Today the long building in Cricklewood Broadway at Nos. 249-289 near Mora Road, includes the Leyland SDM decorating and DIY centre, a Gym and several other businesses.
This is the intriguing story of how the site was used by various companies over time. It has been re-built and the numbering has changed.
Site of Rolls Razor factory from the 1954 OS Map
British Caudron, Cricklewood
The French Caudron Brothers began building their own design of aircraft in 1910. William Hugh Ewen was a pioneer Scottish aviator who formed the W.H. Ewen Aviation Co Ltd, with a flying school in Lanark in June 1911. They moved to Hendon the following year, where in April he obtained a license to manufacture the French Caudron aircraft. When he left the company, its name was changed to British Caudron, and in January 1915 they took over the building in Cricklewood Broadway previously built for Messrs Morgan and Sharp, car body builders (Morgan & Sharp only appear in the 1914-1915 Street Directory). When WWI started British Caudron was managed by Andrew Mitchell Ramsay and A.C. Hunter. During the War, they built Caudron and other military aircraft such as the Sopwith Camel for the RAF at Cricklewood and their other factory in Alloa, Scotland.
The remarkable Winnie Buller was the third woman in Britain to obtain her aviation licence in May 1912. She joined British Caudron in Cricklewood during the War, where her work included carrying out check flights on new aircraft, making her the first UK female test pilot. On one flight when the control wires had been badly fitted, she had to lean out of the cockpit and pull on them to control the flight. Incredibly, she managed to make a perfect landing.
Training Centre
After the War, the Ministry of Labour Training Centre for disabled veterans used the building from 1920 and we have written a previous blog story about the visit of King George V.
Rolls Razor
In August 1916 Helier Alexandre Vincent was granted a patent for a sharpening device for safety razors (patent GB108531) and for a safety razor. He was born in Jersey and in 1911 was a company director, living at 15 Silverdale, Sydenham.
The Rolls Razor company was established in 1921. It had no relation to Rolls-Royce cars, but the name, which suggested luxury and quality, helped sales considerably. They sold the unique safety razor invented by Vincent, which could be continually sharpened by sliding it on the strop in the metal box provided.
An advert for 1924 showed their office was at Trafalgar Building, 1 Charing Cross Road, and the works were at Ingate Place, Queen’s Road Battersea.
In July 1926 they bought the larger Cricklewood site for £17,500 (today worth about £1.1M). In October 1927 the original company was taken over to form Rolls Razor (1927) Ltd and £200,000 shares were issued. The Cricklewood factory was described as having a 360ft frontage on the Edgware Road and 367ft on Hassop Road, with a floor space of about 48,000 sq feet. The business was very successful until the introduction of electric shavers. They attempted to diversify in 1958 by making the Foamatic washing machine, but it was not a success. Between 1954 and 1959 they lost around £300,000. In 1960 the company and factory were acquired by John Bloom.
John Bloom
John Bloom was born in the East End of London in 1931 and went to Hackney Downs Grammar school. Bloom did his national service in the RAF. After demobilisation, he tried several different business schemes. A haulage business, and then selling paraffin door to door, but both proved unsuccessful. After working as a washing machine salesman, he decided to set up his own company for the direct selling of twin-tub washing machines. These had two separate tubs, one for washing, the other for spinning. Bloom found a supplier in the Netherlands who could sell him the machines, called Electromatics, for around £23. He sold two versions, one for 49 guineas, and a deluxe model for 59 guineas. He formed the Electromatic Washing Machine Company Ltd. By May 1958, Bloom had a team of sixty salesmen. An advertisement on the back page of the Daily Mirror in September 1958 led to over 8,000 enquiries. By the following September, he was selling 400-500 machines a week, as many as his Dutch manufacturers could supply. He needed to produce more machines and saw that this could be done by taking over Rolls Razors and the Foamatic factory.
Bloom created the ‘Washing Machine Wars’ of 1962–1964 when he drastically reduced prices by direct sales that cut out the retailers who complained about unfair practises. His Rolls Rapide machines were about half the price of Hoover and Hotpoint washing machines in the shops.
Advert for the Rolls Rapide washing machine
Bloom had a seven-year contract with a salary of £15,000 per annum, a Rolls Royce car, a yacht, and a Park Lane apartment. In his autobiography, ‘It’s No Sin to Make a Profit’, he said he mixed with a large number of 60s celebrities including, Sean Connery, Shirley Bassey, Terence Stamp, Lionel Bart, Tommy Steel, Adam Faith, and the Beatles. David Bowie credits Bloom as being central to his first record deal, when the then-unknown singer was invited to play at a party in Bloom's flat and was introduced to an agent.
Bloom loved publicity. When he married Anne Cass in February 1961, the wedding cake consisting of a giant replica of the Rolls washing machine. Pictures of the bride and groom cutting the cake appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror. He became a director of Queens Park Rangers and made a highly publicised attempt to take over the club.
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John Bloom and Anne Cass, 1963 Getty Images
But then he came crashing down. In July 1964 the company suddenly went into voluntary liquidation which led to questions being asked in Parliament, and the factory was closed. Eventually, Bloom pleaded guilty to fraud in his takeover of Rolls Razors in 1969.
Dubreq Studios and the Stylophone
Burt Coleman, his brother Ted, and Brian Jarvis formed Dubreq Studios in 1963 at 15 Cricklewood Lane. It was named because their main work was film dubbing and recording. In 1967 Brian Jarvis was asked if he could mend a broken children’s toy piano. He used it to create the Stylophone, a small battery operated musical instrument with a flat metallic keyboard, played by a stylus connected with a wire. The instrument became popular and was played on TV by Rolf Harris. David Bowie used the stylophone on his recording of Space Oddity (1969). Bands such as Kraftwerk, Pulp, Manic Street Preachers and more recently Bill Bailey, have all featured the instrument.
In October 1970 Stylophone were in court because HM Customs had ordered them to pay £78,000 owed in VAT. The company argued that because the Stylophone was a keyboard instrument it was not liable for the tax. However, the judge ruled it was not a keyboard instrument because the keys did not move. But in March the following year Stylophone won their appeal and did not have to pay the money.
By August 1971 Dubreq Studios had moved to 249-289 Cricklewood Broadway. In March 1972 they were making the ‘Pianomate’ which transformed a piano into an instrument which could play electronic chords. It cost £69. Then in November 1974 the studios had moved again to 120-132 Cricklewood Lane. At their peak they employed over 100 staff.
The original factory site was re-built about 1968 and divided into smaller units, each used by a different business.
One of the more interesting was the Cricklewood Quasar Centre which was here from September 1993 to at least December 1993. Tag games could be played with laser guns.
Currently there are plans for a major re-development of the buildings in Cricklewood Broadway and behind in Hassop Road.
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