We always like to find new subjects for our blog posts and we wanted to start a run of articles about industries in Trowbridge. This was partly inspired by our recent case updates where we changed up the objects on display relating to retail and manufacturing. To kick us off we are looking at Airsprung.
Before Airsprung there was Chapman
The company was originally known as H Chapman & Co and was founded in Trowbridge in 1880 by Henry Hedley Reeves Chapman. In 1871 the company first opens as Hedley Chapman and Co., and he traded in the area throughout the late 1870’s. In 1880 he issued a circular to the local big wigs and gentry offering wholesale services as well as re-making and rejuvenating all types of mattresses and cushions. This was a successful marketing campaign because by 1883 business was booming and they expand into a warehouse in Duke Street. In 1891 John and his son Fred bought the business for £11,041 (£1,188,889 equivalent in 2025).
Fire, Fire!
In 1896 the Duke Street factory suffered from a major fire. In the same year the company became the first bedding company to use automatic wire weaving machinery in the Town Bridge factory. At the turn of the century the company employed 60 people with a customer base mainly in the south-west and west. Fred Yates had the first gas engine installed in Trowbridge in 1902, a 42 horsepower Crossley.
In 1905, another fire destroyed the Duke Street factory, forcing a move to Cradle Bridge, a former mill. However, their bad luck with fires continued; the Cradle Bridge factory also suffered a fire in 1919! This blaze proved far more dramatic, with 150 workers inside as it burned. Australian soldiers helped the local fire brigade evacuate everyone. They smashed lower-floor windows to aid staff escapes, dropped staff from upper-floor windows onto sheets held below, and reached the upper floors to evacuate people just minutes before flames completely engulfed the building. The fire spread as far as St. Stephens Church and nearly reached McCalls Mill before firefighters stopped it.
The interwar years for Airsprung
The company faced tough times between the World Wars. The fire damage proved to be a major setback, and the business really struggled. By the late 1930s, employees held a slogan competition, and the winning entry, “Airsprung,” became a popular internal nickname for their products, though it wasn’t the company’s official name yet.
Things really started looking up after the war. A major milestone arrived in 1957 when an Airsprung bed made its way to 10 Downing Street. Around this time, the factory also began to expand, signaling a new era of growth.
All change
However, in 1959 there was yet another fire followed by a 4-month workers’ strike in 1962. This resulted in the strikers losing their jobs. Airsprung became the official name of the now Limited company in 1965. By 1967 the company employed more than 400 workers at their new factory on Canal Road. The company was bought out by the Slumberland Ltd bed manufacturer in 1982. In 1987 the company was named as the UK’s second-largest manufacturer of beds. The success of the company continues today from their factory on Canal Road.
