Cape Asbestos Barking facility

The Cape Asbestos Barking facility was an asbestos processing factory operated by Cape Asbestos Company Limited in Barking, East London, from 1913 until its closure in 1968. The plant manufactured asbestos textiles, insulation, and other products, primarily using crocidolite (blue asbestos) and amosite (brown asbestos) imported from Cape's South African mines. It became one of Britain's most notorious sites for asbestos disease, with widespread illness among workers and people living near the factory.

Origin

Cape Asbestos Company was founded in 1893 to exploit asbestos deposits in South Africa's Cape Province. The Barking works was established in 1913 to process raw fiber shipped from those mines, and the facility expanded substantially through both World Wars to meet demand for insulation in shipbuilding, military equipment, and construction.

Significance in Asbestos Context

Barking is one of the clearest historical examples of an asbestos company knowing about disease risk and continuing to expose workers, families, and neighbors. Internal Cape documents and the work of Dr. Muriel Newhouse and Hilda Thompson at the London Hospital in the 1960s linked the Barking plant, and even nearby residential streets, to a striking number of mesothelioma cases, including in women who only washed their husbands' overalls and in children who played near the factory. For patients or families with any connection to East London, Dagenham, or the Thames-side industrial belt during 1913–1968, the Barking facility is a key exposure source to investigate, including secondary (take-home) and environmental (neighborhood) exposures. Cape's corporate successors and insurers have been defendants in UK and international asbestos litigation for decades.

Example Sentence

Her solicitor asked whether her father had ever worked at, lived near, or visited anyone employed at the Cape Asbestos Barking factory, because the family had lived two streets away in the 1950s.

Related Terms

Cape Asbestos Company, Crocidolite, Amosite, Take-home Exposure, Newhouse and Thompson Study, Environmental Asbestos Exposure

Notes

• If you, a parent, or a grandparent lived, worked, or attended school in Barking, Dagenham, or surrounding areas between 1913 and the early 1970s, tell your medical and legal team. Neighborhood exposure from the Barking plant is a recognized cause of mesothelioma.
• Look for old employment records, union cards, pay slips, National Insurance records, or photographs that place a relative at Cape Asbestos or in the surrounding streets; these documents strengthen exposure history.
• Ask female relatives about laundering work clothes for anyone employed at the plant. Take-home exposure has supported successful claims in Cape-related cases.
• UK claimants should ask their solicitor about Cape plc, its successor entities, and the Cape Employee Trust, as well as relevant insurance coverage for the Barking period.
• The Newhouse and Thompson (1965) study of patients at the London Hospital is frequently cited as expert evidence in Barking-linked cases; ask whether your medical experts have reviewed it.