Alaska Works - Bermondsey, London, UK - Converted Factories on Waymarking.com

A factory was established here in 1869 by F. A. Schroeter to process fur and skins. Initially the main line of business was connected to seal skins imported from Alaska and Canada, the hair being scraped from the skins here and died for use in the garments industry. During the Second World War, the factory was used to make flying jackets and coat linings from sheepskin. The factory eventually closed during the 1960s and the premises have now been converted to residential use.

Little of the original 1869 factory survives - principally the gatehouse and arch which are at the given coordinates for this Waymark. The majority of the surviving factory buildings date from 1932 and are in Art Deco style.

At the coordinates is an information board provided by Southwark Borough Council which reads as follows:

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THE ALASKA FACTORY

The firm of CW Martin & Sons Ltd. owned the Alaska factory for about a century. Its business was fur, above all sealskin fur, and eventually it employed around a tenth of all the fur workers in the United Kingdom. The sealskin trade originated from the discovery of how to remove the “top hair” or long guard hairs, and flourished from the subsequent rise of sealskin products to become highly fashionable in Victorian days. The seals were originally from Antarctic waters, but later from Alaska and Canada. Unhairing, dressing and dying were the main processes undertaken in the factory.

The business traced its origins to 1823, when John Moritz Oppenheim set up as a fur-skin merchant in the City of London. The business that he founded passed into the hands of F. A. Schroeter, who built the Alaska Factory in 1869, and then to Charles W Martin and Emil Teichmann in 1873. Martin had been the manager and Teichmann was the brother-in-law of Schroeter’s son. From 1880 until his death in 1889, it was Martin’s alone. Thereafter it was a family partnership until it was incorporated in 1911, but members of the Martin family continued to direct the business. On the social and sporting side, the Alaska Cricket Club became notable.

As the seal trade became insufficient to support the firm on its own due to a decline from over-hunting, Martin’s came to deal in general furs, and in their dying and reconditioning. A new head office was built in Upper Thames Street, in the fur district of the City. This was near the north end of Southwark Bridge and close to Beaver House, the last London headquarters of the historic Hudson’s Bay Company, which conducted fur-trading in North America. Trade once again expanded, the Martin-Blau fur-cleaning process was introduced and Queen Mary’s coronation robe was cleaned by Martin’s in 1937.

A second factory was opened in nearby Pages Walk in 1927. Rebuilding of the main Alaska Factory began in 1932 to the designs of Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, whose contemporary buildings included the Firestone and Hoover factories on the Great West Road, and Victoria Coach Station. The Alaska building that you see today dates from that time, with some post-war restoration, and is labelled ALASKA on the tower, where it once said MARTIN’S. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the firm had 1,100 employees. The Alaska factory suffered a serious fire early in 1940, caused by an electrical fault, but had a narrow escape from an unexploded bomb during the subsequent Blitz. War work was undertaken on a large scale. No fewer than 345,000 sheepskins were processed for manufacture into flying suits for the RAF, plus 100,000 linings for flying coats. In addition, 140,000 of the sheepskin flying suits were reconditioned for the RAF and 38,000 for the US Air Force. Among more specialised tasks were the making for the RAF of 3,000 hoods with special yellow colouring for air-sea rescue identification, and bunk rugs and clothing for Mrs Churchill’s Aid to Russia Fund. Winston Churchill himself was photographed wearing a Martin’s sealskin hat.

In 1953, Martin’s published a small book on its history since 1823, entitled Under Eight Monarchs. But business in sealskin and furs had declined much since Martin’s heyday. In its final years in Bermondsey, Martin’s became Martin Rice Ltd. George Rice Ltd. had previously been a separate firm in the fur trade. After the firm’s removal from the district, the factory was eventually converted into flats. It remains a significant monument to Bermondsey’s industrial history.
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Address:: 61 Grange Road Bermondsey, London, United Kingdom SE1 8BA Year built: 1932 Year converted: 2013 Web page: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   06/01/2018 Master Mariner visited it