Norfolk Mills - Stoke Holy Cross watermill

February 15th, 1823 , was a significant date for Norwich and Norfolk. It was the day when Jeremiah Colman took his nephew James into partnership. Thus began the J. & J. Colman business which was to have such a beneficial effect, not only on the life of city and county, but farther afield.
This partnership of Jeremiah and James forged what is locally the strongest link in the chain of events leading eventually to a change of the greatest importance to an agricultural region - the efficient processing, packaging and distribution of foodstuffs by industrial methods.
This summary, writes Ken Holmes, our industrial editor, of the growth of what is now a worldwide business has been compiled with the aid of records and research by Dr. S. H. Edgar, who was at Carrow from 1929-1968, and was nutritional adviser. Some of the earlier references are taken from articles written by the late E. B. Southwell, director and general manager early this century, who joined the firm in 1975.
Jeremiah Colman had been a flour miller near Magdalen_Gates since the early part of the 19th century. In 18143 he leased the mill at Stoke Holy Cross, and having to choose between paper-making, flour-milling and mustard, which had all been carried on there, decided to concentrate on the last.
Old Jeremiah, as he was called, had no children. His brother Robert, farming at Rockland St. Andrew, had 15. Eleven of them were boys. So Old Jeremiah adopted the eldest of these brothers, James, and when he was 22 took him into partnership.
James began with a quarter share which was increased to one-third in 1827 and half in 1831. Late4r on two of the other brothers, who represented the business in London, Jeremiah II and Edward, were also admitted into partnership. But this was not until 1844, six years before land was purchased at Carrow.
With James sifting and mixing the mustard flour obtained from the crushed seed, and Old Jeremiah starting his day's work at 7 a.m., an hour after the men, the business prospered. Wheat continued to be ground and in 1830 the manufacture of starch was begun.
The size of the business at that time can be gauged from the records of a member of the Colman family recalling his boyhood memories of around 1834.
He watched one man, Lazarus Horne, who had only one arm, doping all the day's packing himself. Wooden casks were the only containers then used for mustard flour, apart from a small amount of the powder put in bottles for export.
Starch was also manufactured at Stoke, and by 1852 the firm was advertising mustard in casks, tinfoil packets and round tins; several types and different packages of starch; and indigo and Prussian blue for launderies and manufacturers.
This was the year after the founder, Old Jeremiah, dies and Jeremiah James, son of James Colman became a partner. A few years later James died, and Jeremiah became the sole partner at the production end of the business in Norfolk.
Jeremiah James is the father of Carrow. He was responsible for the move from Stoke and the industrial approach to what had been previously been large-scale milling operations.
The decision to leave Stoke was brought about because of uncertainty about the renewal of the lease, and the obvious advantage of working near to river and rail transport.
The mid-19th century was a time of great poverty in Norwich following the dwindling of the textile industry. Land was cheap and labour plentiful - and cheap as well. The grounds of the historic Carrow Abbey were selected at the site, and without planners to satisfy, the first mustard mill was working in 1854.
Before long, flour and mustard mills began to appear along the bank of the river, with engine houses, granaries, and stores. By 1857 the Counting House, still identifiable, was built for use as the administrative headquarters.
Production continued both at Stoke and Carrow until Stoke was relinquished in 1862.
Well ahead
After their marriage J. J. Colman and his wife Caroline made their home at Carrow Abbey, where they remained for 40 years with the head of the growing company able to give personal supervision daily to the business at the bottom of his garden.
The Colman family had always been in advance of their time in recognising the need to look after the welfare of their employees. Even the wife of James Colman organised a clothing club at Stoke in the very early days.
It was the mo0ve to Carrow and the great and rapid expansion of the business which accelerated the provision of social welfare for employees on a scale not seen in the neighbourhood before. In 1857 Carrow School began with 22 children in an upper room in King Street.
No better indication can be given to the growth of Carrow Works than the fact that when the State took over responsibility for education in 1870, and continued in partnership with Carrow, there were 324 children on the register.
While this is primarily a sketch of the industrial development of Colmans to indicate what has grown from the seed of mustard, it cannot be separated from from the pioneer concern for the welfare of employees which had a part in the overall success story.
The patriarch
A meals service in 1868, a dispensary in 1864, schooling and a care for employees outside their working hours contributed to the remarkable growth in Norwich of this country milling firm. The area near the factory, Lakenham and Trowse became Carrow enclaves and the people who worked at Carrow were proud to do so.
Behind it all was the patriarchal figure of Jeremiah James Colman of Carrow House, who extended his care for Carrow to the life of the city of which he became Mayor, and for 24 years its Member of Parliament.
When he died in 1898 there was grief throughout the city. Twelve hundred workpeople from Carrow attended the funeral - an extraordinary large labour force considering that no new products were introduced at Carrow in the 19th century, and the fame of the firm rested primarily on its mustard, followed by starch and blue.
The growth of the business rested on the increasing nationwide and world-wide demand for the limited ranges of its quality products, and on what today would be known as good marketing.
The selling and marketing was carried out by two other branches of the Colman family originating from the brothers Jeremiah and Edward, and carried on through their sons and grandsons from the Cannon Street offices in London.
Continuing the family tradition of taking members of the family into partnership, the London branch's Jeremiah Colman III became a partner, and in Norfolk Mr. Russell James Colman, son of Jeremiah James. They were the last of the partners.
In 1896 an important change took place in the structure of the firm when the partnership became a limited company with a capital of £1,350,000. The first chairman was Jeremiah James, who was succeeded after his death two years later by one the London cousins, Frederick Edward Colman.
First baronet
When he died at the turn of the century, he was succeed by Jeremiah, later the first baronet, of Gatton Park, Surrey, who remained chairman for 42 years.
But this is the time when the contributions of members of the family in this and succeeding generations - not forgetting that of Professor James Stuart, married to Jeremiah James' daughter Laura - were being augmented by those of management specialists.
Another attribute of the Colman family appears to be that in addition to winning the loyalty of their workpeople they had a flair for attracting good managers. In the late 19th century the names Samuel Harvard, Robert Haslewood and Charles Burlingham were synonymous with Carrow.
Later were another famous couple of names, Newman and Beales. Coming to more recent times it would be invidious to name names, but there are undoubtedly a number of very capable men in different fields of business who have held executive posts at Carrow contributing handsomely to the building up of the present business giant.
By acquisition
The growth of the country milling business in 150 years has not come about solely by the introduction of new products, methods of manufacture, and increasing sales. These have played their part directly, but also indirectly by creating the means for taking over competing firms.
This policy of expansion by acquisition is no recent innovation. It appears to be as old as the 20th century, for it was in 1901 that a rival starch-making firm of Orlando Jones & Co. was absorbed.
Two years later, principally interested in their competitor's mustard and spice trade, Colmans took over Keen Robinson & Co., but found they had become one of the most important baby-food manufacturers in the country through sales of Robinson's Patent Barley and Patent Groats.
The period up the the first world war marks the continued transformation of Colmans from a paternal 19th century business employing a great deal of labour, and relatively little mechanised, to one using mechanical processes tending towards automation, and backed by the different financial approach of the limited company.
Evidence of change comes in the appointment in 1913 of the first non-family director, Mr. E. B. Southwell, who as general manager had carried out the long and difficult negotiations for the acquisition of Farrows of Peterborough.
The Farrow acquisition brought new products such as dried and packeted peas, salad cream, tomato ketchup, sauces, canned vegetables and fruit.
Another noteworthy change during this era - though the full significance was not to be recognised until 25 years later - was the setting up in South America of a joint trading company with Reckitt & Sons Ltd., called Atlantis Ltd.
The war was a difficult period, with no fewer than 921 employees serving in the forces. The depleted directorate was strengthened by the return in 1916 of Mr. Geoffrey Colman, eldest son of Mr. Russell Colman, invalided out of the Army after a long convalescence from a dangerous wound.
Works council
Despite all the difficulties, the closing months of the war saw close on 2000 men and women employed at Carrow - a workforce which at that time saw the innovation of an eight-hour day, a 48-hour week, an annual holiday, and a works council.
Immediately after the war new products started to be introduced - porridge oats for quick cooking, and a complete baby food to be mixed with water, marketed under the name Almata.
The making of the baby food, and subsequently the control of its quality, demanded scientific handling of a different kind from that of the mill products. This led to the setting up of the research laboratory.
The 1920s were a time of consolidation and improvement of the products, to be followed in 1936 by expansion into the manufacture of soft drinks, the link between Colmans' cereal based products and fruit juices being the patent barley used to make barley water quickly.
Robinson's lemon barley water was the parent of what was to prove an expanding range of soft drinks.
Colmans had become a public company in 1936, and two years later, in 1938 joined forces with Reckitt's of Hull to become Reckitt & Colman Ltd. The first association with Reckitts to trade in South America in 1913 had been extended for joint overseas trading elsewhere in 1921.
Jointly they had bought the R. T. French Company of Rochester, New York, in 1926, which, amongst other things specialised in the sale of products for pet birds. Research for these was carried out at Carrow.
The amalgamation was in the fateful year of Munich when, to all but the optimists, war was inevitable. Its outbreak in 1939 must have postponed changes bound to follow the amalgamation of the two large groups.
Carrow Works was severely damaged by air raids during the war. One in 1941 destroyed four buildings including the cereal and mustard departments and a year later the seed granaries, starch, blue, Savora and advertising departments were blitzed.
Heavy burden
In 1943, six months after his son Alan had been killed while flying as a war-time ferry pilot, Mr. Russell Colman retired from the board. For the first time for 130 years there was no Colman on the Norwich branch among the directors.
In the main the heavy burden of carrying on the business under the difficulties of wartime fell on the shoulders of Sir Basil Mayhew and Mr. H. A. G. Salter.
While there had been a certain amount of building at Carrow between the wars the appearance of the works had changed little since the 19th century. But the war damage gave an opportunity for fresh thinking and replanning the layout.
The immediate post-war years saw the marketing of the firm's modern series of ready-cooked infant foods, and work on other buildings at Carrow in addition to the replacement of war damage, notably a giant silo and a new flour mill.
In 1945 the Reckitt & Colman Group was joined by another large business, Chiswick Products Ltd., manufacturers of polishes and similar lines, building up towards today's world-wide range of foods, wines, soft drinks, household goods, toiletries, pharmaceuticals and industrial and other products.
World-wide sales in 1971 were more than £192 million, producing a pre-tax profit of £19.8 million.
In this large overall development, the former Colman business, which became the Reckitt & Colman Food Division, continued to have an important role.
Probably the most significant developments of recent years were the acquisition in 1968 of the Norwich-based wine company Coleman & Co., long known for its tonic wine, Wincarnis. Because of the similarity of names many people thought that this was always a Colman product.
Until 1968 it was not, although a hundred years before Colmans bought up Colemans of Bury St. Edmunds, small mustard and starch manufacturers. The proprietor, Mr. W. J. Coleman, a chemist, then developed the tonic wine.
Wine trade
Colemans had by this time become a considerable business as shippers and distributors of branded wines. Reckitt & Colman extended it by further acquisition of the business of Edoard Robinson and, in 1969, of Moussec sparkling wine, of which more than ten million baby bottles were sold in 1971.
Moussec, for which there is an expanding trade, is now being made and bottled in Norwich, and with the growth of wine drinking as a natural complement to food, Carrow Works is now the home of the Food and Wine Division of Reckitt & Colman.
A few years back there were fears - probably no more than unfounded rumours - that with the interplay of forces within big groups leading to rationalisation of manufacturing processes, Carrow might no longer be required.
Happily this is no longer a subject for speculation. Carrow has become the group's food manufacturing centre, with the remaining lines of Farrows of Peterborough, including Gale's honey and peanut butter joining the Moussec plant as new developments on the Carrow site which still offers the opportunity of further expansion.
Forward look
When the Colman family picked the site around the old Abbey at Carrow something like 120 years ago, they were really looking ahead.
Despite automation, computers, and mechanical processes not dreamed of by the early employees who put the mustard into large and small containers by hand, there are still 1600 employees of the Food & Wine Division in Norwich.
Furthermore, the numbers employed are at present increasing slowly rather than diminishing.
It is a point touched upon by Mr. James Cleminson, who came to Carrow in 1960, was appointed managing director of the food division in 1970, and is shortly to become chief executive of the £200 million parent company, Reckitt & Colman Ltd.
He says it is appropriate that they should, on the 150th anniversary, acknowledge the debt owed to predecessors by opening a mustard shop in Bridewell Alley in Norwich.
"I am sure, however," he adds, "that they would regard it as more important that we should maintain their progressive outlook for the future."
Eastern Daily Press - Friday 9th February 1973

Born 16 July 1777 Baptised 6 August 1777 at Ashwellthorpe Son of ROBERT COLMAN (1749-1807) and Mary (née Harmer) Learned business of miller at Bawburgh_watermill (then corn, later paper mill) starting there in 1802. In March 1804 purchased smock_mill on eastern side of Magdalen Road, Pockthorpe, Norwich, near Silver Road. Moved from Bawburgh to Norwich in July 1804. Windmill "late JECKELL'S" Peck, Norwich Directory 1802, Thomas Jeckell, corn merchant, 127 Magdalen Street, Norwich. In 1814 took lease of watermill at Stoke Holy Cross. In mid 18th Cent. a Mr. Denny (died 1767) was making paper there. He was succeeded by a Mr. Ames who manufactured mustard. JEREMIAH COLMAN decided to combine corn and mustard rather than revert to paper. Married c.1794. Wife ANNE Had no children. Died 1851 aged 74 Brother Robert had eleven sons
JAMES \| JEREMIAH JAMES \| RUSSELL JAMES (1861 - 1946)	EDWARD \| FREDERICK \| GORDON	JEREMIAH etc. \| JEREMIAH
Harry Apling - c.1982

Tithe Award 1844 Map: Newton & Woodrow, Norwich. 1844 Owner: Robert Kellett LONG Occupiers: Jeremiah & James Colman
No. 145: Part of Watermill, House, Yards etc. Pasture	0a. 3r. 32p.	4/- Vicar
No. 146: Mill Piece. Arable	8a. 3r. 8p.	£1.1.7 Vicar £2.11.8 Apptr.
No. 147: Windmill Piece. Arable	3a. 0r. 22p.	8/4 Vicar 19/10 Apptr.
Shows tower mill with stage


c.1907	Mill working c.1910


May 1968	May 1973


c.1950	January 1963


Side wheel site April 1977	Side wheel site 2nd June 2005