The Last Days of Rotherhithe’s Chemical Industry

My blogs about the Brandrams and their chemical factory in Rotherhithe have reached a wider audience than the FROGs! The TDP has had phone calls from two members of the Brandram Jones family, who put me in touch with Robert Brandram Jones, whose grandfather, Henry Thomas Brandram Jones, was Managing Director of the firm until 1946.

Richard Basil Brandram
Image from Wikimedia Commons

He told me more about the Brandram family and the last days of the firm. The Jones family adopted the Brandram name after Richard Basil Brandram was killed in World War I: he was awarded a Victoria Cross and was only 19 when he died. I assume he was the last of the Brandrams and that’s why they took on the name.

Robert was clearly still proud of the Brandram firm, even though the factory closed in the 1950s. He confirmed that the firm originally manufactured gunpowder, and then went on to refine sulphur. At one time they had an employee based in Solfatara in Italy to buy sulphur. The British Pharmacopeia standard measure of flowers of sulphur was Brandrams No 1, which was used for dusting hops, that is, as an insecticide. Their Bengal saltpetre was a well known product. Robert told me “we painted the navies of the world”, and said that they developed many shades of battleship grey. They had 21 acres of land in Rotherhithe, stretching down to the river where Brandrams Wharf is, and the south entrance to the Rotherhithe Tunnel was on their land. When the factory closed, flats were built on part of the land and there was also a city farm there.

London Bridge Station in 1922
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Robert said he thought his grandfather must have had a nice life. He used to be driven in the mornings to South Croydon station, and then travelled in a reserved carriage to London Bridge, and then from there he was driven to the factory in Rotherhithe. There were also offices in Philpot Lane in the City. It sounds very different from 21st century business life. Henry was Managing Director until 1946, but in 1958 Robert and his three brothers were faced with the problem of who was to take on the family firm. All of them already had careers, in the military or the colonial service in East Africa, and one of them was a chemist. So they made the decision to sell the firm, including two or three patents, to one of the big paint companies, and that was the end of a family firm which had been in Rotherhithe for two centuries, and left its name on Brandrams Wharf.