Cammell Laird & Co Ltd, Sheffield : steel makers, shipbuilders & engineers : advert plates from Industrial Sheffield and Rotherham, official handbook, 1919
In 1919 a rather splendid guide to many trades and businesses of the Yorkshire industrial towns of Sheffield and Rotherham - the official handbook of the Sheffield and Rotherham Chambers of Commerce. The guide was printed for them by Bemrose & Sons Ltd, the noted colour printers, and has a supplement containing various colour advertisements.
The massive steel making, shipbuilding and engineering company of Cammell, Laird & Co Ltd is represented over four pages - a lavish spread for a company that in 1919 had needless to say been hugely busy over the previous five years. Cammell Laird were not just a Sheffield concern with London offices as seen here but also had their major shipbuilding yards at Birkenhead in Cheshire. The company was formed in 1903 when the Sheffield steelmasters Charles Cammell & Co Ltd took over Laird's Shipbuilders to form a 'verticlally integrated' company that was better able to compete for warship orders on the basis that they both made the steel, especially the armour plating, as well as utilising the materials.
Cammell's dated back to 1837 as Johnston, Cammell & Co who were steel makers and file makers. The company prospered, becoming Charles Cammell in 1855, and moved into railway equipment and armourplating - developing several new works to match their growing business. Laird's shipbuilding interests dated to 1828 when the company, formed in 1824 as boilermakers, moved into construction. Although Cammell Laird, along with much of British industry, was riding high in 1919 the next few years would not be easy for them. The general trade depression of the early 1920s affected them and the loss of armaments business in post-war contraction, against the background of pacifism, made business difficult. In 1928 they amalgamated their steel plants with those of rivals Vickers and Vickers, Armstrong to form the English Steel Corporation and the following year their railway manufacturing business was spun off in an arrnagement with the Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Co to create what was best known as Metro-Cammell.
The four colour plates are of interest in that they show various scenes in the production of different activities within the company; the formation of armour plating, the manufacturing of laminated springs, the manufacturing of crucible steel and cutting of files. There's a temptation to see these images as 'colourised' photographs but it is more likely they are reproductions of original artworks commissioned by Cammel Laird. Indeed, the 'fititng of laminated springs' derives from a painting by Edward Frederick Skinner (1865 - 1924) and the original painitng from seems to date from a series he underttok for the company in 1917 - 1918 several of which survive in public colelctions in Sheffield and on the Wirral. Whereas his signature is obvious on this image two others, armour plating and crucible steel, have rather more indecipherable lettering on them.
Cammell Laird & Co Ltd, Sheffield : steel makers, shipbuilders & engineers : advert plates from Industrial Sheffield and Rotherham, official handbook, 1919
In 1919 a rather splendid guide to many trades and businesses of the Yorkshire industrial towns of Sheffield and Rotherham - the official handbook of the Sheffield and Rotherham Chambers of Commerce. The guide was printed for them by Bemrose & Sons Ltd, the noted colour printers, and has a supplement containing various colour advertisements.
The massive steel making, shipbuilding and engineering company of Cammell, Laird & Co Ltd is represented over four pages - a lavish spread for a company that in 1919 had needless to say been hugely busy over the previous five years. Cammell Laird were not just a Sheffield concern with London offices as seen here but also had their major shipbuilding yards at Birkenhead in Cheshire. The company was formed in 1903 when the Sheffield steelmasters Charles Cammell & Co Ltd took over Laird's Shipbuilders to form a 'verticlally integrated' company that was better able to compete for warship orders on the basis that they both made the steel, especially the armour plating, as well as utilising the materials.
Cammell's dated back to 1837 as Johnston, Cammell & Co who were steel makers and file makers. The company prospered, becoming Charles Cammell in 1855, and moved into railway equipment and armourplating - developing several new works to match their growing business. Laird's shipbuilding interests dated to 1828 when the company, formed in 1824 as boilermakers, moved into construction. Although Cammell Laird, along with much of British industry, was riding high in 1919 the next few years would not be easy for them. The general trade depression of the early 1920s affected them and the loss of armaments business in post-war contraction, against the background of pacifism, made business difficult. In 1928 they amalgamated their steel plants with those of rivals Vickers and Vickers, Armstrong to form the English Steel Corporation and the following year their railway manufacturing business was spun off in an arrnagement with the Metropolitan Carriage, Wagon and Finance Co to create what was best known as Metro-Cammell.
The four colour plates are of interest in that they show various scenes in the production of different activities within the company; the formation of armour plating, the manufacturing of laminated springs, the manufacturing of crucible steel and cutting of files. There's a temptation to see these images as 'colourised' photographs but it is more likely they are reproductions of original artworks commissioned by Cammel Laird. Indeed, the 'fititng of laminated springs' derives from a painting by Edward Frederick Skinner (1865 - 1924) and the original painitng from seems to date from a series he underttok for the company in 1917 - 1918 several of which survive in public colelctions in Sheffield and on the Wirral. Whereas his signature is obvious on this image two others, armour plating and crucible steel, have rather more indecipherable lettering on them.