Brush firm makes sweeping change

Jan 17 2008 By The Journal

For 150 years the brush firm founded by Samuel Cottam on Wearside quietly carved a modest but successful niche. Now the head of the sixth generation of Cottams is bringing in some changes. Iain Laing reports.

A FAMILY-OWNED brush manufacturer – which is run by the sixth generation of its founding family – has moved out of Wearside for the first time in a century and a half. Cottam Bros, which has been making brushes in Sunderland since 1858, has moved out of its long-time home on the Sheepfold industrial estate, behind the Stadium of Light, to make way for the city’s regeneration plans.

The manufacturer, which is run by Ben Cottam, the great-great-great-grandson of founder Samuel Cottam, has now moved its workforce to a new site at Monkton Business Park in South Tyneside.

It sold its base – which is made up of seven separate buildings with a road running through the middle – to regeneration agency Sunderland arc for an undisclosed sum.

The arc will use the site as part of its plans for a Stadium Village, which is likely to contain a hotel and leisure facilities, and Cottams say the new 21,000sq ft site will improve efficiency.

Managing director Mr Cottam, 27, said: “The first time they [Sunderland arc] knocked on our door a couple of years ago and told us we had to move, we were a bit upset, but we have worked with them and not tried to fight them.

“We soon realised this presented a massive opportunity for us because if we wanted to stay in manufacturing, then we realistically needed a new site.

“Working out of seven buildings, which we have inherited over the years, is a logistical nightmare. I think this will be amazing for us from an efficiency point of view.”

The £2.8m turnover company – which makes brushes for everything from cattle to scratch themselves on, to stimulate milk production, to the hi-tech cleaning of oil and gas pipelines – hopes to increase sales by 10% year-on-year with leaner manufacturing techniques.

Mr Cottam said: “We have an opportunity to carve out our processes from scratch, which
is something most businesses never get to do.”

On the same day that the builders finished their new factory, Cottam Brush started their relocation operation. A few days later all is finished, “Job done!” says Ben Cottam. “It’s been a long time in the planning, but it’s all come together over the last few days. All of our staff have got stuck in to make it happen. We are really pleased.”

And he is not stopping there. “It’s time to kick on. We’re really excited about our new factory and we’re confident that it stands up against any other manufacturing facility in the world.”

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The history THE business began when skilled brush-maker Samuel Cottam was instructed by his uncle, who ran a brush factory in Hull, to open up a similar business in Sunderland.

But before he could open the North-East arm of Cottam, his uncle’s factory was wrecked by fire – and so the financing for the Sunderland business went up in flames.

With the basic tools he had brought from Hull – and a house in the Hendon area of Sunderland – Samuel began making brushes by hand.

With a boring machine – worked by foot, a pair of hand shears and a pot of hot black pitch that was used as a setting agent, he would force the brush into a wooden head.

And, with hard work, he built the company into a viable business which moved into premises consisting of a four-storey house with large basement.

When Samuel died in 1894, son George William Cottam took over the business, moving his family into the rooms above the workshop at 22 Lambton Street, Sunderland.

In 1905, George’s three sons, Edmund, George William junior and Ernest, joined the business – which was then known as S Cottam & Co.

But 16 years after George senior died, leaving the business to eldest son Edmund, there was a disagreement between the brothers who broke away and set up Cottam Bros. in the Sheepfold area where the business is based today. The result was two sets of Cottams, both running brush-making businesses, on opposite sides of the river, later consolidated on to the previous site.