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Description: | The typed caption on a companion photograph to this one explains the details of the event shown here - "Mr Neil W. Gardiner explaining H and P.'s oil spray ignition system to Mr Robens, Parliamentary Secretary to Ministry of Fuel and Power (October 1948)". Labour politician Alfred Robens' career began with the Union of Distributive and Allied Workers' between 1935-1945. He was Labour M.P. for Wansbeck from 1945-50 and for Blyth from 1950-60. He was Chairman of the National Coal Board from 1961-1971. He was later ennobled as Lord Robens of Woldingham. Neil Gardiner, the son of Alfred Palmer's daughter Phyllis, had joined the firm in 1928 and he was responsible for many technological improvements to the factory. As Technical Development Director it was he who persuaded the Executive Committee to approve a new building on the South factory site in the mid 1930s. After the war his ingenuity kept the firm going during the difficult post-war years. In February 1947 coal was in short supply and there was a major fuel cut. Gardiner substituted coke breeze sprayed with mineral oil - a device which over the next few years save the company about 20,000 pounds a year in fuel bills. He even revived the sixty-five year old steam generator known as 'Alice', which had been switched off with the electrification of the factory in 1927. The old machine was in perfect working order and soon the factory was up to 80% of its former capacity. His efforts were rewarded by an invitation to serve on the National Fuel and Power Committee. It is presumably because of this background that Minister Robens was invited to the factory to see for himself Neil Gardiner's efforts to sustain production during this dark and chilly period in British economic history. | Format: | image/jpeg | License: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.exe?a=query&p=gateway&f=generic_sitetext%2ehtm&_IXFIRST_=1&_IXMAXHITS_=1&cms_con_core_subtype%3acms_con_text_what=copyright&%3acms_sys_group=%22sopse%22 | Publisher: | Huntley & Palmers | Rights holder: | Reading Borough Council (Reading Museum Service) | Subjects: | Mr Alfred Robens interior technology social history trade oil spray ignition system people | Temporal: | start=1948-10-01; end=1948-10-31; | Source: | Sense of place SE | Identifier: | http://www.sopse.org.uk/ixbin/hixclient.... | Language: | en-GB | Format: | image/jpeg | Go to resource |
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