Tube Products : illustrated brochure : Tube Products Ltd. : Oldbury : nd [c.1935] : pages 16 & 17

An interesting brochure issued by Tube Producst Ltd. (incorporating H. Joyce & Co. Ltd.) from their Popes Lane works in Oldbury, a town that was postally in Birmingham, Warwickshire, but actually in Worcestershire. Tube Products Ltd. had been formed in 1929 by Tube Investments, the conglomerate set up in 1919 to bring together four companies, Accles and Pollock, Simplex Conduits, Credenda Conduits and Tubes Limited. The aim was ally companies who both produced and manipulated steel tubes and the TI Group, as they became, prospered and grew over the coming decades.

 

The basis of Tube Products was the expolitation of certain patents regarding the electrical resistance welding of tubes to manufacture a diverse range of products that included bike and car components, boiler and transformer tubes and other engineering, appliance and architectural uses. They were "patentees, manufacturers and manipulators of electrically welded and weldless steel tubes". The brochure is undated but given the range described mid-1930s seems a good guess. Tube Investments and Tube Products play a role in the development of 1930s "deco" design as the chrome plates tubing they produced found favour as the material for 'modern' furniture, such as chairs and tables, as well as light and shop fittings as seen here.

 

These tube products found ready use with companies such as Best & Lloyd, the Birmingham based lighting manufacturers and P.E.L. Furniture, the TI subsidiary, whose stacking chairs became internationally known.

 

I've scanned the majority of pages from the booklet. The utility of bending tubes is seen here notably in the components of bicycle or bike frames. Opposite is a fine view of a manicure table in the Gentlemen's Hairdressing Saloon at one of London's Art Deco temples, the Lyon's owned Strand Palace Hotel.

Done