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The Industrial Heritage Group
Leader: Mike Stow - indhist@ashbyu3a.co.uk - phone 01530 469152
The Industrial Heritage Group is for members who have an interest in our industrial heritage of trains, cars, planes, bikes, early manufacturing etc. to visit museums, railways, factories and other places related to our industrial past. We occasionally take a quite broad view of what constitutes "Industrial Heritage" if it is of interest to us!
Travel arrangements vary depending on how far we have to travel, but generally we meet in Ashby to car-share.
Our trips are normally on Wednesdays unless otherwise stated.
All dates below are provisional until stated otherwise
Future programme | ||||
| Date | Time | Venue | Organiser | Details |
| Wed 22nd Apr | TBA | RAF Cosford | Mike | WWII, Cold-war and Falklands aircraft and artefacts. Entry is free |
| Wed 27th May | TBA | Mini Factory tour | Mike | A guided tour of the plant to see minis assembled from start to finish. |
| Wed 24th Jun | TBA | Churnet Valley Railway | Colin Ellis | |
| Wed 22nd Jul | TBA | Macclesfield Silk Mill | Bill Wilson | |
| Wed 26th Aug | TBA | TBA | ||
| Wed 23rd Sep | TBA | Ironbridge Gorge museums | The Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust, including Blists Hill Victorian Town, is being transferred to National Trust ownership in March. Therefore entrance to all the museums and sites will be free to NT members. Prices for non NT members have yet to be confirmed | |
| Wed 28th Oct | TBA | Acme whistles factory tour, Birmingham | Kurt Kovach | |
Wednesday 25th March. The National Needle Museum, Forge Mill, Redditch
Despite a very cold and windy day we had a great visit to Forge Mill where we were given a guided tour around the buildings, and water-powered machinery within, which opened in 1730 and processed needles until 1958.
The 23 of us who made the journey to Redditch arrived in time to have a warming cup of coffee before being split into two groups to be guided around the site. The guide for our party, Graham, was most knowledgeable about all the 30-odd processes that went to make needles.
The quantities of needles processed is staggering. At its peak in the 1870s, the Redditch area was producing 3.5 billion needles per year, around 90% of the world’s needle production.
Much of the work was done by home-workers or small factories before sending packets of needles to Forge Mill where they were scoured (polished) and returned to the factories for packing and dispatch.
The needles were, and still are, made by drawing (pulling) thick coils of wire through a number of ever decreasing holes in steel plates down to the required diameter. The wire was then chopped to the length of 2 needles, straightened before having two eyes stamped in the middle, both ends sharpened, split into 2 separate needles, then hardened and straightened again before being bundled up to be polished.
Most of these processes were done by manual labour. The man punching the eyes in the needle did it by kicking down on a bar to operate the punch. He could kick 5000 times an hour for a 12 hour shift. The man sharpening the needles risked life and eyesight by inhaling dust from the grindstone and steel shards from the needles. His life expectancy was 10 working years and 35 years of age. But he was paid 1 guinea a day rather than 10/- per week that others workers received. Some processes were done at home by children as young as 3 years old.
Bundles of up to 60,000 needles were wrapped in sacking with soap and sand and rolled back and forth under the watermill powered machines at Forge Mill for 8 hours at a time until bright and smooth. The best needles had this done up to 5 times.
We were then shown around the small exhibition of needles, machinery and ephemera before heading off to lunch at the nearby Beefeater. Another great day out enjoyed by all.