19/10/2026
Earlier this year we were given a collection of material from the Malta branch of Dagenite Batteries.
This international branch of a local favourite was run by John Balzan and his brother Gerry from the 1950s until the late 1980s.
A leading firm in the British accumulator battery industry during the first half of the 20th century, Pritchett & Gold and E.P.S. Company, Limited had origins in the pioneer days of electrical engineering. They established a factory at Dagenham Dock in 1914, which was one of the first to be sited at Chequers Lane. This factory quickly became one of the largest, best equipped and most modern factories for the
manufacture of accumulators in Britain. By the 1920s the factory was producing 160 types of storage batteries, ranging in size from those used in pocket-torches to enormous ones used in central power stations.
The firm pioneered the development of the motor-car battery (a product that became increasingly important as the vehicle component industries in Dagenham grew in size and stature) and the eponymous 'Dagenite' battery was the first to operate an electric starter fitted to an English car. Dagenite automobile batteries saw unrivaled application and success, supplying power to cars, trucks, tractors, buses, scooters and motor cycles throughout the world. They were standard
equipment on Rolls Royce cars.
In the 1960s, the Chloride Electrical Storage Co., a giant holding company which had acquired a controlling interest in Pritchett & Gold and E.P.S. Company, Limited as early as 1922, took full control of the works, although batteries under the brand names 'Dagenite' were still being manufactured. In the late 20th century the factory was renamed Chloride Automative Batteries Limited and then Exide Batteries Ltd. It survived until September 2001.
Barking and Dagenham Council
