Douglas Rownson Ltd was formed on January 1st 1966 to
merge William Douglas &
Sons (Engineering) and Rownson Conveyors. The new company had three
divisions – Rownson Conveyors, Douglas Refrigeration and Douglas Process
Plant. Each division had its own selling, estimating and design
departments. The two companies had moved into a new joint factory on the
West Daneshill Industrial Estate in Basingstoke in the autumn of 1965.
This move had been brought about by the unsuitability of William Douglas
and Sons' premises in Putney and the termination of the lease on Rownson
Conveyors' factory at Maiden Lane, near King's Cross Station in north
London.
The new factory comprised a single production area with
two main bays 420 feet in length and 60 feet wide. A bay of production
offices and other amenities ran the full length of the building. A
two-storey office building was situated across the front of the factory
on the road side of the site. The factory employed around 350 people. In
an extension to the Baker Perkins Group's training facilities, a new
apprentice training school was opened in 1966 on the Basingstoke site.
The great advantage of bringing the two companies together was that,
in some industries, such as meat processing and the dairy industry, a
complete service could be offered – covering refrigeration, process
plant and mechanical handling – giving many customers a single source
for most of their needs.
Inevitably, the period after the move to
Basingstoke was difficult and the disruption, together with tough
economic conditions in the industries served resulted in a trading loss
for the year. Also in 1966, a jointly-owned subsidiary was formed
between Douglas Rownson Ltd and the Bristol Abattoir Equipment Co.,
Bristol, trading as Meat Plant Engineering Ltd. The new company's
activities – a complete range of slaughtering and mechanical handling
equipment, refrigeration and animal by-products plant for abattoirs and
meat works – were aimed primarily at the export market.
With the
two companies joining forces and moving to a new factory in a strange
town, it was realised that one of the vital factors in welding the new
firm into a cohesive unit would be a strong, lively Sports and Social
Club. The new Club was basically an extension of the old Douglas club at
Putney which now had 270 members from a total staff of about 380. Most
of the Putney activities continued - football, cricket, tennis, table
tennis, darts and snooker - plus a full programme of social evenings.
Results improved in subsequent years and, by 1969, Douglas Rownson
was carrying out several contracts at airport installations around the
world for the automatic conveyance and handling of freight and passenger
baggage. A new 12,000 square feet factory extension - to house the
machine shop, electrical fitting section and marshalling section was
built in 1970, increasing the factory floor area by 25%.
A
rationalisation exercise took place in 1973 when certain product lines
were dropped to allow the company to concentrate on its key activities
of poultry and animal by-product rendering plants, ingredient and
product handling, refrigeration for the food industries and the
manufacture of airport baggage handling equipment.
1974 saw
Douglas Rownson launch a major innovation as part of their animal
by-products processing business – a method of chemically treating the
vapours emitted when processing animal and poultry waste. These plants
produced high protein and nutritional meal and oils from waste
materials, the finished product being used as a feed additive. The new
system took the vapours from the cooking process and treated them by
caustic washing and chlorine scrubbing – making them inoffensive for
releasing in to the atmosphere. The system was also capable of treating
effluent for odour-less discharge into the sewage system. – all at a
tenth of the cost of other methods.
Despite obtaining many large
contracts from around the world, business volume did not rise
sufficiently to offset the high technical overhead necessary to run the
business and considerable losses were made over a three-year period. The
weakness of the pound and the three-day week following the OPEC oil
crisis, all had their effect. The Basingstoke factory was closed in
February 1975 with the loss of 260 of the 310 existing jobs.
Responsibility for its businesses in liquid ingredient handling for the
biscuit industry and in pumps were transferred to Baker Perkins Ltd.
Peterborough and its other product lines were sold. Smaller premises
were sought in the Basingstoke area into which this manufacture could be
transferred and it was hoped to employ around 20 people. Suitable
premises were found in the centre of Basingstoke and a new company,
Douglas Pumps, was established.
Under its general manager, Derek
Hill, sales grew steadily and, in 1978, a move to larger premises was
necessary. Situated on the Daneshill East Industrial Estate, at 20,000
square feet and employing 34, the new factory and office building was
two and a half times the size of the old premises. The company's name
was changed to Douglas Process Engineering at this time.
A new
Shreddies line was installed at Nabisco, Welwyn in 1982. This comprised
cookers and shredders designed, manufactured and installed by Douglas
Process Engineering.
In the very difficult trading conditions of
the early eighties, the market for pumps and bulk handling systems
dropped to a level where it was no longer economic to continue at
Basingstoke and manufacture of the Douglas Pump was transferred in April
1983 to Peterborough, under R.W. (Bob) Fuller. The cereal equipment
business continued at Basingstoke for another four years before Douglas
Process Engineering was closed in March 1987 and responsibility for
cereal plant engineering transferred to Baker Perkins BCS, Peterborough.
After the merger with APV in 1987, manufacture of the Douglas Pump
was transferred to APV's Industrial Pump and Mixer Division in East
Kilbride, Scotland. The animal by-products side of the business was
purchased in 2002 by Dupps of Ohio, USA and the Netherlands.
From research conducted by the Baker Perkins Historical society
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