Henry Brown, Son and Pickles. Engineers - Part 11

There was one unforeseen consequence of the big job at Whitemoor on the deep well pump and Newton's narrow escape.  That winter he was very ill with a bad chest and had pneumonia a couple of times.  He was to be troubled by chest complaints for the rest of his life.  30 years later he had a new doctor who had read all his medical notes and he told Newton that he was almost certain that it was Legionnaire's Disease that had laid him low in the winter of 1939 but of course the disease was unknown then.

1939 brought further troubles, in September war was declared with Germany.  This had an immediate effect on Henry Brown Sons and Pickles (HBSP), many mills closed down or were requisitioned for war production and so normal maintenance, even of the engines that were still running, stopped.  Wellhouse works went over almost entirely to war production.  Strangely enough this led to some new machinery being brought in for shell production.  

The shop had never been busier.  The machines ran virtually day and night.  One big job they got was boring the large castings needed for the buffer recoil system on 5.5 anti-aircraft guns.  The big break lathe came in handy again for machining large castings for gun bases and turntables for tank turrets.  There was no question of the key men being called up, they were far to valuable where they were and so the work force was preserved almost intact.

When the war finished in 1945 there was plenty of work, not only catching up on essential maintenance on engines which had been neglected during the hostilities but, in the case of Wellhouse, getting the engine running again after it had stood for six years.  The mill had been used as a bonded warehouse for tobacco during the war years and it fell to Newton to re-start it.  He said that it was an interesting experience and the worst thing about it was the smell from the air pumps as they unloaded six years worth of stagnant water and urine, the workers had been using them for purposes they were never intended for.

Strangely enough, Newton repeated this experience forty years later with me when I started Ellenroad engine after a ten year shut down.  Nobody had been using the air pumps as a urinal but the smell was still terrible.

Nobody at HBSP knew it but the circumstance that produced some of the biggest and most interesting jobs couldn't have been foreseen.  During the 1920s, in the boom after the First World War many mills installed extra looms and loaded their engines beyond what they were designed for.  When Calf Hall hit this problem all they did was install a new boiler and raise the steam pressure.  Some owners fitted new cylinders as well as raising pressures.  At the time this seemed like an economical way of solving the problem.  However, over the years the extra stresses took their toll and invisible stress cracks started deep in the forgings of the engines and grew slowly.  After WW2 when 'Britain's Bread hung on Lancashire's thread.' the engines were once more overloaded and for some of them this was the last straw.

Now isn't the time to give a list of jobs, I'll just pick two which the older end might remember.  

The first one will please the Earbiers!   Let's have a look at the beam engine at Victoria Mill.  This is actually a very good example of what Newton was saying about taking more power out of the engines.  The engine was installed in 1856 by Yates of Blackburn and was a very big engine for those days.  It was a double beam engine and ran like this with very little trouble.  In 1896 more power was needed and the engine was compounded to increase power by about 50%.  When Johnny Pickles was working as an apprentice for Browns he was called on regularly at weekends to help with re-staking the trunnions in the beams.  He asked Willy Brown one week why they bothered.  Willy looked at him and said "What do you mean?  We've got to do it to keep the mill going."  Johnny said "Well, we're wasting our time, it's cracked through the boss!"  He was right, nobody had noticed and Saxons were called in to replace the original cast iron beams with two new steel ones in 1905.  At the same time they renewed all the gearing.

50 years later Newton found himself in the same position, his dad was sending him down every weekend to check on the gear segments on the flywheel which kept coming loose.  In the end Newton fell out with his dad and one Monday morning, after a weekend at Victoria tightening cotters he told his dad he wasn't going any more.  When Johnny asked why Newton told him the flywheel shaft was breaking.  Johnny told him he was daft and they left it at that.  

On Tuesday morning a taxi pulled up outside Newton's house in Vicarage Road and Tommy Almond's son got out, Tommy was the engineer at Victoria, he told Newton his dad wanted him down at Earby immediately as there was something wrong with the engine.  When they got down there Newton saw two things, the flywheel was vibrating as it turned and the outside bearing nearest the shed was smoking hot.  Newton told Tommy to stop it straight away but he said he'd have to tell the tenants first.  Newton said alreight, you go, but as soon as he was out of the house he knocked the peg out of the governor and stopped the engine.  Newton sent up to Barlick for a gang of men, it was going to be a big job.  To be continued in our next as they say … .

The main picture this week is the broken shaft at Victoria.  Johnny Pickles is on the right and the man stood in front of him in the pin stripe suit is Teddy Woods from Procter and Procter at Burnley.  I think the man behind Johnny in the trilby is Tommy Almond.

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© Stanley Challenger Graham 2003

Page updated: 13 OCT 2003