Philip Hamlyn Williams

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World – by chapter

July 5, 2022 — 0 Comments

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World – the Great Exhibition

July 5, 2022 — 0 Comments

The Macclesfield canal was the last and most technically advanced of the British canals. It was completed in 1831. Just two years later, work began on two equally modern mule mills for the production of cotton The Swindells family of Bollington built the Clarence and Adelphi cotton mills both powered by steam. Over the next […]

Great audience for my talk for the City of Lincoln branch of the Historical Association

I really enjoyed my evening back at the University of Lincoln which offered an excellent lecture theatre for my talk on How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. You can listen to the recording by following the link. It is always very rewarding to have interesting questions and real engagement with the subject. I have chosen […]

Lucas – King of the Road (and air)

Lucas were the backbone of the British motor industry right from the start. The three generations of the Lucas family strongly supported by non-family chairmen including Peter Bennett and Bernard Scott led the way in technical innovation, manufacturing efficiency and marketing. It was not by accident that they supplied nearly three quarters of the British […]

The British Motor Industry and Semiconductors

Exploring the story of the motor industry since WW2, its forthcoming demise was never far from the conversation. Equally, digging into the history of semiconductor manufacturers, the possibility of the UK not being relatively self sufficient is an ever present agony. In the sixties, the Ryder report had this to say: ‘‘vehicle production is the […]

Addressing obstacles to progress

Manchester mills were transporting tons of cotton goods to the port of Liverpool by canal, built by the Duke of Bridgewater, but which took some thirty-six hours and which was expensive. What was needed was a steam railway. George Stephenson planned the rail route to Liverpool, which included sixty-four bridges and viaducts along thirty-five miles […]

The unexpected joys of research

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 […]