Ford Trafford Park Assembly Plant was a car assembly plant established by
Ford of Britain at
Trafford Park
Trafford Park is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, opposite Salford Quays on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, southwest of Manchester city centre and north of Stretford. Until the l ...
, beside the
Manchester Ship Canal, a short distance to the west of
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. It was the first manufacturing plant established by
Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
outside the United States, though originally it was established merely to assemble vehicles using parts imported from
Dearborn.
First steps in the UK
The first Ford model to be sold in the UK was the
Model A, which was first launched in the American market in 1903. Two of the cars were imported to Britain in the same year, and since then the Ford company's British sales had grown thanks to an enthusiastic and talented entrepreneur named
Percival Perry
Percival Lea Dewhurst Perry, 1st Baron Perry KBE (18 March 1878 – 17 June 1956) was an English motor vehicle manufacturer who served as chairman of Ford Motor Company Limited in Britain for 20 years from its incorporation in 1928, completing al ...
.
[ Cars at this time were extremely expensive, and since ]Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
insisted on payment in full before he would release cars for export from the New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
dockside, Perry's commercial energy was under constant pressure from shortage of credit.[ Nevertheless, by 1911 Perry was selling over 400 US built Fords per year from premises in London's prestigious ]Shaftesbury Avenue
Shaftesbury Avenue is a major road in the West End of London, named after The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. It runs north-easterly from Piccadilly Circus to New Oxford Street, crossing Charing Cross Road at Cambridge Circus. From Piccadilly C ...
.[ It was determined that any further expansion would require more space than was available in central London, and Perry looked for a larger site, while retaining the Shaftesbury Avenue property as a showroom/office complex.][
]
Origins
A disused carriage works at the Trafford Park
Trafford Park is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, opposite Salford Quays on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, southwest of Manchester city centre and north of Stretford. Until the l ...
industrial zone near Manchester was acquired. The original plan was to assemble Ford cars using parts shipped in from United States: the need to invest massively in high cost tooling in order to become a volume car producer had not yet come about, and the former carriage works was assembling Fords by October 1911.[ By now, Ford's principal model was the ]Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...
, and this is the car assembled at the new plant.[
]
Development
The need to import parts from the American mid-west must have complicated the assembly process, since the Trafford Park plant quickly took to purchasing components on its own account far closer to home. For two years bodies were delivered to the Trafford Park assembly location individually on handcarts from a firm of body builders called Scott Brothers, located down the road.[ Ford purchased Scott Brothers in 1912.][ By now, however, Ford in Michigan were beginning to bring together various manufacturing techniques initially at their Piquette Avenue Plant and, after 1910, at their Highland Park factory.][ By 1912 Ford had in effect invented ]assembly line
An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...
auto-production and work went ahead to apply the new techniques at Trafford Park.[ The new techniques were introduced progressively, but between 1912 and 1913 output doubled from 3,000 to 6,000 cars.][ In 1912 the British built Model Ts were offered for £175 on the domestic market at a time when Austin a powerful UK based competitor, were offering their smaller slower 10 hp model for £240:] finding customers for the Manchester built Fords does not seem to have been a problem. Trafford Park was on schedule to produce 10,000 Fords in 1914 when the outbreak of war
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
intervened.
Understanding of mass production techniques advanced considerably between 1914 and 1918, even if the output of the cutting edge technologies was now represented by munitions. Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
took a pacifist line but it appears that the Trafford Park plant remained employed for the production of vehicles, possibly with the emphasis on agricultural tractors. When peace broke out, the Trafford Park plant was extended and output grew rapidly.[ However, in 1919, following several policy disputes, ]Perry
Perry, also known as pear cider, is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears, traditionally the perry pear. It has been common for centuries in England, particularly in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. It is also mad ...
left the company and Ford in Dearborn applied a more direct approach to UK manufacturing.
By the early 1920s, the view was taken that the Trafford Park factory was reaching its limits: in 1924 Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
sent over a senior representative to identify and purchase a suitable site for a larger plant, and later that year a site was acquired at Dagenham
Dagenham () is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Dagenham is centred east of Charing Cross.
It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Forest ...
,[ although Ford UK production continued to be concentrated at Trafford Park until the Dagenham plant became operational in 1931. By this time ]Perry
Perry, also known as pear cider, is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears, traditionally the perry pear. It has been common for centuries in England, particularly in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire. It is also mad ...
had been lured back, appointed chairman of the newly formed British Ford Motor Company Limited in 1928. The final car produced at Trafford Park emerged in October 1931: in the same month the first vehicle emerged from the new Dagenham facility.[
]
Shadow factory: 1939–1944
In 1936, under the shadow factory plan
British shadow factories were the outcome of the Shadow Scheme, a plan devised in 1935 and developed by the British Government in the buildup to World War II to try to meet the urgent need for more aircraft using technology transfer from the mo ...
, the British government
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, image = HM Government logo.svg
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, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
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, date_es ...
appointed Herbert Austin
Herbert Austin, 1st Baron Austin (8 November 186623 May 1941) was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company. For the majority of his career he was known as Sir Herbert Austin, and the Northfield bypass ...
to head a new team within the Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State ...
, to assess and invest in expanding the British aircraft industry in preparation for any future war requirements. Austin was briefed to build nine new factories, and expand or develop the existing facilities at all British located car manufacturing plants, to enable them to quickly switch to aircraft production.
Trafford Park proved highly enticing for producing the Rolls-Royce Merlin
The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engine of 27-litres (1,650 cu in) capacity. Rolls-Royce designed the engine and first ran it in 1933 as a private venture. Initially known as the PV-12, it was late ...
engine. Located close to both major transport links, and giving easy access for the finished product to be supplied to both Metropolitan-Vickers
Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, it was particularly well known for its industrial el ...
also located in Trafford Park (for use in the Avro Manchester), and the Avro factory at Chadderton
Chadderton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, on the River Irk and Rochdale Canal. It is located in the foothills of the Pennines, west of Oldham, south of Rochdale and north-east of Manchester.
...
(for use in the Avro Lancaster
The Avro Lancaster is a British Second World War heavy bomber. It was designed and manufactured by Avro as a contemporary of the Handley Page Halifax, both bombers having been developed to the same specification, as well as the Short Stirlin ...
). Redeveloped by Ford from 1938, it was designed as two separate sections to minimise the impact of bomb damage on production.
As an important industrial area, Trafford Park suffered from extensive bombing, particularly during the Manchester Blitz
The Manchester Blitz (also known as the Christmas Blitz) was the heavy bombing of the city of Manchester and its surrounding areas in North West England during the Second World War by the German ''Luftwaffe''. It was one of three major raids o ...
of December 1940. On the night of 23 December 1940, the Metropolitan-Vickers aircraft factory in Mosley Road was badly damaged, with the loss of the first 13 MV-built Avro Manchester bombers in final assembly. The redeveloped Ford Trafford Park Factory was bombed only a few days after its opening in May 1941.
However, by the end of production in 1944 with the use of the most modern production methods, the factory employed 17,316 workers, who were capable of producing 900 engines a month. As Sir Stanley Hooker stated in his autobiography:
In total, the factory manufactured well over 34,000 engines during the war period, closing at the end of March 1946.
References
{{coord, 53.464164, -2.305566, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title
Trafford Park
Trafford Park is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, opposite Salford Quays on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, southwest of Manchester city centre and north of Stretford. Until the l ...
Former motor vehicle assembly plants
British shadow factories
Buildings and structures in Trafford
Motor vehicle assembly plants in the United Kingdom
Manufacturing plants in England