Hixon History Society

The May meeting was addressed by Jill Crowther who explained why an American camp was set up in the grounds of Blythe Colours during the 2nd World War. Blythe Colours was a colour manufacturer (mainly for the pottery industry) established around 1870 in Cresswell. The American Laundry Machine Company had been contracted to build interior Impregnating Plants. These plants needed a building with a large floor space, laundry facility, with cooling water requirements and close to a rail line.

At the May meeting of the Hixon History Society we will be hearing about The Rugeley Poisoner.

The British Ministry of Works (MoW) had been tasked with finding these facilities including camps, storage facilities and workshops, and Ludlow in Shropshire and the Blythe Colour Works site at Cresswell were identified as suitable sites. The Cresswell site was chosen and In October 1942, an Impregnating Plant was moved from Bristol, where it had been shipped to from the USA, and delivered to Cresswell by rail, and a small dam was constructed in the River Blithe behind the plant in order to provide sufficient cooling water. On 29th November 1943, the US Army’s 104th Chemical Co. arrived at the custom-built “Bolero Camp” consisting of a series of Nissen huts, and holding around 300 men, whose task was to develop uniforms which could act as protective gear in case of a chemical attack by the enemy. The process lasted two years and by 1946, the US army had left. Local families who had been displaced by the war quickly moved into the empty Nissen huts before the authorities could stop them. The local council had to accept the situation and so just charged the ‘squatters’ a nominal rent. Around 1947-9, the local authority built 42 houses on the site – naming the area “Rookery Crescent”, and re-housing many of the squatters in the new homes. Blythe Colours became part of the Johnson Matthey group in 1963 and the site eventually closed in 2015. 

On June 2nd there will be a talk about the RAF Cosford Museum.

All meetings start at 8-00pm. 

The fee is £2-00 per person. All welcome. 

John Egginton