page_title: Nechells
section_title: Industrial and Commercial Development
hierarchical_section_title: Nechells / Industrial and Commercial Development
caption_attribution_description: English: Demolition of gasometer frames at Nechells, Birmingham, England in August 2015.
context_page_description: Nechells is a district ward in central Birmingham, England, whose population in 2011 was 33,957. It is also a ward within the formal district of Ladywood. Nechells local government ward includes areas, for example parts of Birmingham city centre, which are not part of the historic district of Nechells as such, now often referred to in policy documents as "North Nechells, Bloomsbury and Duddeston".
context_section_description: Early evidence of industrial, or rather small-scale craft activity in Nechells is given on Tomlinson's 1758 map which shows a slitting mill used as a stage in the manufacture of nails situated at a point towards the northern end of what was to become Nechells Park Road.
  On Ordnance Survey 1:2500 maps of 1902 and 1904 there is much evidence of  industry in the early 20th century: Nechells Chemical Works and Birmingham Paper Mill were located adjacent to the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal at the eastern end of Cattells Grove; a Tube Works, Stove Works and Varnish Works were situated in an area bounded by the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal, Holborn Hill and Long Acre; and a building shown as "Park Mills (Edge Tool)" is shown on Wharton Street, again adjoining the Birmingham and Warwick Junction Canal.
  
  Later in the 20th century Nechells was chosen as the location of two gasworks, in Windsor Street and Nechells Place,
   Two coal-fired power stations were situated on land now occupied by the Star City complex. The first power station was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1923 and a larger plant, known as Nechells "B", opened in 1954. The B station had a capacity of 224 megawatts (MW) and generated 52.869 GWh of electricity in 1980-81. A small railway network was used by both power stations for the transport of coal from the main line railway at Saltley and within the plant. The power stations closed in 1982, but a steam locomotive used at the site, "Nechells No.4", has been preserved and is operating on the Chasewater Railway in Staffordshire
  The second of the two gasworks was the setting - in an "obscure suburb on the eastern side of Birmingham", according to one historian, -  for the so-called Battle of Saltley Gate in February 1972, a confrontation between striking mineworkers, the police and the West Midlands Gas Board over the picketing mineworkers' attempt to prevent the transport of coke from the gasworks. In labour history and mythology, the name "Saltley Gate" (or "Gates") has persisted, despite the locale for the incident being in Nechells.
  Nechells played a part in the development of the petrol-driven internal combustion motor car. At the age of twenty and with no formal qualifications, Frederick William Lanchester so impressed the owner of the Forward Gas Engine Company of Birmingham that he was offered the position of assistant works manager at their factory near Bloomsbury Street where he made various improvements to the equipment produced by this company. Lanchester resigned from the company in 1893 and went on to produce the first all-British four-wheel petrol car. A sculpture, the Lanchester Car Monument, was built in Bloomsbury Village Green to commemorate Lanchester's work.
  Nearby, on Lingard Street, close to Bloomsbury Library, was situated another branch of the motor vehicle industry. David Haydon Ltd manufactured bodies for fire engines until the closure of the firm in the 1960s.
  Foundry Services Ltd, later FOSECO, moved into premises on Long Acre in 1933. The company had been created by two German Jewish refugees, Eric Weiss and Kossi Strauss, and specialized in the manufacture of fluxes and compounds used in the iron foundry industry. The firm moved to Tamworth in the 1990s and is now a multinational business.
  At the corner of Long Acre and Plume Street stood the large factory of Verity's Ltd, a manufacturer of electrical motors, fans and electrical fittings. The company went into voluntary liquidation in 1959.
  Flights Hallmark, a coach and corporate vehicle operator, has its head office and a depot on Long Acre, on the site of the former Aston motive power depot.
  The privately owned St Clements Nursing Home at the junction of Nechells Park Road and Stanley Road was built on land formerly occupied by St. Clement's Vicarage.
  A notable feature of the commercial life of present-day Nechells is the headquarters of the Wing Yip Chinese food and restaurant business which occupies a site at Nechells Green bounded by Thimblemill Lane, Long Acre, Nechells Park Road and Railway Terrace. This site opened in 19
caption: Demolition of Nechells gasometers, August 2015
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