What was the place that peaked at more than 200 American companies by 1933?
The second major American company to set up a manufacturing base in Trafford Park was the Ford Motor Company, in 1911. Initially Ford used its factory as an assembly plant for the Model T, although other vehicles were assembled there in later years, before moving to a new factory at Dagenham, Essex, in 1931. By 1915, 100 American companies had moved into the park, peaking at more than 200 by 1933. When the cotton industry began to decline in the early 20th century, Trafford Park and the Manchester Ship Canal helped Manchester – and to a lesser extent the rest of south Lancashire – to weather the economic depression from which the rest of Lancashire suffered. During the First World War the park was used for the manufacture of munitions, chemicals and other materiel. Most firms at Trafford Park succeeded in avoiding bankruptcy during the Great Depression, unlike the rest of Lancashire. Ford moved to Dagenham in 1931, but returned temporarily to Trafford Park during the Second World War.Metropolitan Vickers set up Manchester's and one of the UK's first radio stations at their factory in 1921. The station's first broadcast took place on 17 May 1922. In October that year the company was one of six who formed the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), which started broadcasting from the Metrovicks studio under the call sign 2ZY on 15 November 1922. Much of the station's content was musical, but news, plays, and children's programmes were also transmitted. Conditions in the small 30-by-16-foot (9.1 m × 4.9 m) studio were cramped, and the BBC moved the station to larger premises outside the park in 1923.
Trafford Park