Sam's Harborough

Hæfera-beorg (Old Norse for "the hill where oats grow') was founded by the Saxons around 410, but archaeology has pushed its existence back beyond the Romans to Iron Age Celts.

By 1066 it was a substantial establishment used by the Danish invaders and thrived over the centuries as an important market town.  Just one of its many and varied claims to fame is that Symington's Soups was concocted there by a Scottish grocer.

I am indebted to Harborough museum for informing me that William Symington came from Dumfries in 1827 to found a company selling tea, coffee and grocery.

In 1852, he invented dried pea flour to make soups and broths by stirring in boiling water . This 'instant soup' became enormously popular as a cheap and nourishing food. During the Crimean War it was a staple for soldiers fighting in freezing conditions.

Symingtons supplied Scott’s Antarctic Expedition and a Scott food store re-discovered in the 50s included perfectly usable Symington’s pea flour!  As an aside Robert Symington made corsets for fashionable Victorian ladies in the 1850s. The company grew into an international concern and one of its most famous products, the Liberty Bodice, was produced for almost seventy years.
In 1830 James Symington joined his brother in Market Harborough and set up as a Tailor, Hatter and Woollen Draper. He married Sarah Gold, a stay-maker for the corset industry and a cottage behind a High Street shop became a workroom where Sarah, helped by three girl assistants, worked at stay-making. Their son, Robert, shipped a Singer (patented in 1851) from America enabling Market Harborough to have one of the first mechanised corset factories in England. The stay-making side of the business gradually devolved to Robert in partnership with his younger brother, William Henry. In 1861 they took over a disused factory in Adam and Eve Street to supply the country's leading wholesalers. The firm became a public company in 1898

"Operation Pied Piper"
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Harborough_Mail

At the outset of WW2 children were evacuated from cities across Britain to rural communities unlikely to be bombed or even considered by the Germans.

On 1st September 1939 as Hitler was entering Poland the first children evacuated from East London were put on a train at 5am destination unknown.  Parents had been issued with a list detailing what the children should take with them. These included a gas mask in its case, a change of underclothes, night clothes, plimsolls or slippers, spare stockings or socks, toothbrush, comb, towel, soap, face cloth, handkerchiefs and a warm coat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuations_of_civilians_in_Britain_during_World_War_II

The following 'received wisdom' when I began research bears only a passing resemblance to Sam Springer's real truth. Elements of fact have been tainted by speculation. I discovered from Sam's birth certificate that he had been born in East London in 1923 and so was sixteen or seventeen years old when war broke out.

He was already in Market Harborough in 1939. It appears that his family moved there voluntarily but the exact year and the reason why has yet to be pinned down.
WIP!
Sam Springer was ten years old when he arrived in Market Harborough and would stay for five years.   In 1945 he went 'home' to Poplar and became apprenticed as a fabricator  learning his trade over the next seven years and gaining experience in local dockyards.  Sometime in the mid fifties, fully qualified and already very skilled, he started a fabrication business in Docklands.  Within a few years he had relocated to Market Harborough to set up Springer Engineering with an emphasis on wrought iron gates and later oil tanks for domestic premises. Indeed he progressively took on more and more diverse projects leading eventually to the production of the first all-steel narrowboats specifically built for 'leisure' use.

WORK IN PROGRESS
Farnborough Park
18 May 2024
Sam, being too young for conscription, was 'volunteered' for training in fabrication when war commenced and was sent to the Black Country to train.  There is evidence of an industrial accident [during his time there?] involving six months recuperation.

He appears in a news article after the war apparently working in Corby and he may have been cycling the twelve miles to work every day. We found a report of his being fined in a Corby court for some minor offence involving lights on a bike.

We also established that, in the mid 50s, he had what appears to have been a scrapyard (metal recycling business) in Walthamstow near the greyhound track. Later we find him establishing the Mill Road Springer factory

SAM'S HARBOROUGH