01/06/2026
The British Ever Ready Electrical Company began in 1901 as the American Electrical Novelty and Manufacturing Company of London. In the post-war years the British Ever Ready Electrical Company came to dominate the consumer battery market, employing 7,000 people in 12 factories across the United Kingdom. One of these was the Victoria Works, Dagenham, which opened in early 1946.
Occupying a prominent corner site between Oxlow Lane and Rainham Road, the six-acre factory was extremely modern and was equipped with the most up-to-date plant, and even a staff canteen and an on-site recreational hall housing the sports club, with billiards, table tennis, darts, television and a licensed bar! From the outset it employed 900 workers, who worked a 45-hour five-day week with paid holidays and medical and first-aid care.
In addition to manufacturing dry batteries for 'flash lamps', from the 1950s the factory also produced portable radio receivers, torches and cycle lamps, and other factories (and probably the Dagenham works) were also producing hearing aids, valves, bells, toys, miniature motors and 'many other useful articles, which are in great demand both at home and overseas'. In the late 1950s the company was claimed to be the world's largest battery producer.
The Victoria Works, Dagenham closed sometime in the 1980s, and Ever Ready's last UK factory, Tanfield Lea, was closed in 1996.
