technology in an attempt to negate their influence, and by the turn of the century manual smoldering had been replaced by high pressure sealing.

Valuable army contract work
Maconochie Brothers was a pioneer in long-life military rations. The Maconochie “Patent Emergency Ration” had been introduced by 1889. It contained three tins which could supply a soldier’s daily food needs. The largest tin contained meat and farina, a form of milled wheat with a high carbohydrate content. The second tin contained soup, and the third tin contained cocoa.

James Maconochie died in 1895. He was remembered as a kindly man.

The rapid expansion of colonial sales saw the establishment of a new factory across a three acre site on Westferry Road in Millwall, London in 1897. The headquarters of the business were also relocated to Millwall.

Maconochie Brothers had a production capacity of 100,000 tins of food per day by 1900, and was the largest tinned foods producer in the world.

Archibald Maconochie represented East Aberdeenshire as a Member of Parliament between 1900 and 1906. As MPs were forbidden from holding government contracts, Maconochie Brothers was incorporated as a limited company with a capital of £100,000 in 1900. Maconochie continued to effectively control the company, personally holding 80 percent of the shares in the business, with family members holding the remainder.

Maconochie Brothers was the largest single food supplier to the British Army between 1900 and 1905, with contracts worth a total of £1 million. At its peak the company engaged 1,500 people in British military contract production. Maconochie Brothers supplied around 45 percent of British army rations during the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902).

The Pan Yan Pickle trademark was first registered in 1903. The brand had achieved substantial success by 1907.

Maconochie Brothers reverted to private ownership from 1908. The business was the largest supplier of tinned fish in the world, with up to 30 percent of the British market. Between 250 and 300 tons of herring were canned daily during the season at Fraserburgh.

The army food supply contract remained in place throughout the First World War. Maconochie Brothers was probably the largest supplier of food to the British armed forces during the conflict. Best known at this time for its tinned stew, “Maconochie” became military shorthand for a meat ration.

An image of the Maconochie army ration. Image used under licence of the Imperial War Museum.

Corporal R Derby Holmes wrote memorably of the Maconochie ration in 1918:

It is my personal opinion that the inventor brought to his task an imperfect knowledge of cookery and a perverted imagination. Open a can of Maconochie and you find a gooey gob of grease, like rancid lard. Investigate and find chunks of carrot and other unidentifiable material, and now and then a bit of mysterious meat… [the British soldier] regards it as a very inferior grade of garbage… he’s right.

Pan Yan was easily the highest-selling pickle in the world by 1924. It contained mangoes and vegetables in a sweet-sour sauce. An unofficial recipe for Pan Yan pickle during this period suggested it contained marrow, onion, apple, tomato, gherkin, tamarind, mustard, sugar and vinegar.

The Millwall works employed over 1,000 people by 1926.

Death of Archibald Maconochie and subsequent decline
Archibald Maconochie died in 1926, and left a net personalty valued at £107,985. His will contained an unusual codicil stipulating that if any of his children were to marry a Roman Catholic they should be disinherited.

The company suffered following the loss of Maconochie’s strong leadership. The two Lowestoft factories were sold to the Co-operative Wholesale Society in 1928-29 and 1932.

Pan Yan pickle had annual sales of over four million bottles by the mid-1930s.

The Millwall factory was destroyed by German bombs in 1940, and a new site was acquired at Hadfield, Derbyshire.

In the post-war period the Fraserburgh factory employed 500 people and the Hadfield site employed about 550 people.

Maconochie Brothers was converted into a public company with an authorised capital of £600,000 in 1948.

Pan Yan remained the highest-selling sweet pickle in Britain as late as 1953.

H S Whiteside and Rowntree
Inconsistent herring yields rendered the Fraserburgh site unprofitable, and it was closed with the loss of 190 jobs in 1958.

Maconochie Brothers became loss-making, and the company was acquired by H S Whiteside, the manufacturer of Sun-Pat peanut butter, for £287,000 in 1958. H S Whiteside had a reputation as a business-turnaround specialist.

H S Whiteside announced that as a result of the introduction of new management and marketing techniques, Maconochie Brothers had re-entered into profitability by 1960. However management was later found to have engaged in fraud, and had underreported the extent of profit losses. The business entered into receivership in 1965. Rowntree Mackintosh, a confectionery manufacturer, acquired Sun Pat, Pan Yan, the Hadfield site and the Maconochie Brothers brand name for £500,000 in 1967.

Decline of Pan Yan Pickle
Rowntree Mackintosh was acquired by Nestle of Switzerland in 1987. Nestle already owned Crosse & Blackwell, best known for Branston Pickle.

At some stage mangoes were removed from the Pan Yan Pickle recipe. By the 1990s its ingredients were listed as swede, sugar, apples, carrots, vinegar, modified starch, gherkins, acetic acid, peppers, onions, spices, caramel and flavourings. After years of falling sales, largely due to the success of Branston Pickle, production of Pan Yan was discontinued in 2000.

Nestle sold its British ambient foods business, including Sun Pat and Gale’s honey, to Premier Foods in 2002.

The only known recipe for Pan Yan pickle was destroyed in a factory fire in 2004.

The Hadfield site was closed with the loss of 250 jobs in 2005.

Canned food, Spreads & sauces

Moir than meets the eye: John Moir & Son

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John Moir was a pioneer in the early tinned fish and meat trade. It survives as a leading dessert brand in South Africa.

John Moir and Benjamin Moir
John Moir (1766 – 1833) was born in Musselburgh, Scotland. He established himself as a provisions merchant with premises at 56 Virginia Street, Aberdeen.

John Moir became the first person in Britain to mass produce tinned fish, initially salmon, from around 1812. Moir largely targeted export markets. Soon, tinned meats, game, soup and vegetables were also sold.

Progress was initially slow, as a sceptical public had to be convinced of the merits of tinned foods.

Benjamin Moir (1807 – 1872) joined the firm, which became known as John Moir & Son. He was regarded as an excellent businessman.

John Moir died in 1833.

John Moir & Son won extensive contracts to provide preserved meats to British and French troops during the Crimean War in the mid-1850s. For six consecutive weeks the works produced 5,000 6lb tins of meat every day.

John Moir & Son was the largest preserved food manufacturer in Scotland by 1868. Annual preserved meat production averaged around 2.5 million lbs (c. 1.1 million kg). Produce was largely sent to London to be sold through high-end retailers. Key export markets included India, China and Australia. The business held a Royal Warrant to supply the Duke of Edinburgh.

John Moir & Son first produced marmalade for the home trade from 1869.

John Moir Clark
Benjamin Moir died unmarried in 1872, and the business was transferred to his nephew, John Moir Clark (1836 – 1896). The business was to greatly expand under his leadership.

Around 250 people, principally young women, were employed by 1873.

King Alfonso XII (1857 – 1885) of Spain granted John Moir & Son an exclusive licence to pulp oranges for export in Seville from 1877. Close to the source of the fruit, it avoided wastage losses which occurred during transit, and allowed the company to use the freshest oranges.

John Moir Clark relocated the focus of the business to London. He had established a factory at Glasshouse Fields, Brook Street and a head office at 148 Leadenhall Street by 1878.

John Moir & Son is established as a limited company
To increase funds for expansion, John Moir & Son became a limited company from 1881 with a capital of £150,000. The company had over 10,000 wholesale customers.

An American canning factory was established at Wilmington, Delaware from 1881. The one acre site was chosen due to its strong distribution network of waterways and train lines. The building and machinery cost $40,000, and it was one of the best equipped canning facilities in the United States. A staff of 200 to 300 was employed during periods of peak demand. The factory had a capacity to produce five million lbs (c.2.3 million kg) of goods a year. Produce was predominately destined for the London headquarters. Alphonse Biardot, a French chef of repute, was appointed as manager of the factory.

John Moir Clark retired from the board of directors of John Moir & Sons in 1886.*

Company capital was reduced to £50,000 in 1888 due to profit losses sustained in America and elsewhere, and the Delaware factory was divested.

John Moir Clark entered into bankruptcy in 1893, and died in 1896.

The head office was relocated to 9-10 Great Tower Street, London from 1898.

John Moir & Son held a valuable contract to supply rations to the British Army during the Boer War.

King Edward VII awarded John Moir & Son a Royal Warrant for preserved provisions in 1901.

The Aberdeen factory was closed in 1910 in order to reduce costs.

Robert Falcon Scott took Moir tinned meat with him on his fatal expedition to the Antarctic.

The company benefited from extensive military contracts during the First World War.

A small factory was acquired in Woodstock, Cape Town, South Africa from 1920.

Decline of the business
The wartime economic boom was soon followed by a slump, which hit the preserved foods industry hard. The British business made successive profit losses due to low sales between 1920 and 1925. The South Africa subsidiary remained profitable.

John Moir & Son rejected numerous takeover offers in 1925, and instead entered into steady decline. The Virginia Street premises in Aberdeen were divested in 1927. Company capital was reduced from £150,000 to £45,000 in 1933.

The South African subsidiary was divested in 1948.

John Moir & Son entered into voluntary liquidation in 1950 and the London premises were divested.

The South African branch continued to prosper however, and as of 2015, Moir’s is the leading brand for jellies, custard powder and instant desserts in that market.

Notes
* John Moir Clark presumably resigned due to pressure from the other board members, given the company’s decline in profitability.

Canned food

Wallace Smedley and the National Canning Company

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Wallace Smedley pioneered the British canning industry, and his business was the largest of its kind in Britain from the 1920s into the 1950s. The business entered into decline after supermarkets introduced own-label tinned foods, but the brand can still be found in LIDL and Co-op stores.

Wallace Smedley
Samuel “Wallace” Smedley (1877 – 1958) was born in Aston, Birmingham, the son of a poor Quaker coal merchant. He was raised in Evesham, Worcestershire.

Smedley left school at the age of eleven and found employment as a door-to-door salesman selling primroses. He entered the fruit trade from the age of 14.

Smedley was appointed salesman to John Idiens & Sons, a large Evesham fruit firm, from the age of 18. He had been promoted to manager of the Wisbech branch within a year, where he demonstrated considerable acumen as a buyer.

Samuel Wallace Smedley (1877 – 1958)

With savings of £250 Smedley entered into business for himself as a fruit and potato merchant from 1905. S W Smedley & Co grew to become one of the largest fruit and vegetable firms in Britain, with operations in London, Wisbech, Evesham, Maidstone and Worcester.

Wallace Smedley became wealthy. He pleaded guilty to tax evasion, and was fined £500 plus court costs in 1921. Upon hearing the outcome he promptly fainted in the courtroom.

Smedley establishes the National Canning Company
Californian canning companies dominated the tinned fruit industry, but the supply to Britain had been disrupted during the First World War. Meanwhile, large amounts of fruit in Britain went to waste during seasonal gluts. Wallace Smedley determined to establish his own fruit canning operation, and went on a three month fact-finding mission to the United States.

Smedley returned to England and established the National Canning Company, with a factory at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire in 1924. Smedley’s was the first large-scale canning business in Britain, and was to prove an immediate success. In the first year one million tins of fruit were produced. Output doubled every year from 1924 to 1931.

The office building at Wisbech (2014)

A second factory was opened in Evesham, the centre of the English plum-growing trade, from 1927. Three additional sites were established at Paddock Wood in Kent, where cherries were canned, Dundee, where raspberries were processed, and Spalding, Lincolnshire, in 1931.

The Evesham factory was relocated to a new three-acre site in 1931. The site employed over 400 people and had a daily production capacity of 35,000 cans and 10,000 bottles of fruit.

The canning industry in Britain experienced rapid expansion, with National Canning Co at the forefront. It was the largest canning operation in Britain by 1931, with an annual output of over 20 million cans and around 20 percent of the canned goods market. By this time the company had an authorised capital of £350,000.

The Wisbech site produced 500,000 cans of fruit and vegetables every day during the seven-month peak period. The plant was open 24 hours a day and employed nearly 800 people. Around half of production was dedicated to peas. The site manufactured pork & beans during the off-season.

National Canning became the first company to tin new potatoes in Britain from 1931.

A disused jam factory in Ely, Cambridgeshire, was acquired to tin fruit from 1932.

Smedley entered into fish canning with the acquisition of the Norseland Canning Company of Leeds, with 400 to 500 employees, in 1932. A large fish canning factory was established in Dundee from 1933.

Smedley acquired peas from 3,000 acres of farmland in 1933, mostly from fields in East Anglia. Smedley was the largest producer of tinned peas in the world.

Smedley determined to concentrate on his canning company, and gifted his potato and fruit merchants business to his brother Alfred Smedley in 1933.

British Fruit Ltd, with a factory at Faversham in Kent, was acquired in 1935.

National Canning Company employed over 4,000 people across nine factories by 1935. 30 to 40 million cans of fruit and vegetables were produced every year.

National Canning enters the frozen foods market
National Canning Company began to sell frozen vegetables from 1937. These were the first quick-frozen vegetables to be mass-produced in Britain.

Baird Wolton & May Ltd, with a cannery at Barming, Kent, was acquired in 1938.

The Norseland Canning Company was divested in 1938.

National Canning Company had twelve sites across Britain by 1938, and held over 25 percent of the canned fruits and peas market. Over 200 million tins were produced every year.

As late as 1939 Smedley was one of only three firms involved in quick-freezing fruit and vegetables in Britain, the others being Chivers of Histon and Bailey of Ware.

National Canning Co was one of the largest fruit and vegetable growers in Britain by 1940. The company owned 3,000 acres in Scotland, 2,000 acres in Worcestershire and further acreage in Lincolnshire. Over 2,500 people were directly employed, with further thousands indirectly employed.

Much of production went to the armed forces during the Second World War. Defined as a luxury good by the Ministry of Food, quick-freezing was prohibited during the Second World War.

Post-war developments
Wallace Smedley donated Wallace House as a social club for the people of Evesham in 1946.

A factory at Blairgowrie, near Dundee, was acquired in 1946 and used to tin raspberries and other fruits and vegetables.

The Kingsway, Dundee site employed nearly 700 people by 1947.

A disused potato flour factory at Monikie, Dundee, was acquired to can peas and fruit in 1947.

A shortage of tinplate for cans saw the six National Canning Company factories temporarily closed in 1951.

Trading profits of over £1 million were registered for the first time in 1952.

Wallace Venables Smedley
Wallace Smedley retired from business due to failing health and old age in 1953. He was succeeded in the role of chairman by his eldest son, Wallace Venables Smedley (1907 – 1981). His brother, Graham Powell Smedley (1909 – 1983), was appointed as joint managing director. Authorised capital was increased to £950,000.

National Canning Co was the largest canning company in Britain in 1954.

Frozen meats and fish were added to the product range. The company became the first in Britain to produce tinned spaghetti bolognese and tinned ravioli.

Wallace Smedley died in 1958. He left a net estate valued at £398,657. After providing provision for his widow, all of his estate went to providing homes for disadvantaged elderly people.

The Spalding site was expanded and modernised, at a cost of £750,000, in 1958. It left Smedley’s with one of the largest cold storage units in Britain.

Acqusition by Imperial Tobacco
Wallace Venables Smedley sold the business to Imperial Tobacco for £9.6 million in cash in 1968. Imperial was keen to diversify from its core tobacco business, and had acquired HP Foods (including Lea & Perrins) a year earlier, and also owned the Golden Wonder crisps brand. Imperial provided the company with capital and management expertise.

Imperial acquired Ross, the frozen foods group, in 1969, and merged its operations with Smedley’s. Both groups had each previously held around five percent of the British frozen food market.

Wallace Venables Smedley retired as chairman following a stroke in 1970. He was replaced by his son, Michael Smedley (died 2021).

Smedley products were exported to 96 different countries by 1972. A large proportion of sales were made to British armed forces stationed abroad.

Smedley was merged with HP Foods in 1972. Smedley’s held nearly 30 percent of the home-grown canned fruit market, and a large share of the home-grown tinned vegetables trade.

The Smedley business enters into decline
Smedley’s began to struggle as public taste switched from tinned to fresh and frozen vegetables. The four-acre Evesham site was closed in 1973.

Three more unprofitable factories, two in Faversham, Kent and one in Blairgowrie, were closed with the loss of 840 jobs in 1979. Michael Smedley, the grandson of the founder, resigned from the board of directors in protest.

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Smedley’s registered a profit loss of £1.5 million in 1980. The loss-making Wisbech factory was closed with the loss of 480 jobs in 1981.

Imperial Tobacco merged Smedley’s with Lockwoods, a loss-making canning operation owned by Tozer Kemsley & Millbourn, to form a joint-venture in 1981. The merger proved to be a disaster.

Smedley’s losses became heavier, and it was sold to Hillsdown Holdings for a nominal sum of £1 in March 1983. Net assets of Smedley’s totalled £6.6 million, but losses for the previous year totalled £7.4 million.

Hillsdown’s managing director was confident that he could turn around the Smedley’s business within a year. The Smedley operations were consolidated into two plants, one in Scotland and one in Cambridgeshire.

Smedley had re-entered into profitability by July 1983. Smedley-Lockwood was the largest food-canning operation in Britain by 1986.

Hillsdown Holdings morphed into Premier Foods. Premier Foods sold its canning operations, including Smedley’s, to Princes of Liverpool in 2011.

Smedley products are not usually found in the major British supermarkets, but can often be found in Co-op and discount retailers such as LIDL.

Canned food

Can-do spirit: a history of Farrow’s peas

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Farrow & Co ranked as one of the largest industrial concerns in Peterborough. Farrow’s marrowfat peas are still sold in Britain.

Farrow & Co is established
Joseph Farrow Sr (1815 – 1898), was from Dowsdale in Lincolnshire. He established himself as a manufacturer of mushroom ketchup at Parson Drove near Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, from 1840. Mushroom ketchup was a popular condiment of the period.

Joseph Farrow Jr (1850 – 1939) had entered his father’s business by 1876. He was a dedicated Baptist, a lifelong non-smoker, a Liberal and a temperance advocate.

Joseph Farrow Sr retired as a gentleman around 1883. Joseph Farrow Jr and his wife Mary Farrow (1844 – 1926) continued the business.

Joseph Farrow Jr established a new mushroom ketchup factory at a former brewery in Holbeach, Lincolnshire, from 1883.

Mustard production was commenced from 1888. Farrow was keen to break the duopoly on the mustard trade, which was controlled by J & J Colman of Norwich and Keen of London.

A house and former granary at South Square, Boston were acquired in 1889. The premises were converted into a factory in order to accommodate increasing demand for Farrow’s mustard. The site was chosen as it had space for expansion and offered good railway links. There was an initial staff of 60 people.

Joseph Algernon “Algy” Farrow (1874 – 1949) joined his father in business. He was a warm-hearted, egalitarian man.

Farrow & Co claimed to have been the first business in England to sell dried peas in packets.

Farrow & Co enters into mass production
Expanding sales saw production relocated to a large five-storey model factory on Fletton Avenue, Peterborough, from 1902. The site was located close to the Great Northern Railway. The factory employed up to 300 people.

Farrow peas and mustard were the leading product lines, and were branded under the A1 trademark, (no relation to Brand’s A1 sauce). Much of the company’s mustard seed was grown on its own farms. A large export market for dried peas was developed in South Africa.

Farrow & Co claimed to be the largest manufacturer of mushroom ketchup in the world in 1904.

The Boston and Holbeach factories were closed in order to centralise all production at Peterborough.

Joseph Farrow & Co is acquired by Colman’s
J & J Colman, mustard manufacturers of Norwich, acquired Joseph Farrow & Co in 1912. The business was registered as a limited company. Farrow & Co was one of the largest mustard manufacturers in Britain, and Colman was probably motivated by a desire to increase its control of the market.

Farrow & Co acquired its leading competitors in mustard production later that year. Barringer & Co, Moss Rimmington & Co and Sadler’s Mustard were all acquired. To absorb this new production, Farrow reopened its Holbeach factory, and reopened the Boston site as a warehouse. The Peterborough site was also expanded.

Farrow & Co introduced a 48-hour working week for men, and a 44-hour week for women.

Farrow & Co entered into pea canning from 1930. Mass canning was enabled by the development of pea harvesting machinery.

Production of Farrow’s mustard was relocated to Norwich from 1931. Marketing of the mustard was ended, and the product was discontinued.

The Peterborough factory was greatly extended in order to can fruit, as well as increase the pea canning operation, in 1932. The factory was one of the foremost canneries in Britain. Fruit canning focused on English soft fruits such as gooseberries, strawberries, blackberries and plums. At the height of the fruit-picking season up to 250 women were employed in the canning process.

Pea canning was the main business by the mid-1930s.

Joseph Farrow Jr died in 1939. The role of company chairman was assumed by Joseph Algernon Farrow.

The vegetable canning operation was enlarged in 1940, and the peak staffing levels were doubled.

Much of production was dedicated to the armed forces during the Second World War.

By the end of the Second World War, Farrow & Co was one of the principal industrial concerns in Peterborough, behind brickmaking and ranked alongside sugar beet processing.

R W Gale & Co Ltd of London, a processor of honey, was acquired in 1948.

Joseph Algernon Farrow was chairman of Farrow & Co until his death in 1949. He left an estate valued at £58,000.

The growth period for canned foods had largely ended by the early 1950s. R W Gale & Co production was relocated to Peterborough from 1951.

Aided by the popularity of Gale’s honey, Farrow & Co was the largest subsidiary of J & J Colman by 1961. Gale’s honey was the market leader in Britain.

The canning business is sold and the Peterborough factory is closed
The Farrow & Co canned vegetables business was sold to Batchelors of Sheffield, a Unilever subsidiary, in 1971.

J & J Colman continued to manufacture Gale’s honey and preserves at Peterborough, until the factory was closed with the loss of 250 jobs in 1973. Production was relocated to Norwich.

Unilever sold Batchelors to the Campbell Soup Company in 2001. Batchelors was sold to Premier Foods in 2006. Premier Foods sold the Farrow’s brand to Princes Foods of Liverpool in 2011.

Farrow’s Marrowfat peas are still sold.