Admin needs your help on historical SE26 business employers

[Brannan]

This may be only of minor interest, but my grandfather's thermometer business was run for a few years, from 1927 onwards, in a workshop over some stables behind the "Cottage of Content" pub in Wells (Park) Road.

The business, still trading in Cumbria as S. Brannan & Sons, was started by my grandfather 100 years ago in 1913 in a house in East Dulwich. The above-mentioned workshop was probably not used after about 1930/2. A factory was later built in Forest Hill, which closed down in 1973. The Sydenham period was thus quite short.

At the time they were mainly engraving clinical thermometers.

If anyone has any further information on the workshop that would be of interest.

[Brannan]

After posting my last message here, I saw that only businesses with at least 100 employees were of interest - and the thermometer company only had a few workers back then (it had a lot more later but was no longer in Sydenham, even though my grandfather lived there in Longton Ave. until his death in 1960).

[Eagle]

I do not believe Sydenham ever had many large employers. We are not the sort of area that attracted large industry or business./

[gremlin]

I think Rank Cintel were in Worsley Bridge Road, and a company that made scientific instruments, I will check. But I don't think either employed 100 people, although Rank were part of a bigger organisation. Didn't Muirhead have a depot in Lower Sydenham, their main office being in Elmers End?
There was Ernest Green & Partners, Consulting Engineers in the 70s & 80s who were in Dylons old building near the Dolphin. They had an office in Norwich where I worked in early1980s and all told they may have employed 100 staff.
Keep smiling,
Gremlin

[PCrosby]

I worked at the Grundig Company as a radio repair technician during 1976. From memory, there was no real manufacturing there - it seemed to be a warehouse distribution and spares centre. Again, from memory there were a couple of hundred employees, and I recall they had a fairly large canteen.

The radio & hifi repair workshop had around 15 techs, some specialising in Grundigs up-market products, but most like me, repairing anything that came in. There was a bonus system where you earned extra if you fixed more sets, so we soon learned to grab the easy repairs off the shelf. I'm afraid any sets with tricky faults took some time to get done!

[Grundigman]

I have noticed several mentions of the Grundig HQ in Newlands Park. I worked in the Customer Liaison office from 1972 to 1975 during which time Grundig AG of Germany took over what had been Grundig (Great Britain) Ltd which had been a privately owned British company who were the sole distributors of Grundig products in the UK. As a result of the takeover a brand new office and service department were built and Grundig continued to be at the forefront of TV Radio Recording Machines and other electronic entertainment products. There was no manufacturing at Sydenham. We had a Sales Department, Service Department which carried out any repairs local dealers were unable to do. The company employed around 200 and my years there are remembered fondly. I was only 16 when I began working there and I remember going over to Reg and his wife in the newsagents for my sandwich lunch. Grundig did have a plant in Northern Ireland which manufactured Cassette Tape recorders. The Director of that plant was kidnapped by the IRA which put our HQ in London on high alert. We did have a couple of bomb scares but fortunately they were hoaxes. I lived in Beckenham at this time but by a strange coincidence my family lived in Albert Road Penge when I was 2 & 3 years old. Until I applied for the job at Grundig I had no idea that they existed!