You must be thinking that I will never finish writing articles about Harveys. This will be article No.4 and I’ve never written up one of these local companies before which has run to 4 episodes. However, I thought I needed to do one more article to say what happened to them and their huge factory in the Woolwich Road. Although trying to work out where they went and what happened to them has been a bit of a marathon.
I remain impressed by Harveys and the scale of their operation. In the 1950s they were clearly still bringing out some very amazing and important things. Last week I ended with the GPO’s Antenna No1. at Goonhilly receiving station – and that huge parabolic bowl is a very impressive thing to manufacture and on such a prestige project. Also there were also these huge distillation columns which were made for oil refineries all over the world. I am certain that I don’t know about more than a tiny fraction of what they produced –most of what I do know comes from their advertisements and some reminiscences from former workers. There was probably much more.
I’ve looked at some of the things which they advertised later in the 1950s and 1960s. Some of it is just day-to-day things. For example there are a number of advertisements for devices for dust collection. They say that ‘air pollution is at last recognised as a deadly serious problem’ and without clean air mankind cannot survive … more stringent laws are emerging … industry is the target’. They have a range of devices from Torit – this is an American system which Harvey either developed or bought into for a comprehensive range of the finest dust collectors in this country’.
For instance they supplied ‘cabinet type dust collectors which filter all dust from grinding wheels and metal dust which includes sub micron size particles’. These cabinets were portable and didn’t need ‘long duct runs’. Harveys say that they would do away with the need for masks ‘as the dust is prevented from reaching their breathing areas’. They also advertised special ‘down draft benches … which provide dust collection for polishing, sanding, grinding and snagging’. They said that with this system ‘the bench, not the worker, inhales the dust’. The advertising leaflet I had included a handy little packet of sample dust to show what they could collect. They also made Cyclone dust collectors ‘for chippings, shavings and sawdust’. Then there were swing arc fume exhausters which protected workers from ‘toxic fumes, smoke and gases which arise during welding’ and thus protect from ‘lead poisoning, zinc chills and other respiratory diseases’. Along with this work was a parallel production of fork lift trucks.
They also continued to make large and impressive items. I have a note that in 1963, for instance, they made a 500 ton stroking press. It had a stroke of 3 ft 6ins and they had the facilities to make it all in their own workshops. There was a 100ft column for the Mobil Oil Refinery at Coryton and 70 ton boiler drums for the Komati Power Station in South Africa. In advertisements at around the same time they describe how they made all the components and various items needed to run and operate tenpin bowling alleys.
The items including perforations continued to be made and another advert from the 1960s describes equipment and coverings provided for the Royal Tehran Hilton Hotel where they installed metal perforated panels and anodised aluminium (pattern no.954) to drawer fronts and luggage areas in the bedrooms; to the counter front of the reception area, cloak rooms and in passenger lift doors.
They advertise that they worked in sheet and plate steel and wire making heavy equipment for the petroleum and chemical industries and at the other extreme woven wire mesh ‘with 40,000 apertures to the square inch’.
They state how much they are looking forward to joining the Common Market for increased business.
Every year they processed 25,000 tons of steel plate plus 700 tons of zinc, copper, brass and other nonferrous metals. They were however gradually producing more and more office furniture and equipped the whole new Daily Mirror building in London with it.
Throughout the 1950s there are constant advertisements for a huge numbers of workers needed in Greenwich. Many of these are posted in Irish local papers and particularly in Belfast. They include information on the pension scheme and the sports club as attractions.
Harveys ran apprenticeship schemes. An ex apprentice described joining the firm as a technician apprentice in 1968 ‘ when I was sixteen. I spent my first year in the 3rd floor training school along with around 50 other apprentices learning the basic engineering disciplines such as fitting, turning, welding, sheet metalwork, electrician, etc and remember doing the first aid course. The next 4 years were a tour of the various departments such as Maintenance, Sheet metal (light cons), heavy cons, APW tool room, APW drawing office, office furniture production control and office furniture Drawing office, heavy cons drawing office and many more – it was a wonderful learning experience’.
