Description and History of Site:-
Thomas Fryer was born in Barrowford, Lancashire in 1841 and started making sweets in a brass jam pan at home over the coal fire. In 1864 he opened a shop on Leeds Road, Nelson, later moving the operation to the Old Malt Kiln, Barrowford, employing four men and one boy. One of the sweets that he sold were Victory V's, a liquorice flavoured lozenge. At first they were made by hand so as to ensure that each sweet contained the correct proportion of therapeutic ingredients; ether, liquorice and chlorodyne (a mix of opiates and chloroform). It was thought that the sweets were a good way of spreading preventative medicine to poorer people.
In 1873-74 the Victory Gum Works were built on Chapel Street, Nelson and known as Thomas Fryer and Company.
Thomas Fryer left the business in 1882 having run out of cash, the partnership between Thomas Fryer, Kellett Ashton and William Carruthers Smith was dissolved. William Carruthers Smith took on the companies debts and carried on the business on his own account, still trading under the same style of Thomas Fryer and Co until eventually selling to his brother, Bolton doctor Edward Smith who bought the business for £1000 and ran it along with his brother who acted as manager. William eventually took full control with the business becoming a private company in 1904.
In 1904 patent number 13,812 was for a machine for 'Improvements in Apparatus for Making, Stamping and Cutting Lozenges' an invention commissioned by Fryer's and produced by John Trenor and Caleb Duckworth of Colne.
It was reported by the Nelson Leader that the Victory V gum factory was sending 10,000 tins of V gums to the trenches for the Lancashire and Cheshire regiments, the tins designed for reuse as cigarette cases.
The famous 'Jelly Babies' sweets started life at these works as 'Unclaimed Babies' after a mould for jelly bears accidentally resulted in the sweets looking more like babies than bears. They became 'Victory Babies' in 1918 to celebrate the wars end, the product then also being produced by Barretts in Sheffield as 'Peace Babies'. It was in 1953 they were relabelled as 'Jelly Babies'.
During the 1920's Depression the company opened a toy factory to provide employment to the local workers.. The company owned nearby housing for use by employees. The factory was extended in 1953 by which time it was known as Victory Works and employed 300 workers. In 1959 a giant neon 'Victory for Cold Journey' sign hung outside the factory which by now employed 400 people on the six acre site. It had its own laboratory, a unique boiling plant and machines on which four operators could produce 6 tonnes of sweets per day.
EU rules regarding the use of chloroform resulted in a drop in sales of the V gum by the early 1980's with manufacturing ending in 1987 and the works demolished the year after.

Further Reading and References:-
NMRS Newsletter November 2021, B.Sutcliffe pp14-15
https://www.lep.co.uk/lifestyle/food-and-drink/sweet-shop-favourite-born-lancashire-1023702
https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Thomas_Fryer_and_Co

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Key Words :- sweets gums

Viewing the Site :- Public footpath alongside the site.

Address :- Chapel Street, Nelson, Lancashire
Grid Ref :- SD 86278 37889
Co-ordinates :- Lat 53.837070 , Long -2.210002
Local Authority :- Pendle Borough Council
Site Status :- Site demolished or no longer extant
Site Condition :- Site redeveloped to residential housing
Site Dates :- 1873-74 - 1988
Record Date :- 18 January 2022

Copyright :- cc-by-nc-sa 4.0 © Andrew Garford