Goodbye Goodyear's, Wolverhampton. 1927-2008.

            Goodyear was founded in 1898 in Akron, Ohio. As the company began to expand beyond the United States of America, a branch sales office was opened in London in 1913. Due to rising unemployment in Britain after the First World War and the need to stimulate trade in British made goods, high tariffs were imposed on imported goods,  which led the company to establish its own factory in England in order to continue to sell and distribute tyres. The site for the factory was a disused works of the enamel
hollow-ware firm Macfarlane & Robinson at Bushbury, Wolverhampton. Goodyear bought the premises in July 1927 and the first tyre was manufactured in December that year. During the early 1930s the factory doubled in size due to the success of the company; a rubber sole and heel department was established in 1933 and provision for the manufacture of mechanical goods added in 1938. By 1939 the factory employed 1,700 people. 

The company was committed to the welfare of its employees,  and workers benefited from pension and insurance schemes, as well as having the opportunity to take part in a number of sporting and social activities organised by the firm. The Wolverhampton factory continued production during the Second World War and made tyres for the armed forces, as well as hose for pumping water, petrol and oil. By 1940, it was Britain’s second largest producer of aircraft tyres. The plant  was never attacked by the German Luftwaffe during WW2. Years later it was revealled that Luftwaffe maps of the area still had the factory marked as an enamel works!

The factory continued to expand after the war, and Goodyear also established a factory at  Garscadden near Glasgow and a plant at Craigavon, Northern Ireland. 
In 1971, more than 5,500 people were employed at the Wolverhampton plant, making the company one of the largest employers in the town. The plant has been affected by closures and job losses from 2000, and many staff have now been relocated to the company’s administrative and distribution centre at Tyre-Fort, Birmingham. In early 2008, the main part of the old Wolverhampton factory complex is being demolished to make way for housing.

Photo; March 2008.

Taken on: March 18, 2008

Tags:

Good

Year

factory

Wolverhampton

Stafford

Road

Fordhouses

Bushbury

A449

1927

2008

Chimney

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Sets appears in: • Buildings and structures • Classic Factory Buildings more » • Wolverhampton « less

Groups appears in: • Nostalgia • Constructive Destruction more » • Industrial Architecture/ Archaeology UK • Wolverhampton • Demolitions • "Story Behind a Photo" • Appetite for destruction? • Of a Bygone Age. (Retro Stuff) • West Midlands Urbexers • Goodyear Tire & Rubber « less

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