Reference
AQ
Title
Company records of W H Allen, Queen's Park, Bedford it's predecessors, successors and related companies
Date free text
1860-2000
Production date
From: 1860 To: 2000
Creator
Admin/biog history
The early history of the company has been well documented in Michael Lane's The Story of Queen's Engineering Works Bedford: A History of W H Allen Sons & Co. Ltd, Unicorn Press, 1995, therefore only a brief outline will be given here. The history of the company after 1968 will also be outlined.
The Pre-Bedford Years (1844-1893)
William Henry Allen (WH) was born in Cardiff in 1844. Having shown an interest in mathematics and mechanical drawing he was apprenticed, at the age of 15, to Richard Neville & Company's Wern Foundry. In 1865 he married Anne Mary Pemberton Howell, with whom he would have twelve children. Following a brief partnership (1866-1869), with his brother-in-law Nelson Fedden, WH left for London where he joined Gwynne & Company, centrifugal pump manufacturers.
In October 1880 WH left Gwynne & Co to set up his own company, W H Allen & Co, York Street, Lambeth, in partnership with Richard Wright. The company designed and manufactured pumps, engines, fans and D.C. generators. By 1885 they were supplying dynamos for electric lighting to both Royal Navy and mercantile ships. By 1890 450 men were employed and several enlargements had been made to the York Street Works. In 1893 Richard Wright retired. WH's eldest son, Richard had become a partner in 1890. Richard had received his engineering training with large shipping companies in Barrow-in-Furness and Clydeside before joining his father's business in 1888. In 1900 the company became W H Allen & Son and in 1920 W H Allen, Sons & Co. Ltd. The company was to remain a family business until the 1960s.
Bedford (1894-2004)
The Works
Queen's Engineering Works, Bedford
Pressure on the York Street Works from the neighbouring London and South Western Railway caused WH to look for a site for a new works. Eventually, at the suggestion of an employee, he looked at Bedford, which had an established engineering tradition and an adequate pool of skilled labour. WH found a site adjacent to the Midland Railway on the Queen's Park Estate and agreed a purchase price with the owners, the Whitbread family. Work began on the new works on the 20th January 1894 (See AQ7/2/1); the first machine tools were transferred from York Street in September. It is thought that about one hundred workers from Lambeth also transferred to Bedford.
Roughly twice the size of the York Street Works, the new Bedford factory, known as the Queen's Engineering Works, continued to expand and by the end of 1900 had doubled in size. The premises continued to change as business fortunes dictated (See AQ7/2 and AQ7/3A). The Queen's Works closed in 2000 and the land was sold for housing development in February 2004.
Biddenham Works, Bedford
In 1915 a second works was established. Called the Biddenham Works this allowed for the relocation of some departments, notably the foundry, from the Queen's works to make way for the manufacture of aero engines for the War Office. The Biddenham Works was a fully self-contained site by the end of 1916. After the end of the First World War there was a downturn in trade. In 1933 the decision was taken to close the Biddenham Works. The land and buildings were put up for sale in 1934 (See AQ7/1/1). The buildings were sold or bought in but the land was not sold. In 1937 part of the site was sold as building land. The remaining land was then used to build a new Biddenham Works as the company prepared for another war. Following the acquisition of William Foster of Lincoln, parent company of Gwynne Pumps Ltd, in 1960, a new research lab and Pump Test House were built at the Biddenham Works.
Pyghtle Works, Bedford
WH Allen had originally sold the 3.5 acre site at the northern end of the Queen's Works to J P White & Co. In 1961, when White merged with a company in Reading, Allen reacquired the site. It was later sold for housing development.
Manufacture and Sales
Between 1894 and 1900 centrifugal pumps accounted for a major share of the company's turnover and Egypt was an important export market, however during this period Allen also made great advances in the development of reciprocating steam engines as well as continuing to supply forced draught fans and surface condensers. The main stays of the company's business until the 1940s were steam and diesel engines, steam turbines, condensing plant, pumping plant, fans for supplying air to boiler rooms, and electrical equipment. Marine applications were the greater part of the company's business until the 1950s. This included supplying generating sets and dynamos for the new White Star liners Olympic and Titanic in 1910. During the Second World War admiralty contracts were important. After 1945 gas turbines and gearing were added to the products manufactured. Industrial applications included power stations, gas, water and sewage works, paper mills, laundries, sugar factories, oil refineries and pipelines. In 1960 the company supplied 51 diesel engines for Oil India (Private) Ltd's 720 mile long crude oil pipeline.
Up to 1914 home sales made up about 60 per cent of turnover. Of the 40 per cent that made up export sales Japan was the most valuable market followed by Australia and Egypt. After the financial crash of 1929 the Japanese market subsided and was superseded by India and South Africa. Africa, India and the Middle East were important export markets in the second half of the 20th century.
During the 1950s an average of 2,500 people were employed at the Queen's Engineering Works. After surviving fluctuations in fortune, the downturn in heavy industry, ship building and manufacturing in Britain caused another period of change: the foundry closed in 1957; the Biddenham Pump Test house opened in 1962 and the electrical department closed in 1967. Rationalisation and reorganisation continued with mergers and takeovers. Consolidation throughout industry finally saw the end of manufacturing at the Queen's Engineering Works after just over one hundred years.
Management and Company Organisation
For over ninety years the company was a family concern.
In 1900 the company was incorporated as a Limited Liability Company under the terms of the Companies Act under the name W H Allen & Son incorporated. In 1920 the name was changed to W H Allen, Sons & Co Ltd. Four of WH Allen's sons are associated with the company. Richard, later Sir Richard, became a partner in 1890 and took over from his father as chairman. WH's second son George Pemberton Allen was an architect who, while not being directly employed by the company, was frequently commissioned by it. As well as factory buildings he was responsible for the Allen Institute in 1907 and for All Saints church, the later, built for the growing community of Queen's Park, was closely associated with the works. George was given shares in W H Allen, Sons and Co by his father in recognition of his work for the company. WH's third son, Harold Gwynne Allen and fifth son, Rupert Stanley Allen, both joined the company becoming managing directors in 1920.
A simplified Allen pedigree (showing those involved with the company in bold).
At his father's death in 1926, Richard Allen became chairman. With his two brothers and later his nephews, Richard saw the company through the next twenty-nine years. In 1952 the company went public and obtained a Stock Exchange quotation. On Richard's death in 1955 his nephew Kenneth took over, Harold and Rupert began to take a back seat and the first non-family appointments were made to the board of directors.
The early 1960s saw the company acquire a number of others – William Foster, Lincoln and Gwynnes Pumps in 1960, Nelson Engineering Ltd and J P Hall & Sons Ltd in 1962. Following these acquisitions the company arranged itself into four divisions – Bedford, Lincoln, Pershore and Peterborough. The Marketing and Selling, Technical Services, Secretarial, Financial, Personnel and Training and Education departments of W H Allen Sons & Co Ltd became group services to serve and advise all divisions.
By 1964 the divisions had been reduced to three – the Power Plant Division (Bedford), the Hydraulic Division (Lincoln) and the Gearing Division (Pershore).
In 1968, after abortive merger talks with Mather & Platt and G & J Weir Holdings, W H Allen, Bedford and Allen Gears of Pershore merged with Belliss & Morcom of Birmingham, owners of Crossley Premier Engines of Manchester. This group of companies then became known as Amalgamated Power Engineering Ltd (APE) with Sir Kenneth Allen as the chair.
In 1977 the ownership of APE passed to Northern Engineering Industries plc (NEI), a merger of many companies. Lee Howl & Co Ltd of Tipton and Valteck Engineering were added to the APE group in 1979. Rolls Royce acquired W H Allen, Bedford in 1989, the company trading as Allen Power Engineering. Following the closure of the Queen's Engineering Works in 2000 Rolls Royce continued to maintain a presence in Bedford mainly dealing with maintenance and spare parts.
Accession number 3964
Scope and Content
The collection is incomplete. The company does not appear to have employed anyone in the role of records management and there does not seem to have been a consistent company wide approach to records. In general, records were deposited, with the permission of Rolls-Royce, due to individual staff interested in the company's history who felt that the records should be preserved. It is understood that some material has been retained by Rolls-Royce for business purposes.
The date range for material is 1860 – 2000. The period up to1968 has the best coverage. After 1977 and the formation of NEI it is presumed that many records would have been created and held by the group head offices. While the first order, prime cost book and draft catalogue still exist it is apparent from notes written in 1946 that many of the early records had been lost prior to 1939.
Deposits of records from particular departments were sometimes caused by departmental changes or office moves. This means that some departments, notably the electrical and publicity departments, and some periods of time are better represented than others. However, most of the company's long history is represented in some form. Apart from registers of pupils, students, apprentices from the 1890s to the 1930s there are extremely few personnel records.
A large proportion of the deposited material originated in the publicity and marketing department therefore the collection contains large quantities of publications and photographs. Promotional films have been transferred to East Anglian Film Archive as Bedfordshire and Luton Archives is not equipped for this type of material.
Approximately 200 architectural and technical drawings document the development of the works.
In spite of the sporadic and incomplete nature of the collection it has been felt worthy of retention as the only means available of documenting this important local company.
Archival history
Records deposited between 1986 and 2004 by arrangement with the company.
The collection has mainly come direct from the Queen's Engineering Works offices having always been in company hands, however some material had passed into private hands when employees left the company and took their own files with them. In the 1980s a small group of ex-employees got together and deposited material they had acquired on the understanding that this material would be amalgamated with the material deposited by the company. The notes made by these employees have been useful in helping to catalogue not only their items but also others within the collection. The collection remains the property of Rolls-Royce.
System of arrangement
Records have been arranged in a classification scheme adapted from that shown in Managing Business Archives edited by Alison Turton, Butterworth, 1991, and follow a pattern used in other business archives held by Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service. Where appropriate the Allen classification scheme for company products adopted c1932 has been used to ensure a consistent approach to the order in which things are catalogued i.e. the order general, diesel engines, steam engines, turbines, compressors, pumps, electrical and gearing is followed throughout. Within series a chronological order is the norm, exceptions are noted in the series title.
Duplicate material, material of little or no informational value and badly decayed negatives have been weeded from the collection.
Reference
Level of description
fonds