NEWSLETTER NO. 72 EARLY SPRING 2008 EDITORIAL A belated happy New Year to you all and welcome to another Newsletter and another year. I hope you all had a good Christmas break and are looking forward to the remainder of the Lecture Programme. You will have seen from the programme that we are planning a local walk in the afternoon of the AGM on 12 April. Robert Vickers and I are working on this and will have the details soon, but I can say that it will be another walk looking at remains of industry in Leeds south of the River Aire. We will meet at 2pm in City Square by the Black Prince statue. We are also planning an industrial history walk around Bradford on Sunday 4 May. The exact route is to be finalised but we will meet outside St George’s Hall (corner of Bridge Street/Hall Ings, not far from Bradford Interchange station) at 11am, finishing around 4pm, with a lunch stop to be taken at a city centre pub/cafe. The next Newsletter may be too late to include the details so we will be giving information at the lectures and if you are interested please contact Robert nearer the time. Janet Senior in the YAHS Library has also organised two events this year which will be of interest to members and details of these are given below – so some events to look forward to after the lecture programme finishes in March. A reminder: at the AGM on 12 April we will be electing the officers for 2008- 2009 and nominations for the positions of Chair, Vice Chair, and Lecture Secretary. Membership Secretary and Newsletter Editor are welcome. Also it is some years since we had anyone occupying the position of Excursions Secretary but if any member is willing to organise a visit or walk with an industrial theme, please let me know. Also a reminder has been included in the Newsletter for section only members that their 2008 subscription is now due. It remains at £11 a year, which I hope you think still offers good value and you can continue to support the Section. Many thanks to those members who have already paid – if so then your 2008 membership cards will be included with this newsletter unless you have already received them personally from me. The good news is that our lecture Secretary Jane Ellis has booked the lecture dates for 2008/9 and the first lecture on 11 October 2008 is already booked, when Section member Professor David Perrett, President of the Newcomen Society, will be speaking on “Days at the Factory” a title taken from George Dodd’s book published in 1843. His theme will be why are we interested in studying people at work and what do we learn from that study. I suggest you put the date in your new 2008 diaries now! Those of you who attended the November lecture will be aware that Claremont’s ageing slide projector finally gave up the ghost, fortunately our Lecture Secretary was able to rush home and bring her own projector so the lecture was able to proceed, albeit somewhat delayed. Also fortunately, the speaker in December brought along his own digital projection equipment, the January speaker used the overhead projector which still works and we have an offer from a member for a loan of a projector until the situation can be satisfactorily resolved. (See News from Claremont for the latest information). Did you receive any interesting industrial history books for Christmas? If so, a reminder that book reviews are always welcome; even older published books are worth including because it is surprising what you can find available via on-line book suppliers. Welcome to new members who have joined since the last Newsletter: Mr & Mrs J Luxton, Miss C Farmer, Mr A Robinson, Mr M Roe and Miss A Davies. I hope you will be able to make some of the Section’s events during 2008. I shall be producing the next Newsletter after the AGM in April so please send me any items of news, short articles, book reviews, details of your research interests etc by mid April. Adrian Bailey has sent me some thoughts on the demise of British manufacturing which I have included so perhaps your thoughts on this would also be welcome. Margaret Tylee NEWS FROM CLAREMONT The saga of the projection facilities at Claremont continues. The Section made a request after the 2007 AGM to the YAHS Management Board for the purchase of new and up to date projection facilities and had offered to part fund via Section funds. Having heard nothing a response was chased in early December 2007 and the following was received from the YAHS General Secretary: “ At the moment we are in the process of applying for grant funding to purchase a data projector and a computer which can be used to run it and to replace our slide projector and overhead projectors as well, both of which are rather ancient (as you know). If we did purchase this equipment prior to a response from the grant giving body, I’m not sure whether they would give us a grant… This is something that has been of concern for some time and unfortunately the YAHS finances have not permitted us to make these purchases without at least the guarantee of the finances being in place to pay for them. Hopefully we shall have some good news in the New Year, although that does not help your Section and those others that have meetings in the meantime. Thanks again for your kind offer and we do hope that the situation will be improved in the near future.” So we must wait a bit longer. There are several precedents of organisations successfully receiving grants from bodies such as “Awards for All” for projection equipment. Let’s hope we shall be another. A reminder to main YAHS members that nominations for the Management Board and Council are invited to be received no later than Monday 31 March 2008. All nominees must be members of the YAHS and nomination forms are available from the Hon General Secretary, Jo Heron from 1 March onwards. Elections will be held at the YAHS AGM due to be held on Saturday 21 June 2008 at 2pm. Assistant YAHS Librarian Janet Senior has organised two forthcoming events which are likely to be of interest to members. Main YAHS members will receive details and booking forms direct but as a reminder I include information here. On Sunday 20th April, Erik Matthews will be leading a walking tour of Saltaire. The proposed programme is to meet at Shipley at 10am, walk along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal to Saltaire, visit Salt’s Mill where lunch will be provided and then take a conducted tour of the buildings that make up the village. Cost, including lunch, will be £12.50 for members, £15 for non members. Bookings to Janet at Claremont by 28th March. Please note that numbers will be restricted to 20. Then on 17/18 May, Alan Petford will be leading a study weekend looking at the Historic Landscapes of Saddleworth. This will follow the successful format of last year’s study weekend of the Upper Luddenden Valley. There will be a day of lectures at Claremont on Saturday 17th May followed by a field trip to the Saddleworth area on Sunday 18th May. Cost will be £20 for members for the whole weekend (including a buffet lunch and refreshments on Saturday), £15 for the Saturday only and £5 for the Sunday only. Bookings to Janet at Claremont by 25th April. MEMBERS INTERESTS Following the introduction of this section in the last Newsletter, I have received information about another member’s interest. Section member Robert Vickers writes that he is researching the manufacture and history of Rolls Royce armoured cars. Around 135 were built from 1914- 1917 for use in various campaigns in World War One and another 179 were built from 1920-1927 for British peace-keeping duties in Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, Sudan, India etc. So far he has consulted the Rolls-Royce records at the Sir Henry Royce Foundation, which give much information about the chassis, and military records in the India Office Records at the British Library. He would like to know more about the cars, where they served, the construction of the armoured bodies for the cars and would welcome any contributions from members. He can be contacted [email protected] Although not a member, I received an enquiry from Richard Witt, a member of Subterranea Britannica, a society devoted to the study of man made and man used underground structures. He has been researching the provision of public air raid shelters in Leeds during World War 2 and is aiming to photograph and provide a plan of each shelter. I have given him details of Roger Thomas who spoke to the section about the Defence of Britain project which included information about air raid shelters, but if any members have information about the location of shelters or would be interested in exploring and recording them, please contact Mr Witt at 17 Moorland Road, Leeds, LS8 1AL or email [email protected] I am happy to hear from other members with details of their research interests, my contact details can be found at the end of the Newsletter. NEWS ITEMS The Annual Report 2006-2007 of the PRISM Fund includes details of grants awarded to a number of societies and organisations in our region. The PRISM fund is managed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) and its aim is to support organisations entrusted with the care of our industrial and scientific heritage by supporting the acquisitions and conservation of heritage objects in all fields of the history of science, technology, industry and medicine.