Category Archives: Industry

United Filters and Engineering Co., Ltd.

Listed in the 1963 List of Factories at 49 St Marks Road, making Carbon Filters
Presumably the ‘engineering works’ shown on this 1952 OS map:

1952 OS map

In December 1948 the company wrote to complain to Mitcham Borough Council about damage done to their premises after the adjacent nursery was abandoned by Mizen Brothers. The company wanted to know when the housing estate on Elm Nursery was to be started. The council said they were not liable for any damage and were waiting on the Ministry of Health who were still examining the plans. It was that ministry that would provide the loan to the council to build the estate. The council said that the MP, Mr T. Braddock would be asked to give assistance with ‘a view to expediting the approval’.


Sources:

Borough of Mitcham List of Factories,
Town Clerk’s Department,
July 1963.
Available at Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre at Morden Library.
Reference L2 (670) MIT

Page 134, volume 15, Mitcham Borough Council minutes.


Minutes of meetings held by the Mitcham Borough Council are available on request from the Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre at Morden Library.
Maps are reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland.

Unichem, Ltd.

1-37 Fortescue Road

Listed in the 1963 Borough of Mitcham List of Factories as Drug Distributors.

1951 OS map

According to the book The Pharmaceutical Industry: A Guide to Historical Records By Lesley Richmond, Julie Stevenson:

in 1946 (Unichem) established warehouse premises on site at Broadwater Road, Tooting … a second warehouse was acquired at Fortescue Road, Colliers Wood, during the 1950s, to enable the company to distribute chemists’ sundries

Sheila recalled starting work there in 1964 in the Sales Office. She said that not long after the firm moved to New Addington and the staff were given a bus service from the Fair Green in the morning and back again in the evening. The fields around New Addington at that time were still farms and she remembers seeing cows in them.