Vehicles to Vaccines published 4 December 2023

Date: December 4, 2023Author: Philip Hamlyn Williams 0 Comments

I am delighted to announce that Vehicles to Vaccines has been published by APS Books.

British Manufacturing was the envy of the world; it led the way. In time other nations caught up and indeed overtook the British in value of output. In 1951, manufacturing employed one third of the workforce; in the twenty-first century this has fallen to just ten percent. Britain now ranks eighth in the world league table of manufacturing nations. What had happened?

I explored the years up to 1951 in my book How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World (HBSTMW) which looked at the story of British manufacturing through the prism of the Great Exhibition of 1851. In this volume I seek to explore what happened since.

The Festival of Britain of 1951 gave a message of hope to a country worn down by war and yet more rationing. The future was to be as bright as the colours of new materials for the promised homes, hospitals and schools. Power was to be nuclear and hydroelectric. The world’s vehicles were British, be they ships, aircraft or wheeled. The world though was also picking itself up from the devastation of war with new factories and shipyards competing in export markets. What might be called the gluttony of hydrocarbons began with massive oil tankers taking to the seas and plastics finding their way into every part of life.

In this world of change, British manufacturing didn’t stand still. In this book I delve into manufacturing, sector by sector drilling down into some key companies.

You can buy Vehicles to Vaccines from Amazon

Buy Vehicles to Vaccines

Leave a comment Cancel reply

The Great Exhibition opened on 1 May 1851

A Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace, celebrating industrial advances, had been promoted from July 1949 by Prince Albert and Sir Henry Cole, the same man who had encouraged William Smith Williams in his paper on lithography. William Smith Williams was my great great uncle It went through many and long arguments. Some people, such […]

Who else shaped the manufacturing world – American and European electricity.

Jill Jonnes in her book, Empires of Light, tells the story of the birth of the American giants of electricity. Electricity was ‘discovered’ by a number of scientists in a number of countries. Its existence had been there for all mankind to witness in electrical storms; but what was it? How could it be used? […]

Who else shaped the manufacturing world – American steel

The story of American steel making begins in the wake of the Civil War. A number of academics take a start date of 1867 which coincides with the dramatic increase in US territory with the purchase of Alaska from Russia. Steel making though was to focus on the Commonwealth of Philadelphia where there were plentiful […]

Steel today

I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines about the passage of the steel industry since 1951 and how successive governments had attempted to make it more competitive. With the announcement of the closure of two blast furnaces at Port Talbot, I wanted to look again at this historically vital industry.I looked up some numbers. UK steel […]

Who else shaped the Manufacturing World – German steel

In Britain, the relatively large scale production of steel probably began in the mid eighteenth century with the discovery by Huntsman of a process for making crucible steel. This was some seventy years head of Germany and thrived on high quality Swedish ore. German steel making would become synonymous with the name Krupp and in […]

Who else shaped the Manufacturing World – The American System of Manufacturing

Continuing my quest to discover who else shaped the manufacturing world, not unreasonably, I turn to America. The image is of my mother and father together with the president of Chrysler at their WW2 tank factory which surely epitomised the American System of Manufacturing. You can read more of this by following this link. An […]

Manchester and the Museum of Science and Industry

In many ways Manchester and the northwest was the home of the Industrial Revolution. The mass production of cotton fabrics began there and its was this that drove the British economy. I tell much more on my book How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. The Museum of Science and Industry tells much of Manchester’s story. […]

Derby and the Museum of Making

The city of Derby is a home of British engineering and of probably the first textile factory at the Silk Mill. This has been repurposed to tell Derby’s story. The image is of the mill with thanks to the museum. The Museum of Making takes the visitor through the astonishing array of manufacturing activity carried […]

Sales of British manufacturers to foreign purchasers.

In Vehicles to Vaccines I tell the story of how Britain went from exporting more vehicles than any other country in 1951 to having now a pharmaceutical industry that is up there with other world leaders. Between all this there are the tales of who came and who went. Who was bought and who withered […]

Overseas exhibitors at the Great Exhibition

Continuing my attempt to address the question of who else shaped the manufacturing world, I draw on a series of papers given to the Society of Arts in 1852 reflecting upon the Great Exhibition. One such had as its focus machines for working in metal and wood. The author looks first at what I suspect […]