Maudslay Records in the Coventry Transport Museum archive

Dave Butler, Archive Volunteer.

The Maudslay Motor Company was established in 1901 by Cyril Maudslay, whose ancestors had for many years owned and run the firm of Maudslay, Sons and Field, famous throughout the 19^th century as builders of boilers and engines for ships.  The motor company’s premises were at Parkside, Coventry.  Cars, lorries and buses were produced until the outbreak of the First World War, when the company ceased car production and concentrated on commercial vehicles.  In the early 1950s, production moved to Alcester and the Parkside premises were closed. 

Coventry Transport Museum has two Maudslay cars, a lorry and a bus on display, and some of the company’s records from the Parkside era are held in the museum’s archive.  Archive volunteer Dave Butler has been examining two of these records in detail.

The first volume is an album of cuttings from various newspapers and magazines, covering the period from the mid-1870s to 1931.  We believe that it was kept by Walter Henry Maudslay who was the chairman and managing director of Maudslay, Sons and Field until the company’s demise in 1900, although a few items date from after his death in 1927.  A good number of these are articles about the company and its products – a fast crossing of the Atlantic by Maudslay engined ships, engines for new warships for the Turkish Navy, a small railway locomotive and of course the various cars.

As well as articles about the Maudslay
company, the book includes personal items
including drawings by younger members
of the Maudslay family.

Perhaps more interesting, however, are the numerous articles about the Maudslay family – weddings, births, funerals and obituaries, letters, and children’s poems and drawings.  The articles suggest that prior to the First World War the Maudslays had a comfortable position in society, being reasonably wealthy and moving in what we would describe as an upper middle class circle. 

W H Maudslay leased an estate in Ireland for a number of years, and several cuttings reflect how the political unrest, both local and national, affected this. During the First World War there are several references to family members and acquaintances in receipt of gallantry awards, although fortunately for the family no member seems to have been killed in action. 

The second volume is a similar album of cuttings, but this one appears to have been the Maudslay Motor Company’s official press cuttings file.  The cuttings in this volume concentrate on the company’s products, mainly the cars, but there are also a few articles on the engines which the company built for marine work.  Also included are several accounts of a journey in India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) using a Maudslay car, which must have been quite an adventure in the early 1900s.

We’re hoping to feature some of these articles in future blog entries, so watch this space!

Women in the Factories during the Second World War

By Coventry Transport Museum Learning Development Officer Naomi Wilcox
 
Over the past months, staff at Coventry Transport Museum have been preparing for our summer exhibition, War Effort.  War Effort tells the story of the Shadow Scheme - a Government programme in the 1930s and 40s that saw the British motor industry turning over production to building aeroplanes, aero engines, military vehicles and other items for the war effort. 

As part of the research for the exhibition and surrounding events, Krissy (my colleague in the Learning team) and I have been finding out about women factory workers and their lives during this time.

Earlier this year we spent an afternoon at the History Centre at the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, looking through past issues of the Midlands Daily Telegraph (later the Coventry Evening Telegraph). The articles penned and letters sent in, very often by the female workers themselves, are incredibly revealing about what life was like for women who worked in Coventry’s wartime factories.

Women played a key part in the success of the Shadow Scheme, and indeed in the success of Britain’s effort throughout World War II.

When we take school groups through the Blitz area of the Museum, we ask them if they know why we’ve placed female mannequins in our Shadow Factory scene. Inevitably they know that it’s because “the men were away fighting” and some have an idea about the conscription of men to the Army, Navy and Air Force. Indeed, in 1938 all men between the ages of 18-41 had to register with the government, and throughout the war were assigned roles in the forces. What many schoolchildren, and adults, don’t realise however is that in 1941 conscription was introduced for women too.

The second National Service Act obliged all single women between the ages of 20-30 to register for war work. By the end of the war, the age bracket had increased to 20-50, appeals had been made to recruit married women and mothers, and over seven million women were involved in the war effort.

Many of those women were sent away from their homes to work in the factories. 

As a result of the Shadow Scheme, existing factories had been re-tooled for war industry, and additional ‘shadow factories’ were built to help meet the demand. Thousands of extra workers were needed for the increase in production, and a good proportion of them would be women.
Young women who were sent to the factories could expect to receive a letter in the post informing them where they would be billeted. They would then be sent away to live in hostels, or with host families, and fulfil their new role. At a time when it was still typical for most women to live at home until they were married, this was a daunting (if ultimately liberating) experience for many.

In Coventry, hostels were set up around the city by the National Service Hostels Corporation. They were utilitarian buildings, meant to be simple and cheap to erect. The women shared basic dorms and were provided with meals which would be eaten in a communal dining room. Recreational activities were sometimes organised, and some hostels had games rooms where the women could relax.

As well as the hostels, many Coventry people welcomed workers as lodgers into their homes. An article in the Midlands Daily Telegraph, from November 1941 reports that “no fewer than 16,000 voluntary billets have been found in raid-devastated Coventry”. This was in response to the large number of people who flooded to Coventry to support the War Effort after the infamous air raid the previous November.

It wasn’t just the young, single women who ended up working in the factories. On many occasions young mothers volunteered to work as well. To enable those women who wanted to work, but who had young children at home, the government established a National Childcare Scheme, building nurseries where parents could leave their young while they went to work. Children would be cared for all day, and receive their meals at the cost of one shilling per day.

A letter from Mrs J.L. Jones to the Midlands Daily Telegraph from 24th August 1940 stresses how important these nurseries were;

“The problem of providing nurseries is urgent...Many hundreds of women with children are now working in Coventry’s factories; their children need to be properly cared for. Many hundreds more women would rally to the appeal made daily in your advertisement columns for women to undertake national work – if they were sure that their children would be looked after properly by trained people while they were at work.”

Looking after the children was just one of the concerns that some women had when considering work in the factories. Women reported the difficulty they had in getting to the factories and asked for better transport provision, and many spoke of the practical implications working hours had on food shopping – as one Coventry housewife put it in a letter to the Coventry Evening Telegraph “The goods I want to buy are either all snapped up by free women or the shops are closed!”

An article from December 1941 explains how some factories were trying to solve the shopping problem:

“In many factories women are allowed ‘time off’ to effect their essential purchases, and almost everything has been tried except the cure which might well be the most radical one – the opening of provision centres catering especially for the needs of women war workers.”

Another cause of frustration for women workers was that, for the most part, women were not paid equal wages. A letter to the editor, from a forthright Beryl Jones, on the same page as the quoted article above reads;

“Women are doing men’s jobs, and doing them well – equally as well as the men – but are they getting the same wages? No, not on your life, and who dares to tell me there is such a thing as equality?”
 
Throughout the war, women campaigned for this situation to be rectified, with some even striking for equal pay. Although reluctant at first, eventually the Unions allowed female membership and helped them negotiate better and more equal pay.

To encourage more women into the factories, Coventry companies created a Women’s War Work exhibition at the Central Hall, and held a procession through the City Centre which over a thousand women workers took part in. The Coventry Evening Telegraph described it;

“Coventry girl war-workers on Saturday afternoon showed their un-enrolled sisters how they ‘went to it’ for the national effort.

“They led a procession through the main streets of the town, dressed in overalls and gowns with ‘V’ signs embroidered on them, they rode on tanks and armoured military vehicles they had helped to make, and they sat at their machines, mounted on lorries, filing, riveting and drilling aeroplane parts as they went along.”

Although it is difficult to give an exact number for how many women worked in the Coventry factories during the war, it was certainly a significant amount. In 1939 the number of female employees working in the motor vehicle, cycle & aircraft industries in Coventry was 3,800; by 1941 this had leapt to 13,900 . This figure undoubtedly rose as the war continued, and doesn’t include the many more working in munitions and other factories.

What we do know however, is that without the thousands of women who were ‘sent to Coventry’, and to numerous other industrial centres, Britain’s shadow factories would not have been able to produce the enormous amount of war vehicles, aeroplanes, munitions and other products that were so vitally needed. While they may have faced challenges with transportation, childcare, food shopping and pay, these women none-the-less rose to the occasion, learnt new skills, put in long hours and much hard work to ultimately help Britain win the war.

To find out more about the Shadow Factory scheme and women's roles in the war effort:

* Visit the War Effort exhibition at Coventry Transport Museum, from 12th July 2013 to 5th January 2014

* Attend the special Women In World War II evening on Thursday 12th September
 
* Enjoy a lunchtime talk on the subject of Coventry Women In Wartime on Wed 9th October.

A surprise visit from a descendant of Charles Thomas Crowden

Members of Coventry Transport Museum's team of curatorial and archive staff are often called into the museum to meet visitors who have specific questions about the collection, items they wish to donate, or things that they would like to discuss about Coventry's motoring heritage.  Below, Curator Damien Kimberley describes one of his most recent calls:

A call from front of house staff last week turned out to be a nice suprise - that of meeting a descendant of one of Coventry's motoring pioneers!

 I found Martin Tapsfield standing by our 1898 Crowden motor carriage, and he soon revealed himself as the maker's great grandson! The car, and descendant, related to Charles Thomas Crowden (1859-1922), who arrived in Coventry around 1896 to work for both the Humber Cycle Company, and Great Horseless Carriage Company at the newly opened 'Motor Mills'. Crowden was first works manager at the GHCC, but from 1898 started up alone at Leamington as a motor manufacturer.

Since meeting Martin, he emailed through this lovely sepia print of the Crowden family in a GHCC model - Martin told me that one of the young girls is his grandmother.

The photograph below is one that we already had in the archive - as you can see, Crowden is again the driver, in perhaps the very same vehicle?

 
To find out more about the Great Horseless Carriage Company, the Motor Mills and many more of Coventry's pioneering transport companies, visit the Coventry Transport Museum Wiki.

How a Wolverhampton Music Hall could hold the key to part of Coventry's cycling heritage

Coventry Transport Museum Curator Damien Kimberley is currently working on his third book about the Coventry transport industry - having already published titles on the motorcycle manufacturers of Coventry, and more recently the city's motorcar companies, it is now time for him to tackle the biggest and most complex project of all – the cycle manufacturers. 

Rowley B. Turner on a Michaux-type velocipede

For his latest book, which Damien hopes will be completed and published during 2014, he has taken on the mammoth task of trying to give an account of every cycle manufacturer that has ever existed in Coventry.  Damien has been researching these companies 'on and off' for about eight years, but work on this book has really ramped up over the past few months. 

As Damien describes below, this ambitious project is already leading him down surprising (and often frustrating) avenues of research:

The production of bicycles in Coventry is where it all began; the motor industry developing off the back of it, and eventually, displacing it altogether.

Bicycle manufacture began in the city in late 1868, when Rowley B. Turner brought a Michaux-type velocipede from Paris to the works of the Coventry Sewing Machine Company (CSMC) at King Street. Rowley was the CSMC agent in France, and nephew of Josiah Turner, one of the CSMC managing directors. After much deliberation, he convinced his uncle and fellow directors to accept a large order to manufacture copies of the Michaux machine, to sell back in France. The CSMC then had to change their articles of association, and changed the title of the business to the Coventry Machinists Company (CMC), and the manufacture of bicycles ensued. The CMC have been widely acknowledged as the first company in Britain to mass produce bicycles.

The Coventry Machinists Company

Prior to this, Coventry had been famous for making ribbons and watches, amongst other things, yet these trades had been in steep decline over several years and many citizens were on the poverty line. The production of bicycles was fantastic in terms of creating employment, yet it did not develop as quickly as some may assume.

Many men who were engaged at the CSMC at the time of the introduction of Turner's French velocipede, gained experience and knowledge of this new trade, and left to establish their own cycle manufacturing businesses. However, this was not instantaneous, and many maintained the manufacture of sewing machines also – a product with which they were far more familiar.

James Starley was one of the first to leave the services of the CMC, soon joined by William Hillman, and at St. John’s Street in 1870 they created the ‘Ariel’ bicycle – a machine that drew many improvements on the Michaux model.

Other ‘machinists’ found interest, and steadily, over the next few years, other businesses were founded in Coventry for the purposes of making bicycles. By 1877, there were a reported ‘nine’ companies in the city engaged in bicycle manufacture. By 1884 there were eighteen companies, and at the industry’s peak during the 1890s...well, I haven’t quite made my mind up yet.

Basically the industry boomed, not just in Coventry which was the capital centre of cycle production, but in other towns and cities too. The reason for this explosion was the ‘safety’ cycle, perfected by John Kemp Starley in Coventry with his ‘Rover’ machine – a design which made the bicycle far more accessible. As a result, all existing manufacturers copied the Rover principle, and many new firms were established to do the same. Activity in Coventry was rife, with orders for thousands of machines made weekly.

So, by this point, I’ve yet to confirm just how many cycle manufactures existed in the city, and in terms of how many existed overall from 1868 onwards, you may be surprised to learn that I’ve been narrowing down a list of some 500 or so possibilities.

The research into these manufacturers, and potential manufacturers, has been extremely complex. Many companies were linked by individuals, whereby a partnership was once formed, yet someone may have then left the partnership and was replaced by another, therefore changing the company name.

For example, John Icely Warman, another of the original CMC school, first began a cycle business in 1876 as Warman, Laxon & Co. Then followed:
Warman, Laxon & Aslatt
Warman, Laxon & Youett
Warman Laxon, Youett & Co.
Warman & Co.
Warman & Hazlewood

Discovering exactly who some of these individuals were has also often proved to be difficult. Some were, as one would expect, experienced machinists, but many others had no knowledge of cycle manufacture, yet had the means to invest.


To date, the most frustrating company that I have had to research has been the Lion Bicycle Company, which were seen to have been in existence in Coventry in 1879. I know this because I found a reference in the 1879 Bicyclist Handbook with the company at Leicester Place, Leicester Street with the supporting text:

‘This company are working in the same premises that Singer first occupied and are building on the lines of the Humber’ and offering the ‘Lion no. 1, 2, and 3 ordinary machines.’

Fantastic, but there are suggestions that they made other, more novel machines also. In 1890, Harry Hewitt Griffin wrote:

‘These dandy-horse type machines were built by a cycle maker in Coventry in 1879 (trading as the Lion Bicycle Company, and afterwards proprietor of the chief music hall in Wolverhampton) publishing, on the back of his price list, a description of the machine’.

Now, I love being able to unravel a person behind a company, but so far this one has eluded me. In many ways I wish that Griffin hadn’t written this, or as he did anyway, why not give me a name? What if Griffin was wrong? What if it was Wigan, and not Wolverhampton?

Anyway, aside from the fact that I have now become a world authority of Wolverhampton music hall proprietors from 1879-1890, I cannot yet directly connect a single one to making bicycles in Coventry.

I’m not one to give up easily though, and should I ever discover who this man was, I’ll be sure to let you know. 

Damien often tweets updates about his latest discoveries - follow him on Twitter @DamienK73.

Daimler Double-Decker 366 restoration update 1

In February 2013, we handed over a 1940s Coventry Transport Daimler double-decker to local bus enthusiast Roger Burdett, on a restoration loan.

This vehicle, original fleet number 366, was built to wartime austerity regulations, and as with many such buses, required extensive renovation after the war.  As such, it was re-bodied by Roe Bodies in 1951 and continued to be used by Coventry Corporation Transport for a number of years, before being donated to Coventry Transport Museum in 1971.

Inevitably for a vehicle that is over 70 years old, and has had this kind of life, the bus is now in need of major restoration – work that we as a museum do not currently have the resources to undertake.  So when we were approached by well-known bus enthusiast and collector Roger Burdett, with the offer of completely restoring ‘366’, we jumped at the proposition. 

At the time of the loan, our Curator of Vehicles Christiaan van Schaardenburgh said:

“We are a very small team looking after a collection of well over 200 vehicles, not to mention hundreds of cycles and motorcycles, and we would never have had the resources to give 366 the attention it needs.   We are therefore really thrilled that Roger is taking this project on, with a view to getting this delightful and popular vehicle back on the road.  We have known Roger for some time now, and as well as being a great friend of the Museum, we have seen his work on similar projects and we know that he’s going to do a great job on 366.”

And Roger said:

“I’m really looking forward to getting stuck into work on this fantastic bus – next year will mark 100 years since Coventry Transport first put motorised buses on the roads of Coventry, and my aim is to have 366 ready to take part in the centenary events for that anniversary.”

Roger has now had the bus for a few weeks, so we asked him to give us a rundown of how the work is going:
“Unfortunately the cold weather delayed work on the previous vehicle in the restoration pipeline, meaning that we were not able to start on 366 as soon as we would have liked, however I am pleased to say that we are now full steam ahead, spending around 50 hours per week on the vehicle.

The engine appears to be very sound, other than a cracked engine block.  To avoid a total engine strip down, we are going to remove the engine in June and then trial weld the crack at my premises, using skilled welders who currently work on the vehicles.  If this is not successful, the engine will need to go away to a specialist.

We have taken the panels off the rear end, revealing the modifications carried out when turning the vehicles back to a bus from a mobile workshop.  I am still looking for an ‘in service’ picture of the rear end of the vehicle before work can commence.

Rear end minus panels, clearly showing original window shape

The side panels below the downstairs windows will be off by the end of April and then we will see how the ‘wrong’ downstairs windows are fitted.  The frames that are currently on the vehicle are actually from a later bus, so we will have to make a major decision about whether to retain them or fabricate replica originals.

Offside minus some panels, showing wood frame in remarkable condition for 60 years old.

As regards the interior, we have examined the floors, which show some wear and cracking of the lino, but I feel that we can repair-paint and polish.  The seat frames are incorrect for the body (we can tell because the seat legs have been put on supports upstairs, rather than being bolted to the floor) - but we will not be replacing them.  The seat trip moquette is as used/very similar to London Transport (LT) RF and RT models.  I have clubbed together with a number of LT vehicle owners to have a new run of moquette made, and this is due for delivery in mid-May.  This will enable to seats to be re-trimmed, but with vynide borders, rather than the original unobtainable leather.

We are transferring destination blind mechanisms and blinds from Coventry 94.”

Downstairs saloon with seats removed.

Well done to Roger and his team for making a great start on this massive project – we will bring you further news of the restoration as the project develops.

1960 Hillman Minx has a makeover

Many of you will remember the 1960 Hillman Minx, which was recovered from a garage in Coventry in February last year.  This lovely car was displayed in the Museum’s reception area for several months, exactly as we found it - ie very dirty and dusty, having been stood in the owner’s garage for around 18 years before coming to the Museum.

Since the vehicle came off display towards the end of 2012, it has been given a huge amount of attention over a number of weeks by Andrew Thomas, one of the Museum’s Historic Vehicle Technicians, and is now positively gleaming on the outside, as well as being in much better shape mechanically.

Having initially cleaned the Minx, Andrew found that the vehicle’s bodywork was, for the most part, very sound for a car of its age – but that it was affected by a large amount of surface rust on certain areas, particularly underneath.   Dirt and corrosion was also present throughout its systems – typical of a vehicle that has been standing for many years in a damp environment.

The detailed work that Andrew therefore undertook was to strip the rust from all affected areas, using a mixture of wire brushing and chemical rust removal, followed by treating the underside of the car with a mixture of WaxOyl and Dinitrol, to help to protect this area from further rusting.    He then drained the fluids from all of the vehicle’s systems, and repaired or replaced a number of badly corroded parts – such as those shown in the cooling system below. 

Having made all the necessary repairs and ensured the integrity of all of the vehicle’s systems, Andrew then started a process known as ‘inhibiting’ the vehicle, to protect it from any further corrosion occurring whilst it is standing within the Museum and not being driven.  ‘Inhibiting’ involves fogging each of the car’s systems with an appropriate vapour phase inhibitor.  This can be either water-based or oil-based, depending on which system is being worked upon.  The chosen inhibitor is introduced to the system in liquid form, which then turns to vapour over time.  This vapour sticks to the inside of each component and travels around within each system, coating every part with an anti-corrosion substance as it goes.  

Black brake fluid being drained before inhibiting.

This process is a very new one in the world of classic cars, having previously being mainly used on aircraft and military vehicles, to provide long-term preservation whilst they are in store.  We at Coventry Transport Museum have trialled inhibiting a number of parts on other vehicles, but this is the first time that a full vehicle has been treated in this way.   We are extremely pleased with how well this has worked so far, but of course the proof will be in the pudding when the vehicle is regularly inspected over the coming years.  One thing we do know - the vapour technique ‘reaches the parts that other processes can’t’! 

We have been working with other transport museums around the world, to share ideas on how best to inhibit different types of museum-based vehicles, and we know that they will be pleased to see the results of this work on such an interesting vehicle.    We also hope to begin using this technique to protect systems on many other Museum vehicles over the coming years.

One part of the vehicle which we sadly have not yet been able to make-over is the front grill – as you can see from the photograph below this grill is very badly corroded, and would be almost impossible to repair to a good standard.  Instead we are hoping to find a replacement, rather than spending many hours on something that may not do justice to the rest of the vehicle.

---------------
See the difference for yourself, as the Minx will be back on display in the Museum’s reception from Monday 18th March onwards.  We’re sure you will agree, Andrew has done a fantastic job.