TODAY MITCHAM, TOMORROW, THE WORLD!

It was 1937 and SS Eriks, General Manager of Mullard, sat in his office, comfortable in his Tan-sad office chair but he was troubled. Mitcham could no longer keep up with the pace of production required to fulfill the radio world's voracious demands for thermionic devices - something had to be done.

Eriks was a chap whom melded humanitarianism with good business acumen, the Mitcham site could not be expanded further, what he needed was an available work force and a surfeit of cheap plentiful land upon which to build a new plant yet still have plenty of room for future expansion. Eriks hit on the idea of building his satellite plant 'uuup north' and he chose Blackburn in Lancashire as a good location. You see, due to the decline of the cotton industry there was a sizeable unemployed workforce of mainly dexterous women - some of them even wore flat caps:-

There were quite a few chaps too with collarless shirts and big flat caps as well: -

Remember, that part of Lancashire was a depressed area in the 1930s, with no nipping out to The Three Fishes, Ferraris or The Calves Head for a gastro meal - you were lucky if you got stew & hard and that's a Burnley delicacy really.

Accordingly, the foundation stone for the Blackburn plant was laid on 30th March 1938 and a new era dawned for Mullard.