Philip Hamlyn Williams

News

A review from Lincoln, the city that played such a big part in manufacturing

November 9, 2022 — 0 Comments

Book

A review in the PwC former partners magazine

October 20, 2022 — 0 Comments

News

Podcast extract from chapter 1

July 20, 2022 — 0 Comments

News

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World – blurb

July 5, 2022 — 0 Comments

Book

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World – by chapter

July 5, 2022 — 0 Comments

Book

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World – the Great Exhibition

July 5, 2022 — 0 Comments

Book

One of the joys of researching in a conventional library is the unexpected. Today in Leicester University Library I came across A History of North Thames Gas – Mr Therm for those of us of a certain age. The book, and company, go back to its formation in 1810, through the massive switch over from […]

The inventiveness of the British

David Egerton’s article, The battery factory that exposed the great Brexit lie, like his book The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: a Twentieth Century History, focuses on the performance of the British economy as a whole missing the detail of today’s manufacturing sector. I have spent the last seven years, so much less […]

Fossil fuels powered the industrial revolution, but that is not the whole story.

At the start, power came from water, wood and charcoal and animals. Early experiments with coal were not entirely successful. Impurities made it unsuitable for smelting, it was also polluting such that the burning of coal was banned in the city of London. Yet coal was freely available, often on the surface by the coast […]

Whatever Happened to British Electronics Manufacturing

My work in progress is exploring the years since the Festival of Britain closed its doors to see how the hopes inherent in the festival were played out. The more I read, the more I reflect on the essence of British manufacturing. We were, we are, very clever. Talking to a member of the team […]

BBC 100 – How it Happened

If you were one of the many radio hams who had taken advantage of the supply of surplus radio parts following the ending the war, you would have enjoyed the broadcasts by the Marconi Company from Chelmsford. In1922, you would have received the first broadcasts from the British Broadcasting Company. This had been formed by […]

Morris enters the motor race

In 1893, William Morris set out on his career, first repairing bicycles. I know rather more about him than the other motor manufacturers, probably because of his later fame as Lord Nuffield. One by-product of this is an engaging biography of him written in 1955 by P.W.S. Andrews and Elizabeth Brunner which I think my […]

Manufacturing and the Home

The seventy years between the Great Exhibition and the start of the Great War had seen great changes in the way many people worked and travelled. Yet, the way food and homewares were produced hadn’t changed a great deal. The local butcher, baker, grocer and green grocer supplied daily needs. A carpenter might make furniture, […]

HM Queen Elizabeth II and Manufacturing

The Queen’s Award for Industry is perhaps the most visible evidence of Her Majesty’s interest in manufacturing. Somewhat earlier and a good while before her accession she showed a deep interest in the Festival of Britain. This is some of what Princess Elizabeth said to the organising committee: “I would therefore suggest to you, as […]

The British Motor Industry

The British motor industry is one of my earliest memories; my father was a director of the Rootes Group and he was one who definitely brought his work home. To a small boy it was the delight of the brochures for new models but also exotic characters from export markets who would come down to […]

Soldiers and Industrialists

It is chilling to think that many of those men born in the 1890s would serve through two world wars (if they survived) and could also be part of the step change in British manufacturing witnessed in the twentieth century. Ronald Weeks was one such man. He was the first Director-General of Army Equipment in […]