Aircraft production and factories in Liverpool

Rootes became Chrysler briefly then became Peugeot.

I would try first the Coventry Transport Museum (Rootes Group HQ being in Coventry)

Moggy

Aircraft factory in Speke

I have just found this thread while searching the net for information on the Rootes factory in Speke.
My mother and father worked in this factory during the war, and I am trying to locate the archives of the factory and maybe (hopefully!) their employment records to add to my family history.
I was born in 1943 and on my birth certificate my father is down as “Aircraft Inspector”. My mother was his secretary.
I know he worked on Lancaster bombers and my mother remembers having to follow him out on the wings with her notepad…she never liked that bit.
He moved to AVRoe sometime later, but I never found out exactly what he did there.
I also remember all the DC3s at Speke airport….this is obviously where my love of aircraft came from.
Does anyone know where I can reach the archives of these companies as I would really like to find out more about what my father actually did during the war. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.

My very first posting!

Yes, the Rootes factory became the Dunlop tyre factory after WW2.

According to an old inspection logbook, I went around the factory on 31.1.80 to do an inspection for a business rates valuation. Tyre production had ceased & the ‘Bagomatic’ tyre moulding machines were being prepared for removal & export (no doubt they are still in use abroad & exporting tyres back here!)

We went to a viewing gallery which overlooked the factory floor & I noted how the roof got higher in stages, no doubt as aircraft assembly proceeded. It didn’t take much imagination or my mind’s eye to see rows of Hallibags etc. being put together.
I have seen photos of aircraft production, no doubt taken from the same viewpoint.

I think the factory was demolished about 1981 & the Spindus Road industrial estate/Enterprise Zone was set up.

As an aside, have a look at Multimap/Google & have a look at The Jetstream & B.Britannia on the old apron in front of the old airport building, now the Marriott Hotel (also the DH Dragon replica in front of it. Google the ‘Jetstream Club’ for more details.

Cheers, all.

all our yesterdays

As I recall there was a hangar on the old part of the Airport approximately opposite to where the Raven retail park now stands. It was used in the war years by the Lockheed Aircraft Co of America, which I have always been told had no connection with Lockheed Hydraulics of Speke! I will probably be shot down in flames now as some one will no doubt prove me to be wrong.

The purpose of this facility was to assemble kit form aircraft, partially assembled in the USA, which were then brought from Liverpool docks on low loaders, to Speke and final assembly. As a kid at the time I can clearly remember the convoys of lorry’s passing through nearby Garston where I lived, on their way to the Airport.

I thought that the area East of the Old Airport, adjacent to the Raven Retail Park (opposite side of Speke Boulevard to the airport) was also part of the Rootes factories? Site is now used for new car storage.
(I lived in the area for about 15 years but only qualify as a plastic Scouser!)

AT,
Oh yes, I have sufficient English blood still coursing through my hardened arteries to know that there is no connection between Standard Triumph and Rootes. What I never knew was what happened to the factory sites. You never bother to find out about places until you l eave them. (Happens to me all the time)

I should have done this when I lived over there! Alibris time again. 😀

No 2 is as Asda store and the rest of the site is an industrial estate.

No 1 had a housing estate built on the site about 2005.

No. I’m from the posh end 😉

I only worked for BL Specialist Cars Division, as it was then known in 1970-1. In those days the Liverpool body plant was definitely feeding the Coventry lines with 2000 / 2500 shells. But as I never visited the Liverpool factory I can comment no further. If you were actually there you obviously are accurate and I was under a misapprehension.

Cheers.

Moggy

Yes you are correct about the Liverpool sites feeding Coventry with body shells, but not 2000/2500, but Dolomites, Stag, & TR6, TR5, TR4, TR4A & TR250. All painted & Trimmed. The models to which you refer were built by Pressed Steel, Swindon & Carbodies of Coventry.

Cheers

Kendo [not posh]

Triumph No 1

As a Triumph afficionado, I recall that Factory 1 was originally Hall Engineering, a sub-contractor who made some of the parts for the Herald shells. Heralds were built on a separate chassis frame because Standard Triumph couldn’t find a supplier to build unitary shells, the major producers being controlled by Ford and by BMC. The bodies were part welded, and part bolted-up.

yes it could be going off thread as you say, but, to go back even further than Hall Engineering, the orginal company owners were the Milner Safe Company. A famous company in their day, making all types of safe for Banks etc. In the war years they built Tanks for the army.

NorWester

Kansan,

Whaddya wanna know about Hooton Park?
The Marriott Hotel is now a Crowne Plaza Hotel.
A gang of us built the Rapide replica (at Hooton Park in 2001) which stands outside the hotel.
Whereabouts did you live in West Kirby? I live there meself (PM me if you don’t want to advertise it).

Anon

Ok… im well aware this thread is dangerously heading towards going off topic but… am i right in thinking that Factory 1 would be the old Fisher Pressed Steel works and Factory 2 parallel to the Liverpool Manchester railway line and just before Hunts Cross station…?

Zeb (yet another scouser…)

As a Triumph afficionado, I recall that Factory 1 was originally Hall Engineering, a sub-contractor who made some of the parts for the Herald shells. Heralds were built on a separate chassis frame because Standard Triumph couldn’t find a supplier to build unitary shells, the major producers being controlled by Ford and by BMC. The bodies were part welded, and part bolted-up.

Contary to popular belief this aircraft is not parked or made in Liverpool
(Check out the tyres)

http://www.oldprops.ukhome.net/Strenraer%209203.jpg

Ok… im well aware this thread is dangerously heading towards going off topic but… am i right in thinking that Factory 1 would be the old Fisher Pressed Steel works and Factory 2 parallel to the Liverpool Manchester railway line and just before Hunts Cross station…?

Zeb (yet another scouser…)

Rootes: one out of every seven bombers produced in UK during the war. I have:
Meir:.. 890 (Bisley) Blenheim IV (and 260 Beaufighters)
Speke:.. 75 (Bisley) Blenheim IV
……. 2,480 Other Blenheims (starting pre-War,1938)
……. 1,070 Halifax
……. 4,515 x 7 = 32,000: Quick & dirty tot up, Wellington/Whitley/Warwick/Hampden/Blenheim/4-Motoren and I’m around that number.

🙂
Another scouser replying, well MoggyC you are the first Liverpudlian I have ever heard of to describe himself as a Liverpolitan! You must have been away for a very long time.

No. I’m from the posh end 😉

I only worked for BL Specialist Cars Division, as it was then known in 1970-1. In those days the Liverpool body plant was definitely feeding the Coventry lines with 2000 / 2500 shells. But as I never visited the Liverpool factory I can comment no further. If you were actually there you obviously are accurate and I was under a misapprehension.

Cheers.

Moggy

Very interesting, that would be this site.

http://www.apph.co.uk/

Rootes Aircraft Speke Liverpool

🙂
Another scouser replying, well MoggyC you are the first Liverpudlian I have ever heard of to describe himself as a Liverpolitan! You must have been away for a very long time. I am also an ex-Standard Triumph (Liverpool) employee and can confirm that completed cars were manufactured in Liverpool from start to finish. Driven off the line as the finished product. You must have heard of the Toledo & TR7? At the end of WW2 Rootes was taken over by the Dunlop Rubber co, employing about 14000 people. It remained so until 1978-79 closing shortly after the Triumph No 2 Factory. Triumph No 1 Factory which was located about a mile away, closed around 3 years afterwards. The Dunlop Factory was then demolished. It has now (2009) been redeveloped into an industrial estate. It now sits adjacent to the newly extended Liverpool John Lennon Airport. Lockheed Hydraulics Ltd was sited between the Triumph Factories and the Ford Motor Co’s Plant, now known as JLR (Jaguar-Land Rover) The Lockheed site was sold about 1993 to Ford Motor Co, who then used the land for a supplier park. The company then broke away from Lockheed, changing it’s name to APPH, part of that title had been tagged onto the Lockheed name earlier. APPH then relocated to nearby Runcorn in Cheshire (about 10miles away) where they have 3 seperate sites. Now soley involved in aviation products they design, manufacture, test and repair Landing Gears and flying controls for all types of aircraft, both military & civil. All you aviation fans should look at their website. I am a recent retiree.

Speaking as a Liverpolitan and an ex-employee of Standard Triumph (Coventry) I can tell you that it was only the bodies of the cars that were built in the Liverpool factory. This was built with the help of huge government grants well after the war, probably late 50s, early 60s to help Liverpool overcome its deprived status.

The bodies were then loaded on covered transporters and driven all the way to the Fletchamstead Highway site in Coventry to be assembled.

I used to ‘plane spot’ on Speke Boulevard whence the DC3s would pass directly over our heads. The Rootes factory was down the end, but I think it might have passed to Lockheed Hydraulics by then.

Moggy

Aha! Another Scouser out of the Merseyside closet. I had no idea, Moggy as your accent doesn’t show on your forum posts. 😀 This explains how your first flight was from Speke (in GD) and you made a knowing comment about someone nicking a JCB from Parkgate. (!)
I only lived there for 17 years – Mostly in the South End (Aigburth, Allerton) and also on the Wirral (West Kirby).
One of the people I worked with in L’pool (now sadly deceased) was a Triumph employee who told a wonderful story about a Dolomite which was being assembled for a co-worker who was retiring which allgedly had every top-of-the-range add-on feature put on it before they got caught.

So, time to buy a copy of the Phil Butler book. I should have bought a copy of the Burtonwood story too. Is there anything written about Hooton Park?

R/K

The Triumph factory site, now an Asda, had no connection with Rootes. See Phil Butler’s Liverpool Airport book history for details of several Rootes plants in the Speke area.

AT,
Oh yes, I have sufficient English blood still coursing through my hardened arteries to know that there is no connection between Standard Triumph and Rootes. What I never knew was what happened to the factory sites. You never bother to find out about places until you l eave them. (Happens to me all the time)

I should have done this when I lived over there! Alibris time again. 😀

I mentioned in another thread that there was a Triumph factory in Speke, Liverpool (which ended up turning out the Dolomite and TR7, the source of many a long conversation with redeployed ex-Triumph workers).

Speaking as a Liverpolitan and an ex-employee of Standard Triumph (Coventry) I can tell you that it was only the bodies of the cars that were built in the Liverpool factory. This was built with the help of huge government grants well after the war, probably late 50s, early 60s to help Liverpool overcome its deprived status.

The bodies were then loaded on covered transporters and driven all the way to the Fletchamstead Highway site in Coventry to be assembled.

I used to ‘plane spot’ on Speke Boulevard whence the DC3s would pass directly over our heads. The Rootes factory was down the end, but I think it might have passed to Lockheed Hydraulics by then.

Moggy

The Triumph factory site, now an Asda, had no connection with Rootes. See Phil Butler’s Liverpool Airport book history for details of several Rootes plants in the Speke area.