Whitefriars Glass Foundry……1966-1975
By Neil Edwards.
Previously located at Tudor Road, Harrow Weald, Middlesex. The factory closed approx.1980. Many of the skilled staff had been made redundant previous to this date, myself included.
Daily shifts at the works started at 6am-2pm with only a 30 min break time, (when some severe games of 3 card brag took place.) The late shift was 2pm-10pm,again with the 30-minute break and the card school. A day’s money could and often did change hands at these card games, as the skilled workers were well paid for their piecework efforts. Once a week the opportunity for a night shift came around, this would allow time+half to be earned, but it meant an 8 hour on, 8 hour off and 8 hour on again for a couple of days. I never got used to the lack of sleep during these days... but made up for it by doing a full 12 hours sleep sometime later.
This was hard and tough foundry work for most of the men and boys there.
Each shift comprised of 5 or 6 “Gangs” of workers, with a “Gaffer” in charge of 3-5 other workers, some skilled and some unskilled, all had their own particular procedure to help complete the very hot piece of glasswork. The Gaffer was almost a father figure to some of the younger new boys, in fact the first post a new boy would be given was the Gaffers “Boy” duties which included making tea for the gang, collecting food and drink from the shop across the road, as the foundry had no staff canteen, and generally being the dogsbody of the gang. The term used to describe this food was “Bagin” (maybe 2 Gs) and was eaten during “Bagin Time”, i.e. the 30-minute break. The food was usually fresh filled rolls and cold drinks, plenty of them.
Most of the other duties of the “boy” was to get the finished piece of glass into the Lehr, an oil fired long oven with a conveyer belt system that moved the glass slowly along into a cooler part of the oven before it could be inspected and boxed up. Hot glass that is not cooled at the right speed will crack or blow up, frustrating for the whole gang that were on peace-work. This was always blamed on the boy.
“The Glasshouse” was the factory floor. About the size of a football pitch with brick/concrete surfaced floor. 3 blast furnaces were equally placed down the centre of the floor. Each furnace had about 6-8 pots with a small opening where glass was gathered from the pots on “blowing irons” (metal tubular rods with an air-hole right through the centre). Pots could at an estimate hold some 100 gallons of molten glass. The furnace and their pots were heated by oil fired blasting from the lower floor, where boilers burned 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. Each gang worked around their particular pot for the shift, each pot would contain only one colour glass, although many various colours were available from different pots.
The company may well be in trouble today if work practices were similar in today’s workplaces. Health and Safety executives would have a field day. Working bare chested, in 100 degrees, with jeans and in heavy duty boots, many workers suffered burns and cuts caused by flying splinters of glass that made the air thick with glass dust that was breathed in by everyone, even visitors to the site. No safety-first items appeared to be of concern to anyone, it was just part of the job. The only luxury on offer was a small shower area available for after work cleaning, but at least it always had very hot water.
The company employed a gang of men as labourers, led by Taff Hegan they would ensure the furnaces and Lehrs keep working and that the mixture of coloured sand and potash had melted in the pots overnight so fresh/new glass was ready for use by the glassmakers the following day. These guys really did graft for their money as I remember and were paid an extra £5 per head when it came time to change or remove a pot from the furnace. This was a dangerous and extremely hot process and was done several times each week.
The Glassmakers were real characters in their own right and you soon learned to shout loudly to be heard as the noise from the furnaces sounded like a passing steam train. The most highly skilled men during my time were Harry Dyer and brother Jimmy, “Fat” Ronnie Wilkinson and his brother Ken who worked in the cutting/engraving room that was attached to the glasshouse floor. The majority of those skilled men lived locally and no doubt much of the local area has vast collections of the Whitefriars brands. Geoff Baxter lived locally and was one of the “office staff”. As a designer he was always experimenting with colours and procedures in glass to see just what could and could not be produced or created and often-involved Harry and Ron in his trials.
On the whole the majority of workers were just earning a living as the area was working class and the glasshouse floor was no place for the faint hearted, one soon got toughened up if that happened to be the case, one also learned many modern day expletives at a young age as delays in procedures cost the whole gang money.
Apart from many of the colourful vases that have been seen on the websites, the majority of glass production was for more everyday use items such as wine glasses, drinking tumblers, fruit dishes and bowls all which went onto be cut in a familiar Whitefriars design.
Contrary to popular belief glassblowers did not need a great deal of “puff”, glass blowing was more technique than anything else. Most drinking vessels made were blown in a mould with stems and bases being put on by skilled hands.
Finally and not wanting to disappoint too many people or collectors, most of the textured or log design items were made to take advantage of some of the “poor quality” glass that was produced in the manufacturing process. If this glass were used in a clear design item, the impurities would be seen. Textured/log effect items could hardly be seen through, if this piece was also coloured it made it almost impossible to see any imperfections within the glass. These imperfections in no way made the item less strong or more breakable, it was rather more a bitty/streaky effect within the glass only.