Ye Olde British Tobacco Factory - Wills Circa 1934

Log in

SmokingPipes.com Updates

Watch for Updates Twice a Week

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

Drucquers Banner

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

PipesMagazine Approved Sponsor

Status
Not open for further replies.
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
This little booklet just came in the mail today, a really cool artifact.
Looking at the production process, one notes just how many hands were on deck - very many!
Wills was an excellent employer and provided a good number of jobs.
The whole process was quite labor-intensive and a very involved procedure.
One of the most interesting things for me is seeing that wild looking contraption used for sealing the old cutter-tops.
ke4d7kd.jpg


qoilHjY.jpg


nRfPZON.jpg


KdGiWuv.jpg


45jTWAD.jpg


MgDDlty.jpg


OeKQpaS.jpg


2672ZOi.jpg


MR3rRrg.jpg


SffchmC.jpg


wDtXeM6.jpg


m8PGQYe.jpg


JPh1WDI.jpg


ZkFq18j.jpg


Z27oLdY.jpg


XgrNPPk.jpg


fYDufeM.jpg


zDnvGzc.jpg


IP3klT1.jpg


4PGBl18.jpg


GMsMZdv.jpg


sRyzMC2.jpg


MqHVJYr.jpg


 

flakyjakey

Lifer
Aug 21, 2013
1,117
7
Troy, some of your best yet. You are truly the puissant pictorial piping historian on site!

 

eaglerico

Lifer
Jan 8, 2011
1,134
1
Thanks for posting, this is pretty cool. I know it is legit, and maybe it is the photography of the time, but does anyone think the people seem a bit cartonny.
o and did you see the legs on one of them dames? 8)

 

tennsmoker

Lifer
Jul 2, 2010
1,157
7
What wonderful photos! I, too, am amazed at the neatness of the people and the plant!
Thanks, MrLowerCase for posting.

 
May 31, 2012
4,295
34
Lumps and stumps, heels and wheels.

Love the chillin' babes in the Cooling Room
Good stuff.
I'm fascinated with these kind of things, there's so many aspects to it all, so many different approaches one may take to survey the field, and the sociocultural lens provides a richness of personal histories --- it goes beyond a simple product/consumer relationship, it's about the people who made something well and the people who appreciated that well-made thing, something to celebrate and carry a healthy enthusiasm for --- often in my searches I come across harsh critical assessments of the academic sort which seem to invariably make the whole tobacco affair look like some sinister conspiracy or something, it's quite tiresome trying to read that sort of mambojambo, dumb stuff like looking at old advertising and feeding the misread imagery through a Marxist perspective "...with the increasing habit for brands to be advertised with transferable symbolic values, this figure was offered to the working-class and lower-middle-class white male consumer as an image with which he could identify with and which could offer him what appeared to be a degree of glamour and adventurism..." etc etc
Much more fun is finding and reading old employees talking about their experiences, like this,

"The Stemming Room was where stems were removed from tobacco leaves. Audrey and her colleagues would throw 'Joeys' (piles of leftover leaves) at each other for fun, 'until the forewoman caught you!"

http://mshed.org/explore-contribute/themes/in-our-workplaces/everyday-experiences-work-relationships/working-at-wills-tobacco-factory/
Or this, talking about the old Gallaher factory,

"My Ma was a "stripper" in Gallaher's in the 1940's, up until her marriage in 1953. Her sisters also worked there, and so did her mother in the First World War. Granny's job was putting the cigarette cards into the packets. She and the other young girls used to include a piece of paper with their names and addresses, and soldiers used to write to them. Mum said the stink of the tobacco never left them them no matter how much they washed. She'd go to dances, and the first thing a bloke would say was "I KNOW WHERE YOU WORK!"."
"... the cakes were large squares approx; 2'x2' these were feed through a cutting machine one on top of the other and sliced very thin then feed into flat wooden trays. The tray was weighed, a clerk kept the record of who got which tray. The slices of condor was weighed to 1ounce, wrapped in silver paper by hand (some girls looked as if they were doing a magic trick they wrapped so fast) then boxed and then sent off to be packed. A quality control person came around every hour and checked a sample for weight if it was wrong you got money deducted from your wage. We moved to machines end of 69 early 70 i think. we just weighed the tobacco and the machine wrapped and boxed it this broke down at least 5 times a day. The more trays you got through the more bonus you made."
http://www.belfastforum.co.uk/index.php/topic,37355.0.html?PHPSESSID=867932c23f4b689bba73a83ab3ac7d75
It was common to call them Gallaher girls...

p1010523at.jpg

Or this former worker at Dobie's in Scotland, she says "I didn't smoke then, not till later but you still smuggled tins out in your bra." !!!

= )

p12

http://www.accordhospice.org.uk/content/files/According%20to%20Us%20-%20March%202012.pdf
...and then there's this video documentary, about Player's Nottingham, which is actually pretty amazing in a way, it makes me glad that the historical importance has been realized and an effort of archiving has been made, and actually bringing in the former employees for it all is icing on the cake...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A1CuaSqgPg

 

docwatson

Lifer
Jul 2, 2009
1,149
9
New England
Fantastic post with photos from that brochure. I love seeing that historical information on tobacco production. Many Thanks for sharing.

 

rebornbriar

Starting to Get Obsessed
Aug 21, 2013
250
1
United Kingdom
Great post Troy and I see you dug that thread and picture from the Belfast forum about Gallahers. My mum was a Gallaher girl, but she worked in the labs. My dad worked in the cigarette making. When they married in 1956, mum had to leave as Gallahers would not employ married women! She did not return there until about 1972. As I looked through those pictures, I kept imagining this is probably what working in Gallahers was like also.
They used to put out a monthly employee magazine called "Smoke Signals". I was too young to read them then, but there is still one copy in mum's house with a photograph of her stepping off the mail plane in the Isle of Man arriving on their honeymoon looking very Audrey Hepburn in style!

 

stickframer

Part of the Furniture Now
Apr 11, 2015
875
8
Cool. I had no idea the work force would be

so large.
Quite the array of interesting photos- I'm glad I saw this thread.

 

bentbob

Starting to Get Obsessed
May 13, 2015
182
1
Great pics and vid.
I used to live opposite Horizon Stores on Sherwood Rise. It was knocked down and a school built on the site. Early in the video there is a reference to Shippo's. This is Shipstone's Brewery (also long gone, although the brand name remains), one of the two main breweries in Notts (the other being Home Ales) and you were either a Shippo's drinker or a Home Ales drinker. Raleigh Cycles were at the other end of Radford Boulevard on Triumph Road and at shift changeover at Raleigh and Player's there were thousands of people about. Nottingham had a spurious reputation for having three times as many women as men in the city. This wasn't correct of course, it was just that Player's, Boot's, the dyeing and textile trades employed vast numbers of women so it just looked like there were more women than men. The old Sherwood Rooms are now some fancy nightclub and the old John Player Sports and Social Club on Aspley Lane (the wonderful pavilion style building in the video) was torn down and an ultra modern eyesore David Lloyd Spa and Gym built on the site. Goose Fair is the largest travelling fair in Europe and is held over three days in October. It is always cold, damp and miserable, hence the Nottingham saying "Goose Fair weather". A lot of Nottingham's famous names have now all gone or have been drastically reduced: John Player, Raleigh, Rolls Royce (Harrier Jump Jet), Royal Ordnance Factory, Courtauld's, Cusson's (Imperial Leather Soaps), Nottingham Lace, Nottingham Waterworks Company (invented the running tap or faucet), Boot's (although still going strong it isn't the company it once was. That isn't to say that Nottingham is depressed, far from it, it is a very vibrant city. It's just that the whole way of life has changed and the characters along with it!

 
Status
Not open for further replies.