Machine Tools

Machine tools are fundamental. Churchill called them the ganglion nerve centre of the whole of supply.

The companies which made up the British machine tool industry were devoted to their customers seeking to meet their every demand. This meant seeking from other manufacturers tools which they didn’t themselves make to the extent that this factoring business was viewed as important as own design and manufacturing.

An issue was said to be a lack of ambition in engineering companies. Government responded with a try before but scheme, something that was echoed in the computer industry.

The 1960’s Labour government with their White Heat of Technology took issue and demanded a focus on own production. Companies came together, engineers such as TI bought their way in. Electronics entered the field with NC and CNC.

The collapse of the largest British toolmaker, Alfred Herbert, sounded the death knoll for much of the industry.

Rising from the ashes came one of Britain’s most exciting engineering companies, David McMurtry’s Renishaw, and I describe their additive manufacturing (digital printing) and other measurement activities.

The image is of a Jones & Shipman machine being delivered to Hone-All Precision, where, following upgrades, it is still in use.

Return to Vehicles to Vaccines page

You can read more in Vehicles to Vaccines

From gypsum to granite

My journey began near to where Gypsum is mined in Leicestershire by British Gypsum now owned by the French St Gobain. My destination was Penmaenmawr overlooking Anglesey where some of the finest granite was quarried. En route I passed some icons of British Manufacturing. First came Rolls-Royce in Derby with the history of the WW2 […]

A sixteenth century mechanised mint in Segovia

Coins were traditionally minted by a stamp and hammer, and indeed had been in Segovia since Roman times. The invading Spanish discovered vast quantities of silver at Potosi in Peru in the late sixteenth century and mined it using first local slave labour and then, when mining killed them, slaves from Africa. The bullion was […]

Where has all the money gone?

Gaby Hinsliff writing in the Guardian observed with sadness that those little treats enjoyed by middle earners are becoming less affordable. I pondered why this might be. My mind turned to the larger stage of public expenditure and I see much the same picture as I have observed before. Schools are squeezed so PTAs have […]

The genius of Roman hydraulic engineering

In the First Century CE, the Romans brought fresh water to the city of Segovia over a distance of fifteen km from the Sierra de Guadarrama mountain range. The first thirteen km are underground in a stone and concrete duct, but then it enters the city in this channel in what is first a low […]

Levelling Up – a layperson’s guide

In order the understand the concept and process of levelling up, it may be helpful to look at the reasons behind the un-levelness. Prosperity came to this country through trade and manufacturing. In the past few years I have been exploring the story of manufacturing, most recently manufacturing places. And therein I believe lies the […]