W. B. Dick and Co: 1934 Review
Note: This is a sub-section of the W. B. Dick and Co
Note: This is an abridged version of a chapter in British Commerce and Industry 1934
For the firm was founded in Glasgow in 1853. In the following year the iron plates for the Great Eastern, our first iron ship, were made by the Park Gate Iron and Steel Company near Sheffield; and the second, or iron, steel, and engineering phase of the Industrial Revolution, which had been ushered in fifty or so years earlier, may be said to have been inaugurated. The engineering progress that followed implied many new problems in unexplored fields, and among them not the least, requiring new and specialized knowledge, was the provision of new methods and new materials for the lubrication of the mighty engines which came to be invented and built.
Later still, the electrical phase of the great Industrial Revolution came into British industry, bringing with it still more problems; and it is with the record of W. B. Dick and Co. in these two eras, and particularly in the latest electrical phase, in the midst of which we are still placed, that this survey is concerned.
The history of the company coincides also with the scientific study of oils from mineral sources and the provision through analytical research of such oils to meet the new needs of the engineering world. Mineral oils were almost unknown and of academic interest only in 1853. The first Dick products, therefore, were all of vegetable or animal origin. To-day they are derived almost entirely from mineral sources. Its record in effecting this change has placed it in the leading position among world refiners and blenders of mineral oils, and the careers of the present chairman and managing director, Mr. W. Bruce Dick, and of Mr. C. E. Dick — also managing director — both sons of the founder, give them the longest individual connection with this new industry in the British Isles, and probably the rest of the world. Their experience, knowledge and continuous service to the industry extending over 50 years, covers the whole period of the scientific study of lubrication problems, and of the realization that oils can be derived, for the service of industry, from all three kingdoms — animal, vegetable and mineral.
Three large factories at Glasgow, Liverpool and London are occupied with the refining and blending of oils. These are under the direction of an administrative staff composed of engineers and chemists. From two large laboratories fully qualified chemists and their assistants are continuously engaged in testing and research work. The chemists associated with the company are recognized as leading authorities in petroleum technology, and are called upon from time to time to address their colleagues who are engaged in similar and related studies on the latest results of their work.
The close co-operation between the chemists and the works within the business is responsible for the pre-eminent position held by the firm. The laboratories play an important part in the activities of the London, Liverpool, Glasgow and New York branches, and large sums of money are devoted to research. For the supply of electrical oils alone a special department in each laboratory has specialized over the last twenty years. Skilled engineers on the staff serve as links with the outside engineering world, and all complicated problems, whether in connection with the internal combustion engine, Diesel, turbine or transformers, are consequently studied by highly informed technicians alone.
In addition to the three main factories in England, the company has established depots for reserves of oil in many of the leading ports of the country. Its connections on the continent of Europe have always been strong, and depots for Dick's oils are as far flung as New York, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Shanghai and South America.
A peculiar impression made on the writer when he visited the company's headquarters in London was the sense of modesty and unpretentiousness of its officers compared with the magnitude of its operations. Of the latter he was not long in doubt. A recital of a few only of the activities proceeding from this quiet centre dispelled this. For example, in the "grid" electrification of Great Britain since 1926, the transformers and switchgear supplied by the leading electrical manufacturers have called for several millions of gallons of insulating oil of which more than fifty per cent. has been supplied by the firm of Dick. The largest transformer in the world - 125,000 h.p. — which was manufactured by the Hackbridge Electric Construction Co, for the County of London Electric Supply Co., Ltd., was filled with Dick's Ilo Non-sludging Transformer Oil.
In the company's record, too, is the contract for supplying Ilo turbine oil for the huge No. 1 Turbo Generator in the new Battersea Power Station. This great generator has a capacity of 67,200 kw., 1,500 r.r.m., and 11,000 volts. The three 50,000 kw. turbo alternators supplied by Messrs. C. A. Parsons and Co., Ltd., to the new Dunston Power Station of the North Eastern Electric Supply Co., Ltd., and the Metrovick Turbo Alternators at the Clarence Dock and Lister Drive Stations of the Liverpool Corporation Electrical Supply Department are other examples of the triumph of the Dick product, when the vital question of lubrication for the modern engine of power has to be decided.
It is reported that in the early premises of the founder Mr. James Young, his first chemist, was the means, by his discovery of mineral oil from shale, of establishing the Scottish mineral oil industry. It is also believed that in these premises Mr. Young first produced paraffin oil, so that the firm of W. B. Dick and Co. began early its tradition of research in this great industry.
This tradition has been maintained by the present organization under his sons. With their active leadership, extending over many years, the House of Dick occupies a unique position in the history of lubricants. Competition becomes keener every day, but Mr. W. Bruce Dick's slogan, as a well-known oarsman in his day, which, as it happened, was also that of his brother Mr. Charles E. Dick, the well-known international golfer, was "There is always room at the top for the best," and this they have translated successfully into the highly specialized enterprise which passed into their stewardship.