Image ID: 08911

Croid's Glue Factory, Winthorpe Road, Newark on Trent, 1948

Courtesy of Sovereign Speciality Chemicals Ltd

Winthorpe Road
Newark on Trent
England

Chairman of the company, Mr Harold Cotes, laying the foundation stone at Croid's new factory on Winthorpe Road. The company can trace its origins back to 1911 when Mr P.H. W Serie registered a company known as Improved Liquid Glues Co. Ltd. Up until that time almost every kind of glue was sold as a solid, requiring it to be dissolved in water and boiled before use. It was Mr Serie's idea to manufacture a range of ready-to-use glues in liquid form, making them easier to apply and instantly attractive to both commercial and domestic users. His factory- the first to make so called 'prepared' glues in this country- was located in Croyden, giving rise to the company's first trade name, Croids. Mr Serie's early glues (made in the traditional way from bone and animal hide) proved highly successful and in 1919 when Alcock and Brown became the first aviators to fly non-stop across the Atlantic, their large wood and fabric palace relied on Croid glues in some of its construction. Such success had already led the company to seek new, extended premises in Wapping, and in 1920 it became a subsidiary of the large British Glues and Chemicals combine. A year later, a further move brought Croid to Bulwell in Nottingham, followed eight year later by a further relocation to Bermondsey in London. In 1940 the Bermondsey factory was heavily bombed and Croids production was transferred to a site in Newark already owned by British Glues and Chemicals. BGC had acquired the Newark family glue-making business of Quibell Brothers in 1920. The name Qubells, however, continued to be used for trading purposes until as late as the sixties. Quibell's glue factory was located beside the Trent close to the old Bottom Lock, some distance off Winthorpe Road. Part of the premises survive to this day. With the war over and the Bermondsey factory still requiring considerable repair, Croids decide to remain in Newark and develop their site adjacent to the existing Quibell's factory. Building on from the warehouse loaned to them by BGC, Croids began to develop a new factory complex beside the main London-Edinburgh railway line. And it was the foundation stone for this new undertaking which was laid 50 years ago this month on May 25, 1948. At the stonelaying ceremony the Mayor of Newark (Mr J H Knight) described the new building as 'making history for Newark' establishing a new permanent home for Croid after its previous wanderings around the country. The new factory opened a year later in April, 1949, by the then BGC chairman, Mr Harold Cotes. The Newark Advertiser reported that 'the new building has a smart facade of facing bricks with stone dressings-inside there is a terrazo entrance hall off which lead offices and a terrazo staircase to the upper storey where the laboratory is located'. With the new works in full production the company was reported to be making no fewer than 85 different kinds of glue, each specially formulated for specific purposes-from use in the woodworking and leather industries to commercial packaging and bookbinding. A new department in the late Forties saw the company experimenting with the first PVA emulsion adhesives which were to become the company's principal output during the Fifties and Sixties. Croids played a central role in developing the new PVA adhesive technology, first by buying in the compounds from outside, but later using its own polymers, developed in-house. A great deal of additional pioneering work into the new processes was carried out in the Newark laboratories leading ultimately to the development of the first hot melt adhesives in the UK. Another milestone in the company's history was reached in 1968 when British Glues and Chemicals (including Croid) was taken over by Croda International. From that time onwards the company has gone from strength to strength in Newark and in 1989 celebrated the opening of its new multi-million pound global headquarters at the Winthorpe Road site in Newark. In November 2000 Croda Adhesives World-wide was bought by Sovereign Speciality Chemicals of Chicago USA. The Newark factory continues to operate.

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