With the setting up of the new Company referred to at the close of the previous chapter the managing directors realised that the enterprise had outgrown the limits of the Salford Iron Works site. They saw clearly that the future of the business lay in its concentration and development on a scale beyond anything hitherto attempted. Such concentration and development entailed changes in
organisation as well as changes in location, but the two
sets of considerations went together. Even new brooms can
best sweep clean on new premises. The three reasons for
the move from Salford Iron Works to Newton Heath were
first, to acquire satisfactory railway siding facilities;
second, to find open spaces in which to be able to
expand; and third, to provide scope for centralised and
efficient management, control and production. The first
of these reasons could in itself be regarded as a
self-sufficient cause for removing the works. There were
no railway siding facilities at the Salford Iron Works
and consequently everything had to be carted through the
streets, a state of affairs that placed a limit on
business expansion. John Taylor and John Wormald caught a
glimpse of an attractive site at Newton Heath through a
railway carriage window, and the vision was gradually
turned into reality To
see major changes in to life of a firm in terms of such
anecdotes is both to over-dramatise and to over-simplify
the logic of cause and effect. In point of fact there was
urgent need for expansion and for the re--siting of parts
of the company’s enterprise, particularly the fire
engineering business previously conducted by Dowson,
Taylor & Co. Ltd. at Blackfriars: hence the merit of
Newton Heath which was an undeveloped site, capable of
gradual development. Before seeing the open space
on which Park Works now stands Taylor inspected and half
approved a site in Great Clowes Street, Broughton, but he
felt that "the policy of the firm should be one of
greater vision than this”. By contrast the scheme to
acquire the extensive site at Newton Heath seemed too
ambitious to some critics but they were proved wrong
almost from the start. The
third reason for a change the quest for a home offering
scope for more efficient control of production - also
made imperative the search for premises, where materials
could be more easily handled and where workers could be
effectively supervised. The growing use of jigs and
automatic tools demanded systematic arrangement of
machines to produce large quantities at low cost. Salford
Iron Works with its buildings at varying angles to one
another, differences in floor levels, rough floors and
heavy galleries was an unsuitable place for development
in production technique or departmental sub-division.
Newton Heath was a big enough site to allow for the
arrangement of workshops in such a way that unnecessary
waste of time and effort could be eliminated. It
was in 1900 that the fifty-acre plot of nearly level
ground at Newton Heath was secured by the Company. It had
direct access to the Lancashire and Yorkshire and The
London and North-Western Railways, was on the bank of the
Rochdale Canal, and was well served by main roads.
Although the Boer War was in progress, building
operations started at once. An administrative building
two storeys in height was constructed, with the general
office and drawing office open from end to end, the
supervisory staff alone being provided with separate
rooms. The building itself was of unusual construction
being based on the design of an American firm which
specialised in what they termed ‘slow burning’
buildings - solid wood built into an outer 'skin’ of
brick. It is said that this remarkable structure is as
good today as it was when first erected. At the same time
the adjoining machine shop was erected. John
Taylor’s energy and imagination made it possible.
The workshop, 380 feet long and 130 feet wide, was built
to a great extent of material, which was originally
erected to provide the machinery hall of the Paris
Exhibition of 1900. The Hall was bought by the Company,
dismantled in Paris by its own engineers, brought direct
to Manchester along the Manchester Ship Canal, and
re-erected together with a smaller amount of steelwork
fabricated in Manchester, at Newton Heath, where, as Bays
Number 1 to 4, it formed a nucleus around which the
present works have been built. The first department to
transfer to the new home Fire Equipment moved over a
single weekend. Such was the driving power and organising
genius of John Taylor that after the employees ceased
productive work at Blackfriars at twelve o’clock on
Saturday, the machinery was dismantled and, transported
to Park Works; the millwrights worked through the weekend
and production started at Newton Heath at the normal time
on Monday morning. This would have been a feat of
considerable magnitude in the second half of the
twentieth century when powerful cranes, mobile handling
and lifting tackle, supported by a fleet of mechanical
transport vehicles would have been employed on the
transfer but it was a triumph of organisation fifty years
earlier when much of the plant would be moved twice by
manual labour and horse drawn lorries were employed to
provide all the necessary transport. In
accordance with an ordered scheme of development
additions to the first building were made in 1903, 1905,
1909 and 1910. It was in 1909 that it was finally decided
to make provision for the gradual removal of all
remaining departments from the old works in Salford, and
the construction of two new machine shops, each 379 feet
long and 40 foot wide, enabled the Electrical Department
to find a more congenial home. A year later, still
following Taylor’s original plan, seven more shops,
each 379 feet long, were constructed. In 1913 a building
which now houses the Brass Foundry, the Forge and the
Tank Shop was completed and the work of providing a new
wing of four bays totalling 161 foot wide was put in hand
and brought the number of bays to seventeen just prior to
the 1914 war. There were further extensions in 1920, when
fourteen of the bays were lengthened. In 1926 a building
to accommodate the General Engineering Drawing Offices
was erected and in 1939 and 1940 other shops were erected
to provide new accommodation for the Tool Room and the
Steel Rolling Shutter department. Among special buildings added at Park Works were the Staff Canteen (1917), the Research Iaboratory (1919), the Girls’ Canteen (1938) and the Iron Foundry (1938); while the Sports Ground at the front of the Works was not completed until 1950. The
record of industrial production and general activities at
Park Works is told in other chapters: looking at the
story of the works in relation to the development of the
Company, it is clear that without a new site Mather &
Platt would have ceased both to expand and to adapt
itself to the economic conditions of the twentieth
century. It is of interest to note that the most
significant developments had taken place before 1914. By
that time Park Works had taken on its modern shape and
had employed new methods of production, which were not
generally accepted until the First World War period. At
Newton Heath there was plenty of space for new
development, and the firm was even able to hand over four
of its bays, 14, 15, 16 and 17, completed just before the
War, to the manufacturers of Avro Aeroplanes, Messrs.
A.V.Roe and Company, one of Britain’s early firms in
the Aeronautical industry who were producing aircraft at
a factory on an adjacent site. The
basis of the firm's internal organisation was the
separation of the enterprise into distinct departments,
for each of which a Director was responsible. Already
before 1900 the accounts of the different departments
were segregated and treated separately and as far as
possible employees were attached to definite departments. At
Park Works the departments could be built up and housed
in more clearly defined areas than at Salford. The Fire
Department moved in 1901, the Electrical Department in
1905-1909, and the Pump Department in 1911. The General
Machinery Department was the oldest part of the firm, but
did not move to Park Works until 1913. The gradual
movement avoided serious problems of dislocation, and the
sites were well prepared before any department was
transferred to its new home. Once established at Park
Works, the departments could operate distinctly and
efficiently, with co-ordination but without overlapping,
under the supervision of one Works Manager for the whole
productive enterprise.(1) It took some time
for modern specialised office services to develop, and
some of the common services, like research, pattern
making, costing and later on publicity, were developed to
serve the whole concern without interfering with the
individuality of each department. Businessmen
who have grown up in an era of modern office equipment
may be interested to know that although there was a
telephone switchboard in 1901 there were few typewriters,
and juniors on the office staff were still copying
letters with the aid of damp rags. Invoices and Orders
were all written out by hand. The
1914—18 War left its mark on the development of the
Company and the demand for engineering products for the
armed forces superseded peace time production. In August
1915 Park Works was declared a controlled establishment
under the Munitions of War Act, and there was a steady
switch over to war production. Large quantities of shell
casing and fuses were turned out and a howitzer re-lining
department was established. Main propelling motors for
submarines, gear boxes and hull plates for tanks,
generators for searchlight duties and a multitude of
other munitions of war were all produced at Park Works,
the total output of munitions of one kind and another
making an impressive war effort.
With the war
over the task of adjusting the Company’s activities
to a newly emerging world was in the hands of experienced
directors under the chairmanship of Loris E. Mather, for
in 1916 Sir William relinquished the chairmanship at the
age of seventy eight, nearly sixty years from the time
when he completed his apprenticeship. Loris
Mather’s fellow directors at this new stage in the
history of the Company were John Platt, Edward Hopkinson,
John Taylor, John Wormald, James Robinson and Edward
Roberts. They faced the post-war world with confidence,
knowing that for some time at least they would be fully
occupied completing outstanding orders for all types of
machinery and that the firm had an experienced staff of
sales and service engineers capable of dealing with the
problems of prospective clients in distant markets. They
knew too that the firm retained its essential traditions,
for as James Robinson, the Director in charge of the
General Machinery Department, told a Sales Conference in
1920, “Success is not only of one kind; it does not
only relate to monetary success, to big turnovers and
making big profits, to build up a great company.
Employing large numbers of men, finding work for them and
living for their families, gathering round us a fine
staff such as we have here tonight and which is only a
part of a still greater one, that in itself is surely a
success as great as any that we have achieved and one of
which we are just as proud”. The
inter-war years were marked by a depression which hit
basic trades like cotton particularly hard and at times
the new industries, like those devoted to the production
of electrical goods, were unable to compensate entirely
for the loss of export markets by the older industries.
The twenty years between 1919 and 1939 were not, however,
a period of stagnation and decline. The productivity of
labour rose substantially and the rate of technical
development was considerable. As
Park Works developed, the older ties with Salford were
gradually broken and production in the old works ceased
entirely after the heavy Iron Foundry was transferred to
a new building at Park Works in 1938. The old works had been a
home of great character and tradition; its rambling bays
and uneven floors still showed where a cottage had been
absorbed or a neighbouring street roofed over. Its grimy
walls end great wooden cranes epitomised the hard work
and individual skill, which had carried the roller makers
forward to become engineers with an international
reputation. When the last moulders left the old Iron
Works in Salford, they carried to their new modern
Foundry at Park Works the skill that had helped to make
the company’s products famous. It
was not without pangs therefore, that the ownership of
Salford Iron Works passed from Mather & Platt Ltd to
Threlfall’s Brewery, “popular”
neighbours in more senses than one during the nineteenth
century. It is a legend of the old days that many Mather
& Platt employees had their own methods of securing
supplies of beer through a convenient hole in the wall,
which separated the two buildings. From Threlfalls part
of the works subsequently passed to a well-known firm of
motor car spring manufacturers. A few of the nineteenth
century landmarks, including the weighing-in machine
still survive. The
only production link between Mather & Platt Ltd and
Salford, which still persists, is the Plate Metal Works,
known as the Boiler Yard, which has had an interesting
history. Originally owned by one John Platt a man not
related to the Platt of the Mather & Platt
partnership, but who occasionally did, some work for the
firm — the Boiler yard, passed into the hands of the
firm in 1870, when the same Platt was installed as
foreman, in charge of about twenty-five men. Its one bay
was extended in 1906, when the adjoining works of
Edmondson and. Co., General Engineers, were absorbed and
used as a machine shop and plate shop. The concentration of effort
at Park Works made for a closer and more uniform control
of the whole of the firm’s activities, although each
department continued to trade as a separate unit. In spite of the efficiency
of its new organisation Mather & Platt Ltd, in common
with other companies which produced machinery for export,
passed through an anxious period in the early 1920’s
when would be customers lacked the money with which to
buy British machinery. In addition, the Russian market
which had been developed so surely for three-quarters of
a century, was temporarily closed as a result of the
Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of money wages
throughout many industries in the latter part of 1921,
however, led to a reduction in selling prices and this in
some measure helped to promote a steady flow of orders
from overseas buyers. “Such benefit”, it was
claimed, “together with economies in the management,
assist us in securing work and in keeping most of our men
employed.”(1) Piecework payments
were adopted more generally and. output per man increased
sharply. Mather
& Platt Ltd. refused to follow the line advocated by
some employers of increasing the length of the working
day. “As a firm who have worked the present hours
successfully for nearly thirty years, we look in other
directions for this improvement. We have satisfied
ourselves by paying special attention to our internal
arrangements that the 47 or 48 hour week is an economical
proposition in our particular business whatever
may be the case in other trades.”(2)
Output continued to increase, with the same hours,
in 1923 and 1924.
There
was a revival in some home markets in the mid twenties,
particularly for electrical engineering products, while
trade was re-established with Russia in 1925 and
continued successfully for several years. In 1927 there
were again signs of gloom, partly as a result of the Coal
Strike and partly as a result of depression in the
textile industries. For Mather & Platt Ltd. 1929 was
a relatively good year, even bright compared with the
experience of many firms (1) but 1930, 1931,
1932 and 1933 were made difficult as a result of world
depression. Throughout these years the Company continuing
to believe in the export trade, maintained its full sales
staff overseas, although this represented a heavy
overhead charge. It turned also to the production of an
entirely new line of business; food processing machinery.
Such signs of initiative did more than keep the firm
alive. In a period of depression they kept it mentally
active and alert. Only in 1931 and 1932 and 1933 was the
whole range of business depressed, when viewed in terms
of countries, industries and departments as a whole. It
was natural that a firm producing such a wide range of
heavy plant and machinery should faithfully reflect the
ups and downs of general industrial fluctuations. Trade
had improved again by 1937 and remained at a satisfactory
level until the outbreak of the Second World. War in
1939. The
Second World War, like that of 1914-18, led to the firm
being listed as a Government controlled enterprise. Its
activities were varied. A portion of Park Works was laid
out as a gun factory and the many new and unfamiliar
products manufactured included special capstans for boom
defence vessels, gun mountings for the Admiralty, Bofors
predictors and rocket projectors, cordite rolling mills
and machines for proofing the fabric of barrage balloons.
There were few engineering firms in the country, which
could have rivalled this record of diversified
production. At the same time, there was a steady demand
for standard peacetime products, often adapted to new
uses. Many of the products of apparently routine work,
familiar in days of peace, were earmarked for secret
destinations and purposes. Thus we find that Mather &
Platt high-pressure turbine pumps and motors were used
for the "Pluto" scheme to pump oil through
pipes under the English Channel to the Continent. Similar
installations, totalling about 25,000 h.p. were parts of
a system of underground pipelines from the principal
British oil ports connecting to “Pluto” and to
numerous airfields and bases scattered over the Kingdom.
Made up into mobile units, Mather & Platt pumps were
used by the Services in all theatres of war. At sea
low-voltage generators produced by the firm were used for
the excitation of the coils for degaussing the ships to
meet the menace of the magnetic mine, and
motor-alternators were produced as part of radar and
wireless equipment. Even a new and pre-eminently peace
time development like the food machinery department was
employed to meet service needs, producing canning
equipment for cooking and packing service rations,
"dehydration" plant, grain drying
equipment and milk sterilisers. Some
of the equipment and machinery was sent under contracts
with the Ministry of Supply to the Soviet Union, thereby
maintaining a link, which went back long before the days
of war and revolution.
The
impact of war on the employees of the Company had
different consequences in 1914-18 and in 1939-45. In 1914
several of the firms employees who were resident in enemy
territory were interned in enemy countries while after a
factory recruitment meeting there was an immediate rush
of Park Works workers to join the armed forces. By
contrast the gradual and compulsory call up scheme and
the system of reserved occupations which operated from
the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 prevented a chaotic
rush from industry, with the result that the firm
retained most of its employees throughout the first year
of the fighting. Women were drawn into the firm in larger
numbers than ever before and as the Chairman commented in
1942, “While many of these have had little training
for the work on which they are now engaged, we are well
satisfied with the way they tackle their jobs, and the
energy and cheerfulness which they display.”(1) Finally,
whereas in 1914 recent additions to the Park Works
buildings were handed over to Avro for the manufacture of
aeroplanes, in 1939 all available plant including the
recent extensions were urgently required for the firm's
own needs. Indeed, by the end of the War in 1945, the
workshops were seriously congested, and the packed order
book led to a search for new premises for the third time
in the firm’s history. After
negotiations with the Ministry of Supply, a ten year
lease of the Royal Ordnance Factory at Radcliffe about
ten miles North of Park Works, was arranged, thus
providing the firm with an additional manufacturing space
of about 30% of the area of Park Works, and accommodation
for 800 to 1,000 additional workers. Although the post war years were to involve many problems of re-conversion in an awkward and unsettled period of economic history, the firm was expanding and again looking to the future.
PARK WORKS PERSONALITIES How
far are people who live in any particular period of time
qualified to write its history and to view events in
correct perspective? There are many who give a stout
denial to the possibility of such people dealing fairly
with events in which they have played a part and they
hold the view that the only reliable historian is he who
views at a distance. That may be a good and sufficient
reason for not dealing at great length with the events of
today, but it would be no justification for failing to
take advantage of the intimate knowledge of the period in
which we are interested which is possessed by many who
are still alive and can speak with authority of the
achievements of the first half century after Mather &
Platt became a limited company. The union with Dowson,
Taylor & Co. Ltd., brought together a band of men,
who shared the common resolve to build up for Mather
& Platt Ltd a reputation which would be unsurpassed In
this story of the growth of the Company in the twentieth
century several outstanding personalities demand our
attention. For forty years, Sir William Mather had been
the driving force behind the business. When the move to
Park Works started, he felt he had reached the age to
hand over much of the responsibility to younger men. Such
men were trained and ready for their new
responsibilities. Mather
had shown great foresight in obtaining the rights for the
“Grinnell” Automatic Sprinkler; he had seen the
future for the Electric Motor when he linked the designs
of Thomas Edison and John.Hopkinson to produce the
Edison-Hopkinson Dynamo, and he had visualised the
possibilities of the Centrifugal Pump when developing the
Mather-Reynolds Turbine Pump, which is the father of all
modern turbine pumps. Those three developments not only
linked up with his well established textile machinery
business for all of them were required by the textile
trade but they opened up new markets at home and overseas
in new and expanding industries. While
the Fire Engineering business was being well organised
and energetically developed by Dowson, Taylor & Co,
the expansion of the electrical and pump businesses was
less spectacular and even the Textile Machinery
Department was not responding as quickly as it might have
done to the new markets which were opening up, and which
were eager for these products. Mather was spending many
months each year travelling abroad and building up an
overseas business so as to be able to participate in the
industrial development of other countries, as well as
that of Britain. At home his duties as a
Member of Parliament and public man kept him occupied and
he was unable to devote as much of his own time to the
organisation of the expanding business as it deserved. He
was naturally on the lookout for a man of outstanding
organising ability to bring his schemes to fruition. As
Chairman of Dowson, Taylor & Co. Ltd. William Mather
well knew the ability of its Directors and he must have
noted how quickly they adapted themselves and their
organisation to the Fire Protection market which they had
opened up for themselves. He must have felt that, if
Taylor and Wormald could bring these same qualities to
the assistance of Mather and Platt, the great
organisation could be created which was necessary to
manufacture and sell his machinery in the waiting
markets. To Taylor and Wormald, the
wider horizons which now opened up offered greater scope
for their abilities than their own small company, and
they brought with them to the new enterprise, an energy
and vitality which was to leave a permanent mark. John
Taylor, one of the managing directors of the new company,
was the strong man of his generation. He has been called
the original architect of the Park Works project. He
supervised the layout and building of the new shops and
later controlled the manufacture and sale of an
ever-growing range of products. As
the leading figure in the development of Park Works John
Taylor laboured indefatigably for many years in the task
of consolidation and expansion. It has been said that he
knew the position of every drain and water pipe in the
vast premises, which grew up, during his regime to meet
the demand for the products of Mather & Platt Ltd. It
was indeed the fusion of Mather & Platt with Dowson,
Taylor & Co. Ltd which afforded John Taylor that wide
scope for his great organising ability which would not
have been open to him in the restricted field of the
sprinkler business. In the larger organisation he was
able to employ all his talents, first in the development
of the electrical business this being the first of the
Mather & Platt specialities to be transferred from
Salford to Park Works. Then in establishing the
centrifugal pump department on a firm footing when that
section of the business was transferred to Park Works and
later in making provision for the manufacture of a wide
range of Textile Finishing machinery in the new home. Each
individual department was henceforward to stand on its
own feet; its design, production and sales policy being
the direct responsibility of a director in charge with
John Taylor himself exercising a controlling influence
over all sections. One obvious advantage of this plan was
that each director could concentrate on the specific
needs of the users of the plant he offered. He thus
became a specialist in his own field and while a general
engineering background enabled him to understand all
phases of the Company’s business, he could be relied
upon to give export advice to any prospective client who
was disposed to make use of the specialised knowledge
acquired in one particular branch of engineering. In
putting this plan into execution John Taylor gathered
round him a number of capable lieutenants to whose work
reference will be made as we study progress in the
departments for which they were responsible. While
John Taylor was devoting his great energy to the general
development of Park Works and its products his old
colleague John. Wormald, now working from headquarters in
London, was engaged in increasing the demand for the
company’s products, especially in territory
overseas. As in the case of John Taylor the early
business interest of John Wormald had centred around
automatic sprinklers and the reduction of fire losses but
he proved equally at home in the wider sphere of
engineering in which he moved after joining Mather &
Platt Ltd. John
Wormald was ideally suited for the task entrusted to him.
He was a man of great initiative and imagination: a man
of personality able to deal confidently with men
interested in ‘Big Business’. He was
essentially a super salesman who thought on the grand
scale, which fitted in well with the manufacturing policy
of John Taylor, who held that everything offered by the
company must be the best and that success would be
achieved by catering for the needs of buyers who
appreciated the advantages to be gained by doing business
with producers whose first aim was quality. Having
established himself in the trading centre of the world
John Wormald succeeded in spreading the fame of Mather
& Platt Ltd. to all quarters of the globe and in
leaving a lasting impression on the sales policy of the
company. He
was held in high esteem among the London businessmen of
his day and his selection to serve on a wartime committee
appointed by the Government of Mr. Lloyd George to
control the distribution of non-ferrous metals indicated
that his business ability was recognised in high places.
He was subsequently knighted in recognition of services
rendered to the Government during the 1914-18-war period. Sir
John Wormald resigned his position as a Director of
Mather and Platt Ltd in 1924 but there are
still many in the employ of the company who pay eloquent
testimony to the value of the training and encouragement
received at his hands. Another
of the outstanding personalities of this era was an
engineer who enjoyed the distinction of being the first
of three Salford Iron Works youths who, having joined the
firm as ordinary apprentices, without the influence of
family connections or financial backing, were selected
for promotion and proved themselves capable of
administering the affairs of a trading department at Park
Works with such marked efficiency that they were, in
turn, rewarded with a seat on the board of directors of
Mather & Platt Ltd. James
Robinson the son of a Clifton schoolmaster was educated
at Manchester Grammar School, that nursery of
distinguished and virile men. When young James
decided on an Engineering career his father secured an
introduction to Mr. William Mather at Salford. In later
years James was very fond of quoting from his
recollections of the interview; — Mr. Mather
to’ Mr. Robinson: “So your boy has been
educated at the Manchester Grammar School; I suppose he
is a genius,” “No”
replied Robinson Senior, “Just an ordinary
boy”. “Oh. that’s a good job”, said
Mr. Mather, “We’ve a lot of the other sort
already!” That was in 1884. Eighteen years later in
August 1902 we find Sir William Mather, M.P., in the
Chair at the Annual General Meeting of his Company and
James Robinson elected to the Board of Directors. Good
progress for an ordinary boy! Although
as an engineer he was destined to devote his energies to
the world of textiles, James Robinson was wont to make a
smiling boast that as an apprentice he worked on the
Mather & Platt electric light installation at the
Theatre Royal, Manchester, said to be the first theatre
to produce its own electric light, where the current was
generated by an Edison-Hopkinson Generator driven by a
horizontal steam engine. While still a young man James
Robinson decided to specialise on the textile engineering
side of the firm’s activities and he became a great
ambassador for the British Textile Engineering. He has
been aptly described as ‘practical engineer,
salesman, technician and advisor all in one’. The
reason is not far to seek. Having decided to specialise
on the needs of the Textile Industry, James Robinson
devoted himself with typical thoroughness to every detail
of its requirements. He studied every minute detail of
each individual process until he could be described as a
walking encyclopaedia on the textile finishing trade. He
set out to know all there was to be known and he achieved
his purpose to an unusual degree. As a result, whenever
there was a prospect of finishing machinery being
required James Robinson was capable of visiting the
scene, studying all local conditions, noting the nature
and quantity of fabric to be produced and giving expert
advice on the plant necessary to achieve the desired
results. He would then follow every detail from drawing
board, foundry, machine shops, erection and testbed to
satisfy himself that the customer would get exactly what
was needed. The reputation
of James Robinson was not confined to the British Isles.
He travelled in the Far East, China and Japan in
l902, He visited India in 1906; Brazil in 1895 and in
1912 (a revolutionary year), He made several visits to
the United States and Canada. The Continent of Europe was
familiar ground to him, Every year over a long period he
visited Russia where he was held in high regard both for
his character and his knowledge. A Paper he prepared for
the Textile Institute of Great Britain was published in a
book form and in the Russian language was regarded as the
standard handbook on Textile Finishing. It
is part of the job of an ambassador to create an
impression of dignified integrity. James Robinson did
this to a remarkable degree and wherever he travelled he
made friends. His capacity for listening to the troubles
of other men made him a confidant as well as a business
acquaintance. His charm of manner, his enthusiasm for
engineering achievement, his forward looking mind,
created comradeship in industry just as surely with men
in foreign lands as they did with customers at home.
After the lapse of many years he could name every mill he
had visited in distant lands. What is more, he remembered
the name of every man with whom he had discussed
business. To
appreciate what it meant to be an Ambassador of trade one
has only to read the diary of this man. We find every
incident of any importance recorded in minute detail, A
long day in business * followed by an evening devoted
ostensibly to social events but in reality frequently
spent in cultivating the acquaintance of people who
mattered in the business community, sitting up late or
rising in the small hour’s of morning to make
written reports of one day before starting out to keep
appointments of the next; always looking for any possible
connection which might lead to a new application of the
products of the firm — not only his own particular
department but for other branches of the company. It
was not just by accident that James Robinson built up big
business in South America and other countries to which
the export of Textile Machinery assumed considerable
proportions. He was ever alive to an opening capable of
convincing the client that he was the man to advise and
that Mather & Platt Ltd, were the people to give
technical advice; to design plant for any desired output
and finally to undertake the manufacture and erection of
all the necessary machinery. James
Robinson continued to direct the policy of the General
Machinery Department at Park Works until the time of his
death in 1945. He served the Company with great
distinction for over 60 years and as a workman in the
erecting shop at Perk Works said at the time of his
death, “He was a very loveable man; I never heard
anyone say an unkind word about him”. For
some years before his death James Robinson had been
assisted in the administration of the General Machinery
Department by Roy C. Mather, a grandson of “Cast
Iron Colin”. After
leaving Uppingham School Roy Mather spent over three
years in Germany studying engineering and the long summer
vacations were spent mainly in textile works in Alsace
with a view to the acquisition of knowledge regarding the
processes of bleaching, dyeing, printing and finishing.
After leaving Germany he followed the usual procedure of
passing through the various departments of the firm in
the course of his training and naturally decided to
specialise on textile finishing machinery in the
development of which his forefathers had played a
distinguished part. Towards
the end of his apprenticeship he spent some time erecting
textile machinery on the Continent of Europe and later
made a visit to Russia with Mr. James Robinson. On his
return he was transferred to Paris where he spent the
next three years travelling extensively in France,
Belgium, Switzerland and Italy in the interests of the
textile finishing machinery section of the business. In
1913-14 he visited the U.S.A. and Canada on his way to
Japan and China where a fruitful harvest was reaped in
later years from this ‘tilling of the soil”, In
September 1914 his work with the firm was interrupted by
the first world war during which he saw active service
with the Manchester Regiment. He returned to Park Works
on demobilisation but he still maintains a close interest
in his old regiment and at the time of writing is
president of the 19th Manchester’s Old Comrades
Association. Between
the two world wars Roy Mather travelled extensively on
the Continent of Europe on the business of the company,
in fact it may be said that he has visited, at one time
or another, every country in Europe. At
the outbreak of the second world war the manufacture of
textile machinery was prohibited, except under licence
and Roy Mather was given the job of co-ordinating the
work entailed in the manufacture of the various new
armaments and munitions which were turned out in
considerable quantities by the firm, an appropriate task
for one who had “practical experience of being in
the field in the early days of the 1914 war with a very
serious lack of the necessary equipment’ On the
death of James Robinson responsibility for the design,
production and sale of textile machinery and other
products of the General Machinery Department was left in
the hands of Roy Mather. He was elected to the Board of
Directors in 1942. Occupying the position of Senior
Director at the time of writing is Herbert Taylor,
another man who was trained up under the eye of John
Taylor and was for many years engaged in the management
of the Electrical Department after its transfer to Park
Works. Herbert
Taylor joined Mather & Platt as an apprentice in
1890, He was not in any way related to John Taylor under
whom he was destined to serve for many years but to quote
words used by Sir William Mather when presenting him with
a prize at the Queen Street Institute round about 1895,
he was “A worthy son of a worthy Sire” because
his father, George Taylor, as Sir William said “is a
very fine character who has served Mather & Platt for
many years”. After spending rather more than the
first two years of his apprenticeship in the drawing
office and fitting shops of the General Machinery
Department at Salford Iron Works, Herbert Taylor was
transferred to the Electrical department which then was
still in its infancy, the remainder of his apprenticeship
was spent in the Electrical manufacturing shops, on
outside contracts in the British Isles and abroad and
ended in the Drawing Office. Mention
is made elsewhere of the work of Dr. John Hopkinson and
his early development of the Edison Hopkinson dynamo but
while Dr. John Hopkinson had a profound influence on the
scientific work carried out in the pioneer days of
electric machines and there is ample evidence that he was
very active in the early days of experimental work - it
would seem that for the greater part of his life be was
lost to Industry because he was primarily an academic
man. He met a tragic death at a relatively early age as a
result of a climbing accident in Switzerland. His brother
Edward was for some years the Manager of the original
electrical department at Salford Iron Work but he never
held a full time position at Park Works and he was not
responsible for the work of the Electrical Department
after the transfer to the new home, although he retained
a seat on the Board of Directors until 1922. For some
time after the Electrical department was moved to Park
Works John Taylor himself with the assistance of his able
lieutenant Fred Dowson accepted responsibility for
moulding the business in his own way. He had made himself
familiar with the essential facts concerning the
department while still at Salford and decided to make
certain changes before starting operations at Park Works.
Among other things he had made up his mind to model the
Commercial work on lines which had proved successful in
his old company, relying for the execution of his plans
on young men of sound technical ability who had received
their engineering training in The Salford Works. One of
these young men was Herbert Taylor who worked under the
direction of Fred Dowson until he was appointed
Commercial Manager of the Electrical Department in l911.
He was given full charge of the Department in 1914 and
was made a special director in 1918 acting in this
capacity until he was given a seat on the board in 1927. Herbert
Taylor was responsible for the management of the
Electrical Department for nearly forty years and it would
seem that he has already established a record for long
service, which will remain unbroken. He is the only
person still in the employ of the Company who was with
the firm when Sir William Mather introduced the 48hr week
at Salford in 1893, and he can recall many of the great
events in the company's history for more than sixty two
years. While James Robinson and Herbert Taylor were
consolidating the work of the Textile Machinery and
Electrical Department, as separate units, a third man was
meeting with great success in his efforts to bring about
a considerable expansion in the output of centrifugal
pumps. He was the third Mather & Platt apprentice of
this generation to prove his ability as an engineer as
well as his capacity for organisation and as a result, to
be rewarded with a seat on the Board of Directors. T.Y.
Sherwell - the third of eleven sons of a Civil Engineer,
served his apprenticeship at Salford Iron Works 1902 to
1904 but whereas his colleagues James Robinson and
Herbert Taylor remained in the service of the firm in
England after completing their apprenticeship young
Sherwell was sent to take up a position with the
Company’s Canadian agents Messrs. Drummond, McCall
& Co. Montreal and later joined the Canada Foundry
Co. Toronto who manufactured pumps to Mather & Platt
designs, He remained in Canada gaining valuable
‘field’ experience until 1915 when John Taylor
invited him to return to the service of Mather &
Platt Ltd. and take charge of the design, production and
sale of Centrifugal pumps in a separate department for
which he was to he responsible. Thus we find T.Y.Sherwell
returning to Park Works to place his services at the
disposal of the Company with which he received his early
training. He was made a Special Director in 1918 and was
given a seat on the board in 1927. Under his guidance and
with the assistance of a very capable staff the Pump
Department made great strides and has enhanced the high
reputation of the Company which now ranks with the
world’s best known makers of Centrifugal pumps. We
have seen how John Taylor exercised a guiding hand over
the fortunes of all the Departments of the new company
for many years after the removal to Park Works. The
consistent growth of the Textile, Electrical and Pump
departments was eloquent testimony to his wise
management. A steady rise in output with a uniform profit
was accompanied by ever increasing goodwill and
confidence between producer and clientèle. But while
John Taylor found time to take a great interest in the
general Engineering side of the business he remained a
leader in the realm of sprinkler protection and retained
a paternal interest in the progress of his own Fire
Engineering Department. The
fact that he was able to devote so much of his time and
energy to the work of other branches of the
Company’s business was due to the fact that when he
brought the Fire Engineering business to Park Works the
administration was in the hands of men on whom be could
rely. One such man was Fred Dowson a younger brother of
Ralph, John Taylor’s original partner, who, as
already mentioned had died while on a business trip to
India. Fred
Dowson was a born organiser. He joined Dowson, Taylor
& Co. in 1893 and after service as an outside
representative and a Branch Manager he was transferred to
Manchester to take charge of the Commercial
administration of the Home Section of the Fire
Engineering Department. Under the guidance
of’ Mr. John Taylor he assumed similar
responsibility for the several commercial departments of
Mather & Platt Ltd in their early years at Park
Works, as and when the various sections were brought to
the new home. He had a flair far assessing values in
commercial enterprise and for separating the essential
points from a mass of detail. For the first twenty-five
years at Park Works he exercised a great influence on the
business life of the company and many men who became
senior officials in the concern received their early
training at his hands. In recognition of his outstanding
ability Fred Dowson was elected to the Board of Directors
in 1924 and retained his seat until his death in 1930. One
of the important duties of his later years was to assist
in the commercial training of J. Noel Taylor, the only
son of his Old chief, who was destined to take charge of
the Fire Engineering Division and to carry on the work
started by his illustrious father. Young
Taylor took up full time duties with the Company in
September 1925 on completion of his studies at Cambridge.
He was no stranger at Park Works for he had served a
vacation apprenticeship during his years at the
university. During this apprenticeship which was
continued after leaving Cambridge, he spent some time in
the different sections of the Company’s business
including a period of special training in the Works
Manager’s office under Mr. Arthur Roberts and in the
Executive Department of the Fire Engineering Division
under Mr. Edward Roberts. In. l926 he accompanied Mr.
John Taylor on a round—the—world tour visiting
many of the Company’s branch offices and customers
situated North of the Equator. This tour ended with a
four months sojourn in U.S.A. to study American business
methods. On the death of Mr. Dowson in 1930 Mr. Noel
Taylor took charge of the Fire Engineering division. He
remains in that capacity and has been a member of the
Board since 1927. Another
stalwart of the Dowson Taylor & Co. regime who was
destined to play an important part in the history of the
first fifty years of the new Company was Edward Roberts
who for many years carried out the duties of technical
director in the Fire Engineering Department. Edward
Roberts was the son of John Roberts an Engineer of’
Church Bank, Bolton. His father originally had a
millwright’s business but later devoted his
attention to the manufacture of wringing machines. Edward
was educated at Bolton Grammar School and was proud of
his association with this old established foundation. But
he placed the education of experience above academic
qualifications and thus was representative of the old
hard headed Lancashire school who concentrated upon
plenty of work and unremitting devotion to duty. In 1881
be became an Indentured Apprentice of Charles Loxton
Jackson of Jackson and Brother, of Bolton, and later as a
draughtsman with John and Edward Wood of Victoria
Foundry, Bolton, he gained experience, which was to prove
of immense value in his subsequent career. After
he had completed his apprenticeship he joined John Taylor
in the newly established Fire Engineering business of
Dowson & Taylor. He was with Dowson & Taylor when
they produced the Simplex Automatic sprinkler and when
arrangements were made for them to take over the
development of the “Grinnell” Sprinkler in this
country. To Edward Roberts was assigned the task of
organising the Drawing Office work in connection with
early Sprinkler Installations. He soon realised that
systematic measuring up was essential to the effective
erection of a Sprinkler Installation, no less than to its
ultimate performance in case of fire, and he proceeded to
establish the work of surveying on a sound basis. As the
Sprinkler work developed he played an important part in
everything appertaining to the erection of the plant.
Thus it came about that Edward Roberts probably knew more
about the technical side of sprinkler work than any other
man associated with the automatic sprinkler business. He
had a remarkable memory for the intricacies of some
thousands of “Grinnell” installations and could
recall a tremendous amount of technical detail about
particular features of many important sprinklered
buildings, both in Great Britain and on the Continent of
Europe. When
Mather & Platt Ltd. secured their first sprinkler
business in new territory, Edward Roberts made it his
personal responsibility to see the installation through,
often making the first survey himself supervising every
detail and later visiting the country concerned to make a
final inspection; remaining on the site to see that every
detail of the installation conformed to the Grinnell
standard. This duty took him to many parts of the world
and in the course of his life he established an
international reputation as one of the foremost technical
authorities on Automatic Sprinklers. By
virtue of his early engineering training and active
technical association with the “Simplex” and
early “Grinnell” Installations, Edward Roberts
might be described as a pioneer if not actually the first
man who could rightly be termed a Fire Protection
Engineer. He was a Director of Mather & Platt Ltd.
from 1916 until his death in December 1944. His
son, Arthur Roberts, joined the Board of Directors of the
company in 1929 and. remains to carry on the family
tradition. Like his father, Arthur Roberts was a pupil of
Bolton Grammar School and after receiving his early
engineering training at home and becoming an Engineering
Honours graduate of Manchester University he spent a
considerable time studying on the Continent of Europe and
serving a year’s apprenticeship with Escher Wyss
& Co in Switzerland before the first World War in
which he served in. the Royal Engineers. On
his return to civil life Mr. Roberts came back to Park
Works as assistant to Edwin Buckley - an engineer of the
Dowson Taylor regime who enjoyed a great reputation as
Works Manager at Park Works. When Mr. Buckley died in
1923 Arthur Roberts was appointed to succeed him as Works
Manager, he remains responsible for the Works Management
and has been a member of the Board since 1929. At the
time of writing he is President of the Manchester and
District Engineering Employers Federation. It is appropriate that this story
of some of the personalities who have controlled the
trading departments of Mather & Platt Ltd. and
thereby made outstanding contributions to the success of
the Company during the present century, or have
strengthened ties with the past by carrying
responsibilities similar to those of their ancestors,
should close with reference to the youngest branch of the
business. This is the Food Machinery Department, which
now has headquarters at the Radcliffe Works and is under
the control of William L. Mather, grandson of Sir William
Mather and elder son of the present Chairman of the
Company. Young
William received his early education at Oundle, a school
famed for its engineering associations and spent a year
before going to Cambridge, as an apprentice at Park
Works. After taking his degree at Cambridge he returned
to Park Works to complete his workshop training. He also
spent some months of this training in the U.S.A. and
France. This was followed by periods at the Paris, London
and Calcutta Offices. When
he had been in Calcutta 10 months war was declared in
September 1939 and William, who for some years had been a
territorial officer in the Cheshire Yeomanry was called
up for service with his regiment. He returned to Park
Works after the war and was a member of the commercial
staff of the Pump Department under Mr. T. Y. Sherwell. Shortly after the transfer of the Food Machinery Department to the Radcliffe Works Mr. Mather was placed in charge of this section of the company’s business and has been responsible for many postwar developments to meet the increasing demands of a growing industry. Mr. W.L. Mather was appointed a director of the Company in 1947. |
A History of Mather & Platt
Ltd.