UK manufacturers are facing big challenges, but these design firms show how Britain can still make it

1882 Ltd, Stoke-on-Trent

Emily Johnson is the fifth generation of a ceramics family from Stoke-on-Trent. Their pottery, Johnson Brothers, was formed in 1882 and in the 1960s was bought by Wedgwood, where her father was head of manufacturing until he retired in 2002. Together, they set up 1882 Ltd in 2011 with the aim of fusing innovative design with heritage craft skills. They worked with the best bone china and earthenware factories in Stoke, but when the pandemic hit those businesses, they decided to own and operate their own factory. ‘We’d always wanted to, but the decision was forced upon us,’ Emily says.

After taking over almost 604 sq m of the Wedgwood factory in Barlaston, with four potters and four kilns, they now have 23 potters and 11 kilns in a much larger space.

1882 Ltd collaborates with designers including Max Lamb, Giles Deacon and Shona Heath, and brands such as Mulberry and Jo Malone, as well as doing white-label work for Anya Hindmarch, Completedworks, The Conran Shop and Burberry. Alongside time-honoured crafts, they also make use of a 3D printer. ‘You still have to hand-finish it, but that has been really helpful,’ she says.

Emily is acutely aware of the need for apprentices, but with no current government schemes, she is funding them herself. ‘Our apprentice modeller just won an award; there were only five left in the city, and with her, there are six. We’ve got a trainee mould maker – he’s 22 – and that is also a dying art.’

Emily is realistic about the headwinds she faces. ‘We try to remain cup-half-full, but the prices of raw materials are going up, import charges have gone up and we’ve got the highest electricity costs in Europe,’ she says. ‘You just have to be nimble. We’re getting back to people seeing the value of something that’s beautifully crafted,’ she adds.

Despite everything, she tries to remain positive, crediting a resilience in the DNA of the historic city of Stoke-on-Trent, home to the potteries for centuries. ‘To do this, you have to have passion, and there is a fire in my belly.’ 1882ltd.com

Novocastrian, Tyne & Wear

‘The Industrial Revolution started in the north of England,’ states Richy Almond, founder of Novocastrian, a firm of designers and metalworkers. The name comes from medieval Latin – it means somebody who comes from Newcastle. ‘We’re in our 12th year now, but the heritage around why we do what we do goes back to shipbuilding for the last 200 years,’ he says.

Richy comes from a family of shipbuilders; his dad worked in the shipyards in the 1980s when the industry was in decline. ‘Dad had this entrepreneurial streak and set up a metalwork shop supplying the Nissan car plant,’ he explains. Richy grew up there, earning pocket money during the holidays, sweeping the floor and trying his hand at welding. ‘The factory I’m sitting in right now was my dad’s and we’ve taken it over,’ he says, smiling. ‘The smell of grinding steel, the sparks – it triggers memories.’

The first of his family to go to university, Richy studied architecture, graduating during the recession when jobs were scarce. A chance call from a friend saw him travelling down to London to take up a role with Anouska Hempel. He noticed they were doing a lot of bespoke metalwork that tended to be costly and poor quality.

‘One day, I got the drawings for some metal light shades and sent them to my dad to see if he could produce them better and cheaper. He made one, sent it down and I showed it to Anouska. A week later, we had an order for six of them for a villa in Switzerland.’

Richy had still been designing coffee tables and mirrors for friends and family, then he had a lightbulb moment where the two worlds came together and Novocastrian was born. It now supplies furniture and lighting to the likes of Taylor Howes and Banda.

Many of the techniques they still use, such as welding and riveting, come from the shipbuilding industry. For example, the ‘Corbel’ coffee table is a thin layer of brass wrapped onto a rigid core, in the same way a ship’s hull is made. ‘If you cut it in half, it would look like a cross section through a ship,’ says Richy. In terms of modern technology, laser cutting saves a lot of time.

‘We are de-skilling in a way,’ he concedes, but it’s necessary to stay competitive. ‘We’re making things in the UK. The wages are higher. It’s a challenge to get that balance.’ They find the skills they need by training apprentices from scratch. Jack is their first, joining the firm at 17 and training with lead metalworker Marcus for five years. Now they’re looking for two more apprentices.

While 2024 was strong, this year is proving more challenging, but Richy has built flexibility into his model. ‘I’ve seen it first-hand with my dad’s business in 2008. He was driving the van and my mum was helping with the books. You have to decide: is this worth saving? If it is, you do whatever you’ve got to do.’ His determination stems from a sense of duty to his workforce, his family and his birthplace. ‘When it feels blood deep, it’s in your veins. Generations of memory and nostalgia are feeding into everything we make.’ novocastrian.co

Sedilia, London

When Robert Stephenson opened his ‘one-man band’ furniture workshop in Borough 27 years ago, there was a whole network of framemakers, suppliers and metalworkers that he could tap into, as well as a plentiful supply of skilled staff. Today, not so much. Costs have seen the makers shut up shop or move away, while apprenticeships and furniture colleges have dwindled.

‘The people who pay for upholstery courses these days are not school leavers like they used to be,’ he explains. ‘It’s people in their thirties or forties who want to run their own workshop.’ Their first apprentice Casey is now one of the firm’s most highly skilled workers. ‘She can upholster, pattern cut, sew. She’s our quality controller. She has a history of knowledge and understanding that has become very valuable,’ he says. There hasn’t been a new apprentice for several years, though – with no government funding, it’s hard.

The business now includes a specialist design team responsible for its in-house collection and bespoke work for leading interior designers and architects such as Peter Mikic and Studio Ashby. Head of collection Alice Lockerbie joined 12 years ago after working at David Collins Studio.

‘When I started, we had a small list of clients and we’d do almost all the upholstery for a project bespoke,’ she recalls. ‘Before Instagram, we were a “best-kept secret”. Now we have a much larger client base.’

With their designers and makers working together in a restored 1950s workshop between Clapham Common and Brixton, new technologies such as 3D printing go hand in hand with traditional techniques. ‘The shapes we create are so organic and bespoke that being able to print them 100% accurately means the finished piece is exactly what the client has approved,’ says Alice. Because their designs are so curvaceous, Robert adds, ‘if you try to make them in solid beech, it’s time-consuming, wasteful of timber and hard to make accurately over and over again.’ Instead they use CNC-cut plywood. Into the frame goes a handsprung seat; the technique hasn’t been improved upon in 200 years; ‘it’s the most comfortable, supportive and lasts the longest,’ he says.

Labour costs have risen by 50per cent in the past six years alongside materials, meaning their prices have had to go up too. Clients have been understanding, but Robert feels a duty to raise the brand’s game in both quality and design to justify the increase; ‘there’s a way through for us, but you can’t be complacent’. Striving for perfection is what motivates him. ‘That has defined Sedilia from the early days, and still does.’ sedilia.com

Original BTC, Oxfordshire

Peter Bowles founded Original BTC in 1990, producing industrial-style lighting for the home using bone china made in a pottery in Stoke-on-Trent. Proudly independent and with a deep commitment to making its products in Britain, the company is now led by his children, Charlie and Hettie. Charlie remembers going to his father’s cutlery factory in Sheffield as a child.

‘He’s always loved manufacturing and I’ve learnt to value it as well,’ he says of his dad, explaining that while they could easily import the parts, it would produce a completely different product. ‘We’re doing it for the enjoyment, the control and peace of mind, as well as the knowledge that we’re not reliant on world factors, be they political or geographical.’

In 2010 the company brought Davey Lighting into the business to satisfy a growing demand for outdoor lights. At the time, Davey was sourcing the glass needed to make its lights from Eastern Europe. ‘We wanted to produce a British-made product, so we found English Antique Glass and asked them to start producing those pieces for us,’ says Charlie. ‘The company didn’t see much of a future for itself, so we decided to take it over to have control over the quality and secure our supplies.’

That and a determination to use local raw materials such as clay served the brand well during the pandemic. ‘We had no issues because about 95 per cent of our components are produced in the UK,’ he says. The glass is now made at Original BTC’s Oxfordshire workshop with the same hand-blowing techniques that have been used for centuries. ‘Every time I go down into the workshop, I’m mesmerised by our glass-blower Sam doing his thing,’ says Charlie.

Recently, the brand has introduced designs with cleaner lines and a more contemporary style, such as the ‘Magnus’ lighting range that launched in April. ‘Future classics is what we’re aiming for,’ says Charlie. The company also collaborates on collections with carefully-chosen designers, including Beata Heuman and Fabian Freytag. ‘We don’t do them for the sake of it – it’s got to have meaning.’

Original BTC has showrooms from Taipei to Paris and New York with the most recent opening in Munich, but Charlie believes the lights the firm produces definitely feel British: ‘A lot of our pieces are very functional and you can see how they work.’ Each individual light has its own character, derived from the fact that human hands and skill have shaped it. ‘What always drives us is the satisfaction in designing and producing beautiful products of fantastic quality.’ originalbtc.com

Ercol, Buckinghamshire

Ercol’s chairman Henry Tadros is ‘eternally optimistic’ – essential if you’re helming a fourth-generation business in turbulent times. Perhaps he inherited that spirit from Ercol’s founder, his great-grandfather Lucian R Ercolani, who came from Italy to London’s East End as a boy in 1895. Supported by the Salvation Army, he trained as a furniture maker, then in 1920 started a company – Furniture Industries – his mission ‘to give meaningful employment to people’.

It took World War II and a seismic shift of the utility-furniture movement, when the firm had to design and manufacture 100,000 well made, affordable kitchen chairs, for him to find his true calling. ‘It turned us from a big workshop into a modern furniture factory,’ says Henry. The post-war era saw Lucian at his most prolific, creating the famous ‘Butterfly Chair’, ‘Loveseat’ and ‘Stacking Chair’ – ‘the DNA of Ercol’ – all influenced by that first utility chair. The arrival of CNC machines in the 70s enabled the business to thrive, despite the workforce shrinking. Today, Henry says, ‘we have the CNC doing amazingly accurate, efficient things, but someone still using a spoke shave. It’s a marriage of high-tech machinery and age-old techniques.’

With more than 2,000 years of experience between them, the Ercol team has employees who have clocked up four or five decades of service. Many started as apprentices, including 75-year-old Mario who joined at 15. They will soon have 20 apprentices learning skills from older staff like part-time electrician Pat, aged 85. Henry is conscious of the responsibility he carries; ‘I want to make my family proud. Not only is it heritage, it’s people’s livelihoods.’

Since 2023, Ercol has partnered with Grown in Britain on a collection made in British-certified ash, to re-establish the UK supply chain of timber, which Henry says is the most sustainable material for making furniture. ‘An ash tree lives for about 80 years, then it’ll decay, fall down, get burnt, decompose and the carbon will go back into the environment,’ he explains. ‘We harvest the tree at that point and lock up the carbon in a table that could last 100 years or more. Buying an Ercol piece, you’re looking after the local economy and the environment. It’s a win-win.’

Ercol sells the ‘Shalstone’ range – which is made abroad – in John Lewis & Partners, but post-Covid pitched a more premium product crafted in its Princes Risborough factory to the retailer. Its success vindicates Henry’s decision to shift the brand’s focus from international to British consumers, including opening a store on the King’s Road. ‘We’re controlling what we can.’ He is inspired by his father – chairman for 30 years before him – and his great-grandfather.

‘We’ve been through wars, recessions. If we’re clever and flexible, it will be fine.’ His family’s story is a lesson of acceptance and ambition: ‘Lucian may have been Italian, but he made a great British furniture manufacturing company. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, if you’re making beautiful pieces, it will be remembered for a long time.’ ercol.com