Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co 1899-1949 by John Dummelow: 1899-1909
FIRST DECADE 1899-1909
INTRODUCTION
On a summer's day in 1899, with the newsboys shouting "Transvaal crisis!" from the street, a bluff grey-haired American sat in a London office writing a letter. A few hours earlier a new Company had been registered, and this was George Westinghouse buying the land for a large electrical engineering works in England.
Westinghouse was a remarkable man. Born of Westphalian stock on October 6, 1846, in the village of Central Bridge, New York, he served in the Civil War and. after three months' subsequent technical education, returned to his father's engineering shop in Schenectady while still under nineteen. Two years later he married, and at twenty-three he took out his first patent for railway air brakes, the foundation of his fame and fortune.
New devices and developments tumbled out in an almost continuous cascade, but even more far-reaching was the inventor's quickness to appreciate the possibilities of alternating current transmission and the steam turbine. By 1886 he had developed the transformer of Gaulard and Gibbs to the point of commercial use, in 1893 he obtained a contract for the first hydroelectric plant at Niagara, including 5000-hp a.c. generators, in 1895 he put Tesla's induction motor on the market in both slipring and squirrel cage forms. In this year also he gave up his unqualified support of the gas engine and took out a licence to make Parsons steam turbines for power stations.
Side by side with this technical work, Westinghouse formed or acquired a score or so of companies to commercialize his various interests. Two of present concern were the Westinghouse Machine Company, which made prime movers, and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, both of East Pittsburgh. Nor were his activities confined to America. Shortly after his first visit to England in 1871 a European Brake Company was formed, and in 1889 came the Westinghouse Electric Company Limited of London.
The last was the forerunner of a vast scheme of worldwide expansion, planned during the next few years and carried out over a somewhat longer period. It also paved the way for another Company, whose works and doings are the subject of this book.
BRITISH WESTINGHOUSE
The London Company was an agency for selling and installing in Great Britain the products of the Electric and Manufacturing Company's works at Pittsburgh, and to it Westinghouse transferred his patent rights for all countries outside North and South America. It started with a staff of five in Old Broad Street and later moved to 32 Victoria Street, four rooms and a basement. The stock-in-trade, all made in America, comprised gas and steam engines and a wide range of electrical goods — generators, transformers, switchgear, meters, motors, control gear, and arc lamps.
Westinghouse himself was seldom seen, the chief responsibility devolving on the vice-chairman, Captain Francis Pavy, a retired army officer with a Georgian residence on the site of Broadcasting House. Original officials of whom we shall hear more were the managing director, O. H. Baldwin — an American — and the secretary, A. E. Scanes. Later came more Americans with experience at Pittsburgh: R. Belfield (chief electrical engineer), W. W. Blunt (chief engineer), Paul Einert (chief accountant), and M. A. MacLaren, H. M. Southgate, and E. M. Sawtelle on the sales side. The British staff included C. W. Parkes in charge of erection, J. H. Tearle, J. Lovell, H. Fildes, J. T. Callaghan, and W. Roughton.
In those days, when a silk hat stamped a City man, Tearle was once confronted by two men, one tall and gaunt and the other short and thick-set, who turned up attired in frock coats and silk hats and announced in broad American that they had come over to erect a gas engine: Lovell was brought forward in time to hear them give their names as Sweeney and Todd. It was one of Lovell's earliest jobs to make up complete sets of induction motor parts for licensees of the Tesla patents, among them B.T.H., E.C.C., Siemens, and Mather and Platt.
The London Company began by taking over an existing contract for the Sardinia Street power station of the Metropolitan Electric Supply Co, but owing to its small capital it was some years before new business went far outside motors and meters, the last a thriving and profitable trade. Later, some important contracts were obtained for power stations such as Willesden and Bankside and for electric tramway systems.
In industrial electrification and electric traction, however, this country was well behind Germany and America. Westinghouse considered that far more electrical equipment could be sold, and he was particularly impressed by the dense traffic on British railways. He therefore decided that it was time to manufacture in England.
The plan was to form a new company with sufficient capital resources to build its own works in addition to taking over the existing business in this country. Preparatory work was done by Lemuel Bannister, a vice-president of the American Company who appears to have divided his life between Paris and the Hotel Cecil, and, supported by leading financiers like Lord Rothschild, the flotation was carried through. The issuing house was Robert Benson and Company—still active in the City. On July 10,1899, the British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited was registered with a capital of £1,500,000. C. W. Benson was the first chairman, and other original directors were Westinghouse and Bannister the Hon. R. Clere Parsons (consulting engineer and brother to the turbine inventor), Joseph Lawrence, and J. Annan Bryce. The registered office was at 63 Cornhill, and the auditors — unchanged, except in style, to this day—were Deloitte, Dever, Griffiths and Company.
But perhaps the most impressive name on the prospectus was that of the technical adviser, Lord Kelvin. For the best part of fifty years he had been the acknowledged leader of British science, mathematical and physical, besides being renowned for inventions in telegraphy and for his magnetic compass and sea-sounding apparatus.
The Company was formed "for the purpose of establishing works for the production of every description of electrical machinery and appliances". An agreement with the Westinghouse Electric Company of America provided for the complete interchange of technical information and patents on electrical equipment for the British Empire (except Canada), an arrangement that lasted for over twenty-five years.
A further agreement with the Westinghouse Machine Company was reached three weeks later, covering the manufacture of steam and gas engines. This step was taken on Kelvin's advice that there would be advantages in combining the manufacture of prime movers and electrical machines in the same works.
There had been much discussion in this country on the decline of British engineering, and the formation of the new company was hailed with satisfaction by the public, if not within the industry. The Electrical Review in a carefully worded leader, The Stranger within our Gates, concluded: "it would be wrong to regard the British Westinghouse Company in a hostile spirit: even if it were more foreign in character one could hardly wish it otherwise than a permanent success. It enters the electrical field at a time when the demand is greater than the supply; it will supply machinery of undoubted excellence, and its affairs will be managed by men of experience. Under these conditions it is difficult to see why it should fail". The closing words were to sound over-confident before many years were out.
BUILDING THE WORKS
Before forming the B. W. Company, Westinghouse had been negotiating for a site for the new factory, and his choice fell on Trafford Park, the first of the industrial trading estates. The Park, which was mentioned in the Domesday Book, had been sold by Sir Humphrey de Trafford to E. T. Hooley, the financier, in 1896, two years after the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal. After toying with the idea of a racecourse and public park, Hooley was persuaded by Marshall Stevens, general manager of the Ship Canal Company, to agree to the development of an industrial area. For a heavy engineering works the Park had many advantages—accessibility by rail, road and water, ocean port facilities at the Manchester and Salford docks, and nearness-to coalfields and to an abundant supply of labour. Accordingly it was from Trafford Park Estates Ltd. that the Company bought a tract of land of about 130 acres around Waters Meeting Farm on the Bridgewater Canal — perhaps only unchanged feature of the landscape.
Like many enterprises of American origin, the works was planned on a colossal scale. Here were to be no small beginnings and gradual extensions, but rather a complete factory laid out from the start for the manufacture of steam and gas engines, steam turbines, and every product of electrical engineering. The designer of the Pittsburgh works was called in, and the planning and estimates were supervised by Americans who had had exactly similar experience.
For the building work British labour was to be employed. A Manchester contractor was engaged to lay the foundations, a London contractor to erect the steelwork, but neither was able to predict a completion date. In August 1900 when the first clerk of works, J. Marple, was engaged, the site contained only the old farmhouse, hedges and ponds, wooden huts, and contractors' railway lines round which the architect rode on his pony.
Meanwhile orders were accumulating, and at the end of the year delivery commitments left only eighteen months for the completion and equipment of the main buildings. Against this, the contractors and subcontractors foresaw a period of five years before the shops would be ready to operate. In this emergency Westinghouse approached James C. Stewart, a Canadian-born contractor famed for quick work in the States. Stewart estimated he could reduce the five years to fifteen months, and in January 1901 he signed his contract and sailed for England, followed by two of his best assistants. He shortly returned to America to collect machinery and equipment and enrolled ten more assistants, men trained to his methods. Thenceforth, under this 'American force in England', construction proceeded rapidly.
When Stewart took over less than 250 hands were employed, but within a week he had 2,500, and eventually 4,000. Rail tracks were laid to all parts of the site and round the perimeter, and material poured in, between 200 and 300 truck loads daily. Riveters were provided with automatic tools to supersede manual work, and their output was quadrupled. Steam hoists replaced human hod-carriers, and bricklayers were shown how to lay from 1,500 to 2,000 bricks daily instead of their accustomed 400 or 500, a feat that inspired correspondence and a leading article in The Times.
No less than 11,000,000 bricks, 9,000,000 feet of timber, and 17,000 tons of steel were used, and an uncovenanted task was the protection of a main outfall sewer crossing the site: a massive concrete structure was erected — and later put to good use during air-raids in the second world war. In ten months eight of the nine main buildings were ready for use, and the whole task was completed in less than one-fifth of the time originally estimated — a remarkable performance.
An important event during construction was the laying of the foundation stone. Westinghouse himself was prevented from attending by ill-health, but through the good offices of Joseph Lawrence, a director who was also a sheriff, the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Frank Green, was prevailed upon to perform the ceremony. At two o'clock on August 3, 1901, he arrived with the Lord Mayor of Manchester, and after speeches, which included a reference to the combination of American intellect and British capital, the stone was laid. Beneath it was placed one of each coin of the realm so as "to put the undertaking on a sound financial foundation".
It was a gala day for Traffordville said the local press. A banquet was laid out in a marquee erected in 'A aisle', where many had their first experience of American bars and Martini, Manhattan, and Bronx cocktails. The foundation stone may still be seen at the north-eastern corner of the main office building, and eye-witnesses of the ceremony, among them W. Roughton of comptroller's department, are to be found at the works.
The factory covered some 30 acres of the main 100-acre site. The chief buildings, all in use today, ran from north to south on either side of a main avenue with gates at each end. On the west side was the machine shop, known today as the main shop and still one of the largest in the world. This building, measuring 900 by 440 ft, was divided into a number of bays or' aisles', lettered A, B, C, D and E. The two largest (B and D) had a span of 90 ft and a height of 80 ft to the ridge of the roof, allowing for the manufacture of the large slow-speed generating plant of the period. With three galleries (G, H, and K aisles), the total floor area in the building came to nearly three-quarters of a million square feet.
Across the avenue were two smaller buildings, each 578 by 170 ft wide: one housed a steel foundry (now the transformer shop) and a forge, and the other an iron foundry. In between was a two-floor building containing auxiliary foundry shops, brake shop, and printing works. To the south was a three-storey pattern shop and store.
Main offices, almost a replica of those at Pittsburgh, were built at the north end of the machine shop. Opposite them, a gate in the boundary wall still marks the main entrance, proposed but never used. The beginning of 1902 found the shops built but still to be equipped. This was done on a lavish scale and with both eyes on the future. H. S. Loud, who was to be the first manager of works, had been in Pittsburgh with 'a force of mechanics' preparing the equipment, and the layout had been planned by Tom Smith, a Paisley man who had joined the American Company as far back as 1890. Smith came over at the end of 1901 as the first permanent man on the ground.
Many of the machine tools, mostly American, in B and D aisles must have looked absurdly large for the work, and for years they were idle most of their time. The prize for size went to a Bement-Miles lathe, which took work up to 125 inches in diameter and had a length of 45 ft between centres; its total weight is not known, but the tailstock alone weighed 8 1/2 tons, and it needed a train of 25 trucks to bring it into the works. Another striking tool was a 28 ft Sellers vertical boring mill, which, like the lathe, is still in use after periodical rebuilds.
The steel foundry was laid out to provide castings not only for the works but also for outside firms; it was equipped with two of the latest 20-ton open hearth rolling furnaces of the Wellman-Seaver type. The iron foundry could deal with castings up to 60 tons and was equipped with two Whiting cupolas, from which in the very early days as much as 22 tons of metal an hour was sometimes tapped.
Hand-ramming machines were provided with a view to upgrading the work and improving the supply of men. The pattern shop was bountifully equipped and soon attracted three hundred of the best patternmakers in the country. The works power plant consisted of a battery of six Babcock and Wilcox boilers and two 1250-hp vertical steam engines of the Corliss type, driving 440-volt 25-cycle a.c. generators. These were installed 'temporarily' in the south-east corner of the main machine shop, where the boiler house with two of the original boilers still remains. Works lighting was by Bremer arc lamps, which Westinghouse had seen on exhibition in London; they were soon known as 'blinking Bremers' from the imperfect carbon feed mechanism. Eight 50-ton cranes were installed, two in each of the machine shop aisles and four in the foundries.
A water supply was obtained from air-lift wells and pumped to a high-level tank, thus providing pressure for hydraulic lifts and sprinklers. The water tower, which was 210 feet high, formed a landmark for many miles, and its somewhat ornate ironwork was crowned with a copper-covered dome, surmounted by a hand grasping forked lightning. Famed locally as 't'Westinghouse tower', it was an appropriately imposing feature for a works that when fully equipped had cost well over £1,250,000.
AT THE LONDON END
While the works was getting under way, changes were taking place in London. In 1901 Westinghouse replaced Benson as chairman of the Board, and there was some reshuffling of directors; R. C. Parsons returned to his consultant's practice. An arrival of more than passing interest was Montagu Cradock of the Westinghouse Brake Company. Colonel Cradock, a veteran of the Afghan and Boer Wars, took an active interest in the Company's fortunes until his death in 1929. For many years his visits to the works were chiefly for the periodical signing of cheques, but he was a popular figure and always welcome as an accomplished after-dinner speaker.
The Company took new offices in Norfolk Street, first No. 5 and then No. 2 (Westinghouse Building) at the Strand end, where it occupied the top five floors for nearly twenty years. The upper windows gave a fine view of ceremonial processions in the Strand, and when in 1902 the Coronation of King Edward VII brought a public holiday an excellent lunch was provided for the staff, their families and friends. On the outside of the building Westinghouse installed the first Cooper-Hewitt lamp in this country, thereby causing a sensation due to the effect of mercury vapour light on the complexion.
The Norfolk Street office soon acquired a prince among commissionaires, Sergeant-major W. J. McCully. An ex-gunner with thirty years' service and an array of decorations, McCully was always willing to recall his march from Kabul to Kandahar. He retired in 1922, well loved by the staff and by hundreds of customers.
At the beginning the office was in charge of W. H. Wells, whom Westinghouse had sent over from America to be commercial manager, and he took over most of the staff of the London 'agency' Company, including W. W. Blunt as assistant manager and A. E. Scanes. Except for 1901-04 when his place was taken by Ralegh B. Phillpotts, Scanes remained secretary of the Company for twenty-five years. The accounting department was under A. F. Ammon, who was succeeded by Paul Einert, a pioneer of accountancy; Einert moved to Trafford Park late in 1902. A general engineering department under E. R. Hill handled traction, industrial and power schemes.
In April 1900 a Westinghouse 'patent bureau' was set up under R. Belfield, assisted by A. S. Cachemaille, who had joined in the previous September, and F. W. Le Tall, a chartered patent agent. Some years later Belfield departed, and Cachemaille, who eventually took charge, has continued to control a continuously expanding department. Since 1934 he has dealt with the patent work of the whole A.E.I. Group, and in new offices in Shaftesbury Avenue he is now serving his fiftieth year with the Company and its associates.
The selling force, home and export, was organized by W. W. Blunt, who was to direct the commercial organization of the Company over a long period. From the first he insisted on high integrity in his salesmen: before launching them on the road, he had a chat with each, emphasizing that they were to be completely honest with their customers, never to overstate their case, and, having given their word, to stick to it at all costs. An early arrival was G. A. Trube, famous for his stentorian voice and picturesque language, which were often embarrassing companions. Having been with the Brake Company in America, he first took charge of the sales of magnetic brakes; later on at Trafford Park he dealt with traction and industrial motors as well, and finally he showed his versatility by changing over to steam turbines before leaving to become general manager of the French Westinghouse Company.
The London district sales were managed by O. H. Baldwin and E. M. Sawtelle, both from the 'agency' Company. By 1902 offices were operating in Manchester, Glasgow, Newcastle, and Cardiff, followed by Sheffield and Birmingham; Manchester under H. M. Southgate gave A. McKinstry, a future sales director, his first experience, while Cardiff under W. W. Hughes nursed A. E. du Pasquier, who became an effective enthusiast for electric winding engines at home and in South Africa. Later, Glasgow under P. D. lonides started D. MacArthur, our present sales director.
Norfolk Street was also the British headquarters of the Westinghouse Companies' publishing department. The American manager, Arthur Warren, had as assistant D. N. Dunlop, a Kilmarnock man who had worked at Pittsburgh; R. Ames, who joined in March 1902, is still with the M-V publicity department. After a few years Dunlop took over the European end of publicity work.
STAFFING THE WORKS
At the works Westinghouse intended, at least for a time, to make apparatus solely from American designs. He therefore brought over experienced Pittsburgh men, including some eighteen foremen, to fill the key engineering and manufacturing positions. He also enlisted a number of Englishmen, mainly from the technical institutions, and started them on a course of training at Pittsburgh preparatory to their occupying the less important posts at Trafford Park; later these men, known as the Holy Forty, would be available to take more responsible jobs as the Americans returned home.
Enrolment of the Holy Forty began in 1899. Each man signed an agreement to remain with the American Company for 5,480 working hours at 20-25 cents an hour and, on his return, to remain with the British Company at a salary of £150-175 a year. By 1900 a group, neither forty in number nor holy in deed (an alternative title was the Forty Thieves), had set sail and arrived at their own expense at Pittsburgh. The training was to consist of a few weeks or months in each of the principal manufacturing and testing departments, a model for the later college apprenticeship courses at Trafford Park.
Prepared for a two-year stay, the Forty — known among the Americans as British Specials — settled down in their quarters at Wilkinsburg about five miles from the works. One party monopolized a boarding house, which, from the siren of an adjacent laundry blowing at 7 a.m., was soon renamed Hooterhell. In British fashion, the Specials organized a club, which on their departure was transformed into the Westinghouse Electric Club; from this originated The Electric Club Journal, later The Electric Journal, the first publication of its type in America. As the works neared completion, British Specials were called home to fill various posts. Many stayed with the Company, doing much to build it to its present proportions. Among them were Miles Walker, A. P. M. Fleming, R. Johnson, J. T. Callaghan, C. D. Andrew, G. M. Gibson, J. W. Harris, P. D. lonides, M. S. Kenyon, G. Laird, G. Layton, R. H. Orbell, T. G. Smith, P. R. P. Souper, D. J. Strutt, and N. J. Wilson; when Callaghan retired in 1947, Fleming became the only member still on the active list of the Company. Of those who found their metier elsewhere, A. R. Dyer went to the London Fire Brigade and was chief officer for many years, H. Rottenburg became a don at Cambridge, and F. E. L. Hurst and H. Priestman entered the Church and the Christian Science movement respectively. But wherever their paths led the Holy Forty all looked back on their time in Pittsburgh as a wonderful experience.
By the end of 1902 most of the Americans had arrived and taken up their posts. A noticeable sign was the appearance of spittoons: the Americans, and those who had visited the States, displayed great skill in the use of these receptacles, a few of which survive in various offices. The Fourth of July was celebrated with gusto, but without fireworks which were then prominent in the celebrations in the States.
To be suddenly launched into this American atmosphere was an experience that made a lasting impression on apprentices who were joining in increasing numbers. It was a hard school with no room for illusions, but it also created among those who survived a wonderful esprit de corps, which a generation later found expression in their enthusiasm to meet at least once a year and to live again those exciting days. On the American side also, there were many who looked back on their time at Trafford Park as one of the happiest of their lives.
Apprentices were accepted from the first days of manufacturing, and three types of courses were established — one for youths who intended to become skilled workmen, another for young men of good general education, and a third for men who had a university training. From an early stage the Company made its selection on merit alone and set its face against the premium system whereby young men paid considerable sums of money to acquire practical experience. B.W. apprentices actually received a small wage: 'school apprentices' for instance, received a weekly wage rising from 6s 8d in the first year to 17s 6d in the fourth year, and a gratuity of £10 on completion of 10,960 working hours. For his first general manager of works Westinghouse chose H. S. Loud, and for the works superintendent W. C. Mitchell, both Americans who had gained a reputation by laying down a large steel pipe works at Mariupol in South Russia. Loud, who had also been with the Illinois Steel Company, was in his middle thirties, a man of massive build and well liked in the works: he lived at Wavertree, near Liverpool, and drove from Urmston station in a pony trap. His private secretary, J. Morris, had a remarkable record of service with successive general managers — from 1903 to 1946. Mitchell came to the works in a gig with a cockaded footman, and he would show visitors his opinion of Manchester weather by pointing towards a tower on the hills to the north: if they could see the tower it was going to rain, and if they couldn't, then it was raining.
Loud, Mitchell, and C. W. Parkes were three inseparables. Parkes was in charge of outside erection work — the last stage and a vital one in the manufacture of heavy electrical and mechanical plant; he was formerly with the 'agency' Company and was once a pupil of Edison. A. W. Clarke, who has been superintendent of erection department since 1920, was then mainly concerned with the testing of turbines, which was done at night or weekends when steam was available.
Labour was engaged by an employment and claims agent, an office first held by an American, Samuel Groves; by 1905 he had handed over to A. Walmsley, for long the superintendent of labour. Transport of materials and finished goods was handled by a traffic agent, J. Miller; as an Englishman in the midst of Americans, he upheld his country's dignity by coming to work in a frock coat and silk hat — an example followed by none.
The first purchasing agent was W. D. Crumpton and the first storekeeper H. G. Ridgway, both Americans from Pittsburgh. When Ridgway left in 1907 the departments were merged under Crumpton, long remembered as a fiery but kindly individual who kept a bowler hat on the back of his head even at his desk. Early chief engineers were C. Regenbogen in the engine department, and M. A. MacLaren (of the 'agency' Company) in the electrical engineering department, which was responsible for electrical design from arc lamps to alternators. In 1904, however, Regenbogen returned to Germany, his work being taken over by W. J. A. London, a turbine engineer from Parsons, and early in the following year MacLaren went back to America, where for thirty years he was professor of electrical engineering at Princeton. As acting chief electrical engineer, Westinghouse had in October 1904 sent over J. S. Peck, a graduate of Cornell and for some time concerned with transformer design and lightning arrester development at Pittsburgh. Peck continued to guide the Company's electrical design work for the next thirty-six years.
M. A. McLean was styled 'chief mechanical engineer, electrical department' and controlled the drawing office with its staff of twenty-four Americans. A Lanarkshire man, McLean had sailed for America in 1892 and had been engaged on motor design at Pittsburgh. Within a few months of his appointment in 1901 he was issuing information on standards to coordinate drawing office practice, and by 1903 he had formed a standards section — the germ of the active interest to be taken by the Company in standardization.
STILL WITH THE COMPANY
| Date of starting |
Name | Present department |
| 16.5.1900 15.4.1901 17.3.1902 19.12.1902 29.9.1902 31.10.1902 19.10.1902 15.8.1902 27.11.1902 1.4.1902 23.7.1902 12.5.1902 20.5.1902 19.9.1902 24.9.1902 1.12.1902 9.1.1902 22.9.1902 8.12.1902 3.11.1902 9.6.1902 5.5.1902 1.9.1902 10.11.1902 1.7.1902 27.7.1902 12.11.1902 1.7.1902 8.12.1902 1.12.1902 9.7.1902 18.8.1902 6.10.1902 4.12.1902 23.6.1902 15.9.1902 13.10.1902 4.7.1902 20.10.1902 4.9.1902 10.9.1902 12.12.1902 |
Fleming, A. P. M. |
Director of research and education |
| Extracted from the books of the M-V Long Service Association, July 10, 1949 |
||
MANUFACTURING BEGINS
DURING 1902 the equipment of many of the departments neared completion, and manufacture started, a mere trickle at first but by the end of the year employing about 3,000 men. The first sections to be ready were the tool rooms, the patternmaking and carpenters' shops (which started by making drawing office and works furniture), and the steel foundry. The works, apart from the 'feeder' departments, was organized in two main sections—an engine department making prime movers, and an electrical department.
On the mechanical side it was proposed to manufacture reciprocating steam engines, gas engines, and steam turbines. However, the higher efficiency of the gas engine combined with the advent of the turbine to end the manufacture of steam engines before it had fairly begun.
Westinghouse gas engines were offered 'from stock' in single and double acting vertical types for outputs up to 1,500 hp, all of American design; 1,000 hp was the biggest actually built. In August 1903 the first two to be made at Trafford Park were shipped to His Majesty the King, Sandringham Hall, Norfolk, England.
The first steam turbines made were of the Parsons reaction type, built under licence (the first that was issued to a British company) and based on American practice. The initial orders were for two 100-kW and two 280-kW back-pressure machines driving d.c. generators for the Savoy Hotel. There were many difficulties and delays in getting the first units running, and the task was no easier because the air in the basement engine room became unbearably hot. The hotel engineer protested that he would accept no more deliveries, and when the next unit arrived on a dray it was refused admission. However H. N. Baker, who was in charge of London erection for many years, induced a page boy to lure away the doorkeeper: the gate was opened, and the waiting turbine deposited in the yard.
By the end of 1902 eight turbo-generator sets of 5,500 kW — an unprecedented size — had been ordered for the Lot's Road power station of the Metropolitan District Railway, three 3,500-kW sets for Neasden on the Metropolitan Railway, and the whole power plant for the Motherwell and Yoker stations of the Clyde Valley Company. These early stations had centralized lubricating oil systems in which a tank in the roof supplied all the units in the station by gravity.
The Lot's Road turbines were dogged by misfortune. The steel rotor drums were of a complicated shape, and the difficult work of casting was entrusted to Krupps of Essen. On delivery one drum was given an over-speed test: the normal design speed was 900 r.p.m., and at about 1,000 r.p.m. the rotor burst into fragments. The remaining castings were scrapped, and a new and simpler rotor designed. This had a drum of uniform diameter, and as the diameter of the inlet portion was greater than before, it was logical for the blades to be proportionately shorter. Unfortunately Westinghouse, who was in England, considered the calculated length to be too short and insisted on its being increased appreciably. Primitive though the calculation of turbine performance was at that time, the consequent failure to meet the steam consumption guarantee did not come as a surprise.
Heavy damages were claimed against the Company for the extra coal burnt, and though the arbitrators found in our favour, their decision was reversed by the High Court. Something like £120,000 was involved, and with Sir Alfred Cripps (later Lord Parmoor) as counsel, the Company appealed to the House of Lords. It was not until 1912 that the case was won, and the original award returned.
On the electrical side, large and small alternators and d.c. generators, rotary converters, transformers, switch and control gear, motors, instruments and meters, magnetic brakes, and traction equipment were made to American designs An auto-transformer dating from July 1902 was described as for starting a 5-hp motor 'having 6,000 alternations', i.e. for 50 cycles. One product that has long since vanished was the Bremer arc lamp; for this, Westinghouse had acquired the patent rights for both the lamp and the carbons, which were designed to give light of a better colour than the normal. Arc lamps were made in two forms, the flame arc type (for street lighting and exterior shop lighting) and the enclosed arc, which was used for lighting the interior of Selfridge's new stores in Oxford Street.
The first traction contract was for the Mersey Railway electrification and was signed on July 15, 1901. It covered the complete scheme power house (with three 1,650-hp Corliss steam engines), feeders, collector rails, trains, and tunnel ventilating and pumping machinery, almost all made in America, and was financed by The Traction and Power Securities Company, which had been founded by Westinghouse and had a future Prime Minister, Bonar Law, on the board.
It is recalled that the chief engineer of works, H. L. Kirker, who was an American of very direct methods, gave the difficult job of locating the position of an old ventilating tunnel to T. Ferguson, a recently arrived traction engineer, as his first work on outside erection. Ferguson, who is still at the works as a traction consultant, improvised instruments and made many night surveys in the various tunnels and shafts, undeterred by a two-inch deposit of oily soot on the walls; when a new tunnel was driven, it broke through into the old one exactly as calculated, good testimony to the accuracy of the survey. Electric working started in May 1903, and meanwhile a contract had been obtained for the electrification of the Metropolitan Railway, this including multiple-unit trains and locomotives.
The assembly of instruments, meters, and relays began in H aisle in the spring of 1903. The testing and standards section of the 'agency' Company was brought down from London with L. C. Benton in charge, and the testing section was considerably extended. The standards laboratory was kept in the original form recommended by Dr. John Hopkinson. An adaptation of the Kelvin electrometer was used as a reflecting wattmeter, a Kelvin electrostatic reflecting voltmeter as a standard voltmeter, and a Siemens dynamometer as a standard ammeter; the monthly calibration of these standards lasted about two days and was done with appropriate solemnity. At Cremorne works (named from the gay Gardens of eighteenth-century Chelsea), trouble from vibration had been avoided by mounting the instruments on brick pillars about 4 ft square with deep foundations and 3-in marble tops. When transferred to Trafford Park the standards were placed at the end of E aisle with the test room containing the alternator and battery-driven d.c. motor at the north end of K aisle.
Meters calibrated were chiefly Shallenberger's ampere-hour meter, for long the only one of its kind, and his watt-hour meter. The latter was the first step in the production of a satisfactory a.c. watt-hour meter, but on account of its size and weight it did not long remain in demand and was followed by the Westinghouse type A. Indicating instruments were made in a wide range of Westinghouse designs, many of which were still being produced with the approval of power station engineers in 1930, a high tribute to their originators. The first relays manufactured appear somewhat crude today, but they met the needs of the infant electricity supply industry; among them were over-current relays of the instantaneous solenoid type, and reverse power relays that were simply indicating watt-meters with contacts.
From the outset, it was vital to be able to test the properties of raw materials, and before the main shop was finished A. P. M. Fleming and R. Johnson, who had been working on insulation problems at Pittsburgh, established themselves in the main office building with packing cases as furniture. They soon put up a small shed some 13 ft by 6 ft in the middle of D aisle and carried out elementary tests, using paraffin heaters until gas was available. A little later a more elaborate shop with a 60,000-V testing transformer was set up, but the small insulation testing section in D aisle was the origin of the present research department.
Another formidable material problem was the ageing of transformer sheet steel: before the days of silicon steel, the energy loss increased so rapidly that transformers were known to burn out as a result. Fleming therefore set up, with F. E. L. Hurst, a small magnetic testing section and installed a permeameter (partly due to Miles Walker), an iron loss tester, and ageing equipment. A sample transformer core made from each consignment of sheet steel was kept at 80°C for a month, and the energy loss measured daily.
LIFE AT TRAFFORD PARK
Trafford Park in 1902 did not belie its name. Though to the east the shops of Glover's and the Lancashire Dynamo had been built in 1898 and 1899 respectively, it was still a mainly rural area—fields, woods, ponds, and country lanes. Trafford Hall, the old mansion, stood in its grounds almost unchanged, the lake was still picturesque, and pheasant, rabbits, and trout abounded for sport. A keeper's cottage survived for twenty-five years as an office in the transformer shop. The Park was somewhat inaccessible, and as a rail connection from the Cheshire Lines was being brought into the works by a canal bridge, for which the Company had to foot the bill, plans were drawn up for a passenger platform to the west of the main shops. Eventually the railway agreed to build a station (Trafford Park) in Moss Road near the south gate of the works, but only under a guarantee from the Company to share the cost if it were not sufficiently used.
Moss Road itself was a country lane, little more than a cart-track and in winter a long slog through quagmire. The road was so narrow that vehicles could only pass at a central lay-by, and it crossed the Bridgewater Canal by the narrow humpbacked Taylor's Bridge, which somehow survived into the thirties. Vehicles scattered pedestrians into the hedge, and to avoid delay the works superintendent, travelling in his gig, would send on an advance guard to clear the road. Heads of departments and foremen usually hired four-wheelers, crowding them to capacity, but for most the walk from Stretford was unavoidable.
On the north side of the works the only public conveyances at first were gas-engined cars, miscalled individually the Lamp-oil Express and collectively the Channel Fleet. These ran on railway lines and struggled up and down between the Park gates and Trafford Park Hotel, often so overloaded that the passengers had to get out and push or, alternatively, stampede across muddy fields and railway lines to the works. On the extension of the electric trams (with cattle-truck trailers for standing passengers) into the Park in 1907, the gas cars ceased to be much used, though they continued, mainly for goods, until 1910. To reach Old Trafford from Manchester one took a horse-drawn truck fitted with a penny turnstile.
Near the north gate a model housing estate was laid out by an independent building company with 'cottages' fitted with electric light and baths; the American fashion of numbered avenues and streets was opposed by the Stretford Council but without effect. At the corner nearest the works a hostel was built to accommodate visiting customers and Company officials; billiards and a shale tennis court were available. For a time Trafford Hall also was used as a guest house.
Work started at 7 a.m., the signal being given by the 'buzzer' whose penetrating voice is still heard, sometimes with dismay, for many miles around. Workmen's attendance was recorded by a 'clocking' system; once late since 1903 is the proud record of Jimmy Hinds of the iron foundry. Staff names were taken at the gate at 8.30, and those who arrived late were required to sign a book, stating their names and times of admission; at the south gate, John Courtney, who stuck to his post till 1930, did not take kindly to latecomers who entered their times in decimals.
Inside the boundary wall was a corps of works police who patrolled the shops according to Pittsburgh practice, seeing that everyone kept diligently at work. This system soon disappeared, the responsibility being taken over by foremen and charge-hands. Smoking during working hours was prohibited even in the works yard, but at lunch time it was permitted in the offices and outside the shops.
Women were employed from the outset — witness Bertha Cook and Florence Taylor still on G aisle — but their numbers were comparatively small, and they were limited mostly to insulation, coil winding and assembly work. Dress regulations were not strict, and it was some years before caps were made compulsory. On the other hand there was a rule forbidding any man to walk or talk with a woman in the precincts of the works except on strictly works business, even during lunch hours. Female stenographers and secretaries gained ground slowly: in May 1905 a circular letter prohibited "tea-drinking between meal-times for lady stenographers and lady clerks except when medical certificates warrant it".
The works telephone exchange was a National board with four external lines and thirty-eight extensions. In September 1903 the original operator was joined by Miss M. Brown, who soon became supervisor and is still with the Company; today she is responsible for a staff of thirty, dealing with nearly 1500 extensions and a teleprinter service.
Canteens for men consisted of an eating shed (near the foundry), which was provided with rough tables and tea-brewing kettles. For women in G aisle a large can of hot water was sent up for tea-brewing at midday — of course well off the boil on arrival — and later part of the aisle was partitioned off and provided with plank seats round the walls but no tables; a luxury that did not last was a hot lunch bar run by an outside firm.
For the staff, lunch was provided in a wooden building that had been used as temporary offices while the works was being built. This building was later given to Trafford Park for use as a school; it was moved to its new position — a three-week job — by means of a shunting engine, which alternately pushed and towed it bodily out of the yard. The new staff dining room was on the ground floor of the office building. In 1908, when the Company took over the management from an outside caterer, the tariff shows that for lunch joint or entree with two vegetables ran to 6d, and for tea chops and steaks were 1d, poached eggs on toast 4d, boiled egg 11/2d. But most people still brought their own lunch.
A first-aid room dealt with minor casualties, and injured employees in the early days must have been reluctant to submit themselves to the robust attentions of John Cliffe, ambulance man for twenty-five years. In 1904 his main items of equipment were a baccy knife for splinters, a camel brush for eyes, and a flask of whisky; as a sideline he sold neckties to his victims, and it was a wise patient who made a purchase before treatment. For serious cases a Trafford Park locomotive was enlisted to carry casualties to a cabstand near the Park gates, whence they were taken to the Royal Infirmary.
Fire-prevention was first carried out by a fire-fighters' group under the chief watchman. In 1907 both the fire and the watching services were reorganized, and H. T. Hunt, a born fireman who had first seen the light of day on the premises of the Manchester fire brigade, was given the American title of fire marshal.
For a time the works mail was collected at the Manchester G.P.O. and brought out by a pony and trap, but later this duty was taken over by a White steam car. When the driver, one Marlow, was promoted to drive the works locomotive, he performed some hair-raising feats of speed round the track, which the railway company's locos were prohibited from using as the rails were only spiked to the sleepers. Other internal transport was provided by donkeys and, later, horses, which were used to drag heavy castings from the foundry; here, rabbits burrowed in the moulding sand, and frogs croaked happily.
Wages were drawn at the end of the week from a series of pay-boxes erected in the yard and guarded by the works police. A popular job with apprentices was making up the wages in the paymaster's office — with the help of the girls in the cost department.
On the shop floor the early days were not happy, partly because some of those in charge did not appreciate the difference between English and American conditions. The American foremen had a difficult task but were often difficult taskmasters. It was a cosmopolitan era — one department advertised "twenty-six languages spoken here" — and there was little consideration or cooperation; smooth and efficient working was hardly possible. Labour was engaged and discharged indiscriminately, and yellow slips denoting dismissal were constantly expected in the pay packets. The name Westinghouse was generally associated with 'here today and gone tomorrow', a reputation that took much living down.
Yet in a few years this chaotic youth developed to an ordered maturity, thanks to a spirit of cooperation engendered above all by a man — P. A. Lange — and an organization — the British Westinghouse Engineers' Club.
CRISES AND RECOVERIES
DIFFICULT years were ahead. It would be a long time before the works was fully occupied; the facilities available were much too great for the market, and competition was fiercer than had been expected. Electrical distribution lagged behind other countries, and railway electrification was slow except in the London area. The value of orders, which had been increasing steadily — from £547,000 to £1,657,114 in four years — began to fall off. An adverse factor was the strict adherence to Pittsburgh designs and American standards, which did not always appeal to consulting engineers and other customers. The Americans' attempt to impose their ideas on British buyers naturally failed, though in some directions it was found afterwards to have forced the pace of development. One of the first major problems was the use of American screw threads: any change was opposed as unnecessary and expensive, but the British engineers led by Tom Smith persisted and eventually had their way.
The efficient operation of the works under such conditions was naturally difficult, though accounts are somewhat conflicting. In spite of strenuous efforts to increase output, long recalled as the Great Push, orders were late on completion and unprofitable when completed. On top of the very heavy initial outlay there had been too lavish expenditure in many directions, and it became necessary to seek financial assistance from America. There was no sign of dividends for the ordinary shareholders of the Company, who were growing restive. In February 1904 — his last appearance at an annual general meeting — George Westinghouse was congratulated on "the excellent way in which he had ignored the most ugly facts". American interests were thenceforward represented by the deputy chairman and managing director, the Hon. W. I. Buchanan, who was an ex-Ambassador to Panama, and at the next meeting (December 1904) all his diplomatic experience was needed. The bland statement that "the works was evidently built... for the work that would one day come to it, be that day near or far" met with a shareholder's rejoinder that "if we had known we were to build the works for posterity they would probably never have been built at all".
A call for "a little more common sense and economical management" with other good advice was partly met by cutting down expenses, but it was only constant support from the American Company that enabled work to be carried on. The preference dividend was passed for two years in succession, and at the meeting of December 1905 comment was outspoken: "a huge shed at Manchester . . . . , not there to face the music . . . , a sinking ship . . . , they had been trifled with".
The time had come for quick action, and a month earlier Westinghouse had sent his immediate assistant, Newcomb Carlton, a vice-president of the American Company, to join the Board — one of four managing directors. (Buchanan returned to America in 1907.) Carlton set to with energy and after a preliminary investigation decided that radical changes were necessary both in men and methods. He therefore asked for the assistance of Philip A. Lange, at that time manager of all the American Company's works in East Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Cleveland, and Newark. Accordingly Lange was sent over to spend six weeks at Trafford Park reviewing the position. As a result of his recommendations, he remained at the works in an acting capacity, and in July 1906 he was appointed general manager of works in succession to Loud, who had gone back to America. From this point, though there was yet one further crisis to surmount, the fortunes of the Company began to turn. Lange, who was born at Rostock on the Baltic Sea and had been with the American Company since 1886, started with the advantage of having been in charge for several years of a works almost identical with that at Trafford Park in construction, equipment and products. In fact, he often said in later years that no problem, manufacturing or human, ever arose at Trafford Park that he had not dealt with at Pittsburgh. Be that as it may, he infused a new spirit into the organization. He came to work with the men at 7 a.m. and on most mornings would make a round of the shops, tightening up efficiency and production.
He was accessible to all and won the respect of staff and workpeople alike by his absolute fairness, a feature of his administration that is still remembered. In the shops his early morning rounds resulted in everyone getting off to a quick start, and he would meet staff members arriving late and solicitously enquire which department maintained them — from him an unfailing corrective.
Matters began to improve slowly. By the end of 1906 production had increased, and factory expenses were down; the payroll had been materially reduced, and all the engineering and sales management staffs had been transferred to Trafford Park, which became the Company's head office. The American Company took up more debenture stock, making a total of £1,125,000 in five years, and in January 1907 the capital was drastically reduced — by 40 per cent on the preference shares and 50 per cent on the ordinary. This proposal J. Annan Bryce, tweed-suited but reputed a wealthy banker, had to put before the annual general meeting, and in the ensuing discussion the shareholder previously quoted was at his best: "a pistol at their heads..., obsolete machinery and old iron. .., useless experiments ..., a tale of woe ..., reputation ruined ..., they had lost their money, their credit and their good name".
It was strong medicine to swallow, and it ought to have been effective in clearing the Company completely of financial embarrassment. But this was reckoning without America and George Westinghouse. The latter had early acquired the habit of relying on personal friends and stockbrokers rather than on banks and syndicates for financing his enterprises, and he had invested his own money liberally. This process often involved heavy borrowing and brought periods of embarrassment, and, when in 1907 a sudden financial crisis paralysed the commercial and industrial activity of the United States, it brought disaster. With his loans called in and no powerful banking interests to protect him, Westinghouse was unable to prevent three of his largest concerns, including the Electric and the Machine Companies, from falling temporarily into the hands of the receivers. Thus, just when Lange's reforms had encouraged the British Company to hope for better things, it lost its main source of financial support. Output was still increasing, but an immediate loan of £250,000 was necessary if the Company was to discharge its obligations and carry on clear of debt.
In this crisis Carlton, by now sole managing director, rendered yeoman service. Immaculately dressed with shining top hat and carnation or camelia from Dinah the Norfolk Street flower girl, he backed himself to face the City with equanimity, and notwithstanding the ominous outlook he inspired sufficient confidence for the money to be put up and 6 per cent prior lien debentures issued. Loans from bankers were paid off, and additional working capital provided. At last there was a breathing space for recovery, and all that remained, in Carlton's words at the annual dinner in 1908, was for "cooperation, concessions, and conciliatory acts throughout the organization to bring success".
REORGANIZATION TAKEN IN HAND
Some details of the changes at the works during 1906 and 1907 will show how in Lange's hands the organization began to take shape. Separate trading departments were formed, and departmental accounts and departmental stores set up: the general order department, previously responsible for the whole of the commercial side, was eventually disbanded. Superintendents were put in charge of the various manufacturing departments, Mitchell having returned to America at the end of 1905, and the works accounting, already split up into separate sections, was put under their control.
Among the early superintendents was W. Stead, who made many gas-engine improvements before his departure in 1909. To the engine department also came H. Mensforth in 1904 and G. E. Bailey in 1907, both destined to hold the highest positions on the manufacturing side, and the latter to become chairman of Company. Within two years of his joining (from the Brush Company at Loughborough), Bailey was made chief draughtsman, and by 1913 he had succeeded Mensforth as superintendent.
On the electrical side, towards the end of 1906, M. A. McLean left the drawing office to follow a Spaniard, G. del Rivo, as superintendent of the large machine department, and at the same time Lange took J. S. Peck on to his personal staff as consulting electrical engineer. Two years later E. Rosenberg, an Austrian from the A.E.G. Company, was appointed chief electrical engineer. Rosenberg who remained until the outbreak of war, had won an early reputation by his book Electrical Engineering and had published many papers on electrical subjects, including his cross-field type of dynamo.
From 1905 A. M. Randolph, son of a Bishop of Virginia, was superintendent of the supply department, dealing with switchgear, instruments and meters and taking over control gear in the following year. His chief cost clerk, W. Wilkinson, is still at Trafford Park as assistant to the comptroller (costings).
The general engineering department, then under T. F. Schoepf, was transferred from London to Trafford Park in 1906, but it was merged into the large machine department three years later.
An important development was the first real effort to recruit apprentices for professional engineering courses. To start with, each superintendent had his own apprentices, but in 1908 the training was centralized under A. P. M. Fleming, a step that was to have results of inestimable value.
The sales organization was gradually strengthened under Newcomb Carlton. One of his first reactions was to realize that the predominantly American staff, however likeable to their colleagues, were not always acceptable to British customers and W. W. Blunt, himself American but not markedly so, gradually made changes to bring about a better balance. J. N. Bailey, who arrived in 1903 from Parsons, came to turbine sales via manufacturing and engineering; he was later appointed sales manager of the mechanical department, where he continued until retirement in 1944. To turbine sales also came C. S. Richards, a former trainee, early in 1909.
'Supply' sales, covering control, switchgear, instruments, meters and transformers, were organized by D. N. Dunlop, who had P. N. Rand with him on the switchgear side. Dunlop, already responsible for the whole of the Westinghouse Companies' publicity on this side of the Atlantic, took the additional work in his stride, and while studying the economic and selling problems of the industry, he saw the necessity for a strong central association that could represent manufacturing interests in their relations not only with each other but also with municipalities and the Government. As a result, on the formation of the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers' Association in 1911, he left to become its first director and remained a leading spirit there for over twenty years.
Under Dunlop also a 'supplies' department was started in 1907. The works had been built almost exclusively for making heavy electrical and mechanical plant, and it was not intended to manufacture 'supplies' (i.e. equipment such as domestic apparatus, lighting fittings, lamps (other than arc lamps), cables, and electrical accessories). However there was a growing market, so Dunlop installed J. Gibson in Long Millgate, Manchester, to factor a wide range of supplies.
Export trade was an encouragement from the first. The Company's special field was the whole of the British Empire except Canada, and it could also trade in Norway, Sweden and other countries on the Continent. The French and Russian. Companies operated in their own territories, but this arrangement was not inflexible, for instance a number of British turbine and traction plants were soon installed in Russia. Though the British Company generally used agents of the American Westinghouse, its export department, organized in London by C. S. Colton, was very successful. Between 1905 and 1907 the amount of export business was trebled — a welcome relief from unsatisfactory conditions at home. Reciprocal arrangements were made with Pittsburgh for selling in South America and other markets, and towards the end of 1905 the first overseas office was opened with G K. Chambers at Johannesburg. From these origins there sprang an export business that in later years became a third or more of the Company's total and was a mainstay of prosperity.
GROWTH OF COOPERATION
More intangible but no less important than technical and commercial efficiency was the spirit prevailing in the works. The greatest benefits were obtained from social activities, which appeared at an early date in sporadic outbreaks of departmental picnics and hot-pot suppers, and these were strongly reinforced in 1905 by the formation of the British Westinghouse Engineers' Club, chiefly of engineers and apprentices. The object of the Club was described as "to provide a means of transmitting to the younger employees of the firm, apprentices in particular, the knowledge possessed by the older members". There were two sections, general and technical: one covered cricket, tennis, and association and Rugby football, and the other held weekly meetings where papers were presented by leading officials on some aspect of the Company's activities, discussions following.
The Club had no permanent home until October 1907, when with Carlton's support it acquired Oakbank, a large house standing on the Chester Road near the Park gates (opposite the present entrance to the White City). From then on it flourished exceedingly. A great success of the second year was a 'parliamentary debating society' with A. McKinstry as Prime Minister, A. P. M. Fleming as Foreign Secretary, J. Bissett as Chancellor of the Exchequer, F. Crompton as Chief Government Whip, and D. N. Dunlop sitting on the cross benches where he could be relied upon to keep the proceedings interesting. New social sections developed quickly, rifle and chess enthusiasts being early in the field, and an annual dinner for the staff became an established function. Altogether the Club played a great part by instilling a habit of cooperation among its members and bringing into the organization a democratic spirit, then very unusual but an asset to the whole Company.
Another important step was taken in 1906 when Lange established a foremen's association. Cooperation among foremen was all-important, and the new association was to organize welfare and social activities and so provide the soil for good relations to nourish in. The first chairman was Tom Smith, and the association has grown with the Company to a membership of 300. In later years it has come to act as the foremen's official medium for negotiations with the management, and from 1919 onwards members of the association and of the education department have formed an advisory sub-committee to consider problems of apprentice training in the shops.
TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENTS
After some years of manufacture to American designs, the Company's engineers started to introduce improvements, and in some lines completely new apparatus was evolved. Much of this redesigning was caused by the lower cost of labour relative to material in England.
Gas engines, which were an important product for many years, were improved by the introduction of water-cooled exhaust valves in 1906, and soon afterwards vertical tandem engines designed by W. Stead and K. R. W. Cox were put on the market. These engines in sizes from 250 to 1000 hp could be used with producer, blast furnace, town, or coke oven gas, and they rapidly superseded previous designs. Eighty-three Parsons turbines were made by the Company between 1902 and 1908; one of the last, a 368-kW unit, was the pioneer of mixed pressure turbines in this country. However, experience with the disc-and-drum type of turbine had shown the advantages of impulse blading in freedom from fine running clearances and therefore from stripping, and before the Lot's Road case arose the Company had taken out a manufacturing licence for the impulse type of turbine patented by Professor Rateau. In 1908 after a number of units had been made at Trafford Park it was decided to concentrate on impulse turbines in future, and in the following year K. Baumann was engaged to take charge of their development. Both decisions proved entirely sound. By 1914 nearly 80 per cent of all the turbines made in Great Britain were of the impulse type, and it has been the foundation of the Company's turbine business, covering by now seventeen hundred machines aggregating 12,500,000 kW and ranging up to 105,000 kW in size.
Electrical developments owed much to the influence of Miles Walker, who was in charge of machine design; an outstanding innovation of 1908 was his multiple radial commutator, which removed a limiting factor in the design of high-speed d.c. generators. Rotary converters were increasingly used, and a large number were supplied for the London Underground railways.
In 1904 Gilbert North came home from Pittsburgh to become the Company's instrument and meter engineer. With practically no laboratory equipment he began by designing the famous 'type N' watt-hour meter, which was far in advance of any other and is the basis of almost every modern meter. He then turned to indicating instruments and designed first a moving iron type and then a moving coil type, both on revolutionary lines. All these innovations rapidly increased in popularity. The watt-hour meter, when established, was developed in polyphase form and set a new standard of measurement in polyphase circuits. North also designed a Merz maximum-demand mechanism in a form that did much to establish a principle now commonly used for metering bulk power and industrial consumers' supplies.
Another valuable accession to the staff was A. H. Olmsted, who in 1908 had just invented an automatic voltage regulator for generators; with subsequent development Olmsted regulators came into general use, and his principles have led to many designs that are still current.
FAREWELL TO GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE
That the Company was able to achieve solid progress under great difficulties was chiefly due to a spirit of cooperation and determination among its people, and it is therefore fitting to close this chapter on a personal note. In September 1909 J. Annan Bryce became chairman of the Board in place of George Westinghouse.
This was the official severance of a tenuous connection. For some years Westinghouse had taken no part in our affairs, being preoccupied with those of the American Company which had been returned to its stockholders in 1908, and the British Company was counted as just another mistake. Yet before his death on March 12, 1914, he was to see it established on a sound financial basis and taking a leading position among electrical manufacturers. His conception had been in error only in being ahead of its time.
As a man, Westinghouse had the advantage of imposing physical stature matching his powerful mind, high spirits and perfect health. It has been said that to watch him walking through the works was to an observant man a liberal education. He was primarily mechanically minded, and he made no fundamental electrical inventions. But he could grasp their importance, and he would devote his whole energy to their commercial development and production. His main strength lay in ability to collect a brilliant team of engineers and to stimulate, combine and direct their work. He respected and liked his men and won their loyalty in return; he founded benefit associations and pension schemes and is credited with the introduction into America of the Saturday half holiday. In the Westinghouse Memorial erected in 1930 at Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, the emphasis is rightly laid on the things of steel and power that he created and on those who worked with him. The inscription reads:
George Westinghouse
Union Soldier
Citizen of Pittsburgh
Founder of the Westinghouse Industries
Benefactor of Humanity through his Labors and Inventions
1846—1914
Erected by Westinghouse Memorial Association of 54251 Members who served with him in the Army of Industry
STAFF
THE BRITISH WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY LIMITED JUNE 1907 |
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| BOARD OF DIRECTORS SENIOR OFFICIALS |
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THE
WESTINGHOUSE COMPANIES' PUBLISHING DEPARTMENT |
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| Manager | D. N. Dunlop | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Engineering editor | W. Perren Maycock | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
THE
WESTINGHOUSE PATENT BUREAU |
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| Manager | Reginald Belfield | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||