Main content

Pasture Street. Grimsby: Ticklers Jam Company

Attempting to recreate the taste of the main supplier of jam to the WW1 front line

The name Ticklers had been synonymous with job seekers in Grimsby for nearly 100 years, and then from 1914, an even bigger name with the troops. From a small grocery business established in 1877, Thomas G Tickler soon ran one of the largest factories in the town producing jam and marmalade.

At the outbreak of war, Ticklers secured a contract to supply front lines with plum and apple jam – a contract worth £1m between 1914 and 1918. Its suggested empty jam tins were used as makeshift grenades gaining the name ‘Ticklers artillery’.

‘Ticklers Fruit Growers & Preservers’ was eventually taken over by a rival firm in the late 1950s and the final sign of the Tickler legacy, the factory chimney with Ticklers written down the side, was pulled down in the early 1960s.

Where there once stood a factory connected to the rail network is now a retail park connected to the Peaks Parkway.

Location: Pasture Street, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire DN32 9DE
Image shows Ticklers factory (1914-18)

Release date:

Duration:

2 minutes

Featured in...