Hart Nicholls
1959 Biographical Note.[1]
A member of the Nicholls family, which was among the early pioneers of the china clay industry. Mr. Hart Nicholls, of Pondhu House. St. Austell, recently retired from the board of Messrs. English China Clays and Messrs. English Clays Lovering Pochin and Co., having spent nearly 59 years in the Industry.
It was on August 1, 1900. that Mr. Nicholls entered the industry...he became secretary of the North Goonbarrow China Clay Co and the Old Beam China Clay Co within the Nicholls group, and a few years later he became managing director.
Some idea of the vast changes in production which have taken place during Mr. Nicholls's association with the industry’ can be gathered from the fact that in 1903. in Older to increase production. the North Goonbarrow pit was modernised by the sinking of a 200ft. shaft equipped with two double-acting plunger poles, an installation which doubled production.
Yet within 20 years the system was again completely modernised with the introduction of revolutionary electrically-driven gravel and slurry pumps which are still standard practice today. Two of the first of these systems to be used by the industry were introduced by Mr. Nicholls into North Goonbarrow and into the Great Halviggan works, the reconstruction of which he organised in 1919. it included the laying of a pipe-line from the works to one of the largest drying kilns in the industry, which he built at Methrose, Burngullow. and a new railway siding.
In Mr. Nicholls's early days in the industry, development was slow and costly. Development was held back by very low prices which the buyers were able to get by playing one small company against another. In 1908 the best clay producers formed a committee and achieved a ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ in order to raise prices enabling the employers to grant better conditions to the men and carry out the necessary development.
In 1911, Mr. Nicholls, his father. Mr. Hart Nicholls, and his brother. Mr. William Thomas Nicholls, formed the Great Hallive China Clay Co, and in order to get cheap shipping facilities they opened the gateway to the Port of Par. They built a six-mile pipeline from the Great Hallaze Works to a large newly-constructed drying plant near the Port of Par and built the railway which crosses the main road to Par to transport clay from the dries direct to the Dock.
The following year they formed the Hallivet China Clay Co, to develop the Hallivet bed of clay near Bugle and a year later, following the death of his uncle Mr. Thomas Nicholls, Mr. Nicholls joined the board of management of the Lower Lansalon Co, the Single Rose Co and the Bloomdale Co....
...equally important step — the formation of the Associated China Clay Co. Ltd. The agreement of 1908 was no more than what it was called, an agreement, but now the interests of the industry were being protected through the Associated China Clay Company.
Mr Nicholls became one of the several directors representing the works under their direct control. He also became secretary and a member of the Sampling Committee comprising eight directors, to which was entrusted the grading and pricing of 250 to 300 sample of various grades of bleaching, paper and potting clays. It was an enormous task but well worth it to the industry..
When his father died in 1920, Mr Nicholls became Chairman, as well well as managing director of the North Goonbarrow and Old Beam China Clay Companies. Three years later, in order to extend North Goonbarrow, which has one of the whitest clays in the world, he organised the diversion of half a mile of a county main road.
In 1926 began the conferences which eventually led to the amalgamation of the Nicholls Group with English China Clays Ltd. in 1927. Mr. Nicholls joined the board of English China Clays as an executive Director of works and on the retirement of Major Hitchins, undertook the periodic visiting of the home agencies scattered all over Great Britain until E.C.L.P. came into operation.
Other companies joined in the amalgamation in the next few years, but the next major development. said Mr. Nicholls, was in 1932 when the Lovering and Pochin groups joined....
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Abbreviated extract from Cornish Guardian - Thursday 14 May 1959