E. Bacon & Co
Originally formed as E Bacon & Co Ltd, now trading as the Bacon Engineering Group, our organisation has a fascinating and illustrious history. It all began with the company’s formation in 1899, when it was set up by Edwin Bacon who became known as the Guvnor. The Guvnor was a remarkable self-made man, whose stirring story is an inspiring rags to riches tale, which started when he first went to sea after running away from home as an illiterate youngster.
Born on 4 February 1852, in Brightlingsea Essex, the Guvnor’s mother tragically died when he was very young leaving his father to raise him and his brother. This proved to be hard for his father and as a result of a challenging childhood the Guvnor ran away from home at a young age. He was drawn to the sea and initially became a cabin boy on the Grimsby-to-Hamburg steamer, going on to become a Grimsby fisherman for Henry Smethurst.
The Guvnor’s
Business Empire
In 1890 – age 38, he had not been paid for several months so instead of returning his boat’s catch to Grimsby, he sold it in London and paid Smethurst the money ‘less his wages’. Seeing the money which could be made in selling fish at that time the Guvnor decided to start his own venture. He returned to Grimsby to secure backing from Lindsey Bank and Cochrane & Sons shipbuilders to form the Lindsey Steam Fishing Company.
Seeing further opportunities, he later set up E. Bacon & Co Ltd and 4 other separate companies to provide his empire everything it needed from engineering support services, carpentry, plumbing, blacksmith, and victualing services, through to insurance, distributors and fish merchants to sell the catch.
As Grimsby developed into the largest fishing port in the world, his growing portfolio of interests prospered with his myriad of operations, becoming a significant local employer. With this success grew the Guvnor’s influence, wealth and status as he became a popular local philanthropist who never forgot his humble background.
World War
Losses
When WW1 broke out, a significant number of Bacon’s trawlers were appropriated by the Royal Navy’s Admiralty to be converted into mine sweepers or for anti-submarine duties in the North Sea. The operations embarked on by the trawlers were very high risk, leading to many being lost through the conflict.
The requisition of the company’s trawlers was repeated again during WW2 as once again the Grimsby fishing industry played a key role in protecting British territorial waters.
The Grimsby Spitfires
& The Great Escape
During WW2 the Guvnor paid for one of the two Spitfires donated by Grimsby to the RAF as well as providing the Government with interest-free loans. For his generous support Sir Winston Churchill offered to award him a baronetcy, but the Guvnor declined to accept the honour, as he was a very humble man. Having risen from nothing and devoted much of his life fighting for fishermen’s rights, he didn’t see the need to be set apart from others by a title.
The story of the Grimsby Spitfires becomes even more fascinating when looking at the history of one of the planes. The Spitfire Mark V’s were called Grimsby I (BL588) and Grimsby II (R7231). Research shows that BL588 initially being of 81 Squadron and being flown by Norwegian pilot Lt Halldor Espelid who was shot down on 17 August 1942 by enemy anti-aircraft guns east of Dunkirk, with Lt Espelid being taken prisoner of war by the Nazis.
Espelid was eventually executed 29 March 1944 by the Gestapo after escaping from the Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp in Silesia on 23 March 1944 as part of the Great Escape (the inspiration for the classic film).
Sadly, the Guvnor did not live to see the Allied victory in WW2 which he has so generously supported, as he passed away on 13 June 1943.
However, his companies were left in safe hands as his eldest sons took the reins with Arthur Bacon and Edwin junior becoming the second generation to take the helm of the business network, with things continuing to go from strength to strength.
The last act of piracy
in British Waters
An infamous and unique historic event occurred in 1966 when a Bacon’s trawler, the Loveden, was involved in the last officially recorded act of piracy in UK waters, as 5 members of the ship’s crew forcibly took charge of the vessel, tying up the Skipper, first mate and the Cook in what they later described as “an act of drunken high spirits” stating they thought the incident had been overblown.
An account of the piracy, published in The Times on 13 July 1966, quoted the skipper: “We were six hours out of Grimsby when the mate, myself and the cook were seized by five men, bound and locked up. The men took a boat and started to row towards the German coast. After they had left we were released by the engineer.”
According to the national paper, the trawler then sent out an SOS message and was found off the German coast on 10 July, 1966 by the Royal Navy.
By this point the company was under the charge of the third generation of the family, Arthur Edwin Bacon (also known as Edwin). However coincidentally at the time of the SOS being sent, the future fourth generation boss, Ross Bacon, was sailing northbound through the North Sea. He was in the Merchant Navy and was on the bridge of his cargo vessel as the Officer of the Watch and heard the message over the radio, which unbeknown to him was from one of his family trawlers. He advised his Captain that his ship was not in a position to assist and that they should maintain their course and destination, which they duly did. The next day after they had arrived into port in the UK, Ross became aware of the full situation only after seeing a newspaper headline about the incident.
The judge at the 1966 trial of the 5 men said Mr Call, the group’s leader, and his pals were lucky not to face the death penalty, when he sentenced the men in what was believed to be the first men convicted of piracy charges in Britain in around 200 years.
Amusingly, 5 years later after serving his sentence, a disgruntled Mr Call returned to Bacon’s to confront Edwin and demand his job back. After a very heated exchange my Edwin decided to give him his job back. In time, this decision proved to be a wise one as Mr Call went on to become a very successful skipper with the company.
The End
of an Era
The family’s Lindsey Trawler fleet endured until the early 1980s, however by then it had dwindled to only eight boats, the Lucerne, Lepanto, Lemberg, Lofoten, Longset, Lavinia, Loveden and the Tom Grant. However, changes to European fishing rights and quotas, rising oil prices and shifting economics forced the sale of the remaining boats, which meant the dissolution of Lindsey Trawlers and the other family companies and the further contraction of E. Bacon & Co Ltd as we fought for survival in the rapidly changing industrial landscape.
Two Trawlers
Endure
Two of the remaining eight trawlers were sold to a South African fishing company called the Viking Fishing Group, which coincidentally was owned and run by a South African businessman called Mr Nico Bacon (no relation).
To this day Viking Fishing Group still operate the Lucerne and Lepanto out of Cape Town, which nostalgically keeps a slice of our history alive.
The following decades were often a real struggle for the last remaining part of the Guvnors empire as the town and the Docks went into a long period of very deep decline. However, E. Bacon’s valiantly battled on as virtually all our contemporaries disappeared.
Now known as the Bacon Engineering Group, we are one of the oldest surviving family businesses in the region, having endured for over 125 years through hard work, ingenuity and evolution.
In 2022, after 123 years spent on Grimsby Docks, our relocation was completed to a modern facility on the outskirts of town from where we start to write an exciting new chapter.
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