| AdminHistory | In 1863, Thomas Kerfoot qualified as a Pharmaceutical Chemist. Shortly afterwards, he opened a chemist's shop in London Road, Manchester from where he ran a pharmacy and experimented in making preparations such as lozenges and pastilles. In 1890, he set up a small factory in Chester Street, Manchester, where he produced lozenges, pastilles, tablets and liquid preparations of drugs. He designed and made the first tablet machine in Great Britain. The machine was driven by power and could make compressed tablets. In September 1896, a fire destroyed the factory. Kerfoot required new premises and found two disused mills in the valley at Bardsley. Within two weeks he had bought the mills and begun manufacturing his tablets, lozenges etc. along with medicated confectionery. In 1900, Thomas Kerfoot was joined by his son, Ernest Kerfoot, in partnership. In 1906, Thomas went to live at Springwood Hall on the south bank of the Medlock. The works was laid out with gardens by Ernest and the site became known as the Garden Laboratories. During the First World War, a team of chemists from St Andrews University came to the laboratories to work on the synthesis of procain, a local anaesthetic. This was a time of considerable development and research into new drugs at the firm and by 1915 the firm was producing aspirin and saccharin amongst other bateriological sugars. It was also the beginning of a friendship between Ernest and Sir James Irving of St Andrews University that would last until their deaths. In 1919, the firm became a private limited company. The interwar period saw consolidation and expansion and an increase in exports. An association with E Fougera and Company of New York began in 1923 and by 1930 the firm was selling in 59 countries. In 1931, Thomas's two sons, Dr Thomas H Manners Kerfoot, a medical graduate from St Andrews, and Henry Manners Kerfoot, came into the business. Thomas senior maintained a great interest in the firm almost up until his death in 1936 at the age of 96. During the Second World War, Kerfoot's entered into an arrangement with the Imperial Chemical Industry (ICI) to produce vital drugs such as penicillin and anti-malaria drugs in dosage forms such as tablets or injections. The workforce doubled to around 500 employees. Ernest died of a stroke on 27 August 1944. He had introduced his sons to the family concern from an early age and so at this time, the third generation of Kerfoots became involved with the business at Bardsley Vale. |
