BANCROFT SHED (7)

[Stanley]

BANCROFT SHED (7)

11 April 2001

I promised last week that we’d finish the boiler house this week by looking at the maintenance we had to do during the holidays. As I was saying, steam boilers are terribly dangerous things unless they are maintained meticulously throughout the year. In the early days of the industry there was no regulation and boilers exploded with monotonous regularity killing many people. Things reached the stage where in 1854, Mr William Fairbairn of Manchester (later to become Sir William), the inventor in 1844 of the two-flued or Lancashire boiler, attended a meeting chaired by the Mayor of Manchester to discuss what could be done to render steam boilers more safe. As a result of this meeting The Association for the Prevention of Steam Boiler Explosions was formed. In 1859 the Steam Boiler Assurance Company was formed to inspect and insure steam boilers and engines. This later became the Vulcan Insurance Company and was the first of many such companies in the field.
There was never any government supervision of these matters, it was left to the insurance companies who carried the risk. The individual factory owner was liable in law for any injury or damage caused by operating a boiler or steam engine and was required to have an inspection carried out at least every 14 months by a ‘competent person’. In effect, this meant taking insurance out with a recognised insurer and submitting to their inspection on an annual basis. This was how Bancroft operated in common with every other steam boiler user in Barlick.
You will remember that last week I was saying that there was no formal qualification for running a land-based boiler or engine but that marine practice was quite different. Marine engineers were certificated by the old Board of Trade and when these men retired from the sea they could find ready employment with the insurance companies as boiler surveyors. This meant that when you had an inspection you were dealing with practical and competent men who knew all there was to know about boilers. Once you gained their confidence and they got to know your boiler they didn’t stick slavishly to the rules but used their judgement and it was a very good arrangement.
The boiler inspector was within his rights to demand a complete strip-down of the boiler and all its fittings each year but they never did this as they knew it would be uneconomical and actually did more harm than good. My inspector would consult with me and we would decide between us what was sensible, he trusted my judgement as much as I trusted him. In fact, on one occasion I suspected a problem with part of the boiler he hadn’t even considered, we stripped the offending part off, a piece called the ‘swan neck’ and found that I was right, the bolts were corroded and needed replacement. This was the way the system worked and it was efficient when operated by competent men.
In practical terms, what this meant was that when the mill shut down for the summer holidays, the firebeater and I had to set to work. On the day we stopped, we blew the steam off the boiler and emptied all the water out as soon as the weavers had left. I’m sure a lot of you can remember the noise of Bancroft blowing off on the Friday afternoon when the holidays started. One lady nearby told me her cat always left home when it heard the roar of the steam and didn’t return for a couple of days!
Once the steam and water were away we opened up all the flues to let cold air roar through the flues and up the chimney. This was to get the boiler and the brickwork cooled down as much as possible for the fluers to come in on the Saturday morning. These were the men who went into the hot flues and cleaned out all the ash that the draught had carried over while the boiler was running. We always used ‘Weldone’ from Brierfield, Charlie Sutton and his men. They used to arrive at about nine in the morning and by one o’clock you could have eaten your dinner off the flue bottoms. After lunch they went into the boiler itself and cleaned off any scale that had accumulated. This was where attention to water treatment paid off, if the engineer had done his job properly there was very little scale and what there was was soft and easily removed.
On the following Monday the boiler surveyor arrived to do his inspection. By the time he got there the firebeater and myself had stripped down whatever we had decided needed closer inspection, one year it might be the feed valves, the next the safety valve, whatever we had decided between us. The surveyor went into the boiler and the flues and did a hammer test of the rivets. This was rather like the old-fashioned wheel tapper on the railway who used to tap each wheel with a long handled hammer, he could tell by the sound it made whether it was cracked or not. The boiler surveyor did the same with the rivets, he could tell from experience if there was any problem. If he found any problems or anything that we agreed needed attention I rang my boiler repairers. I always used Rochdale Electric Welding because their holidays were different than ours and we didn’t have to pay holiday rates of pay. For the same reason I used a bricky from Gisburn if any of the brickwork needed repairing. The boiler makers would turn up as soon as they could and usually by the end of the first week of the holidays we were ready to start putting everything together again. The surveyor might come to see what we were doing but usually he left it until the first Monday we were running after the holidays when we would fire the boiler hard until the safety valve lifted. This was called the ‘Steaming Test’ and was the last phase of the inspection.
You’ll notice that I haven’t said anything about inspecting the engine. This is because we never did it. The surveyor trusted me and never asked for anything to be stripped down. He simply listened to it running and called in at odd times during the year as he was passing. I suppose he made his judgements based on these visits, if he had any qualms at all he could take them up on the next annual inspection but as I say, we never did anything at Bancroft. The insurance company carried the risk on the engine as well as the boiler and it was in their interest to make sure everything was all right but the surveyor knew that the key to this wasn't over intrusive examination but the overall quality of the engineer and his routine.
The system I have described was very good and remarkably cheap in those days, both in terms of the fee the insurance company charged and the cost of the repairs that were needed and all this without any government intervention. I’ve always thought that if a similar system was applied to cars and commercial vehicles we would have much safer transport.
So, with a bit of luck, the firebeater and I could have a day or two off the second week of the holidays. The problem was that we could never arrange anything in advance because we could never be sure what problems we would hit and when we would be finished. All the time I ran Bancroft we never had a family holiday, we just grabbed days off when we could manage.
There were some traps for the unwary. One year, the managing director, Peter Birtles, came down to the engine house and told me he had saved us some money on the annual inspection by setting on a new insurance company, Ajax Insurance. I told him this was a mistake, his fee might be less for the inspection but seeing as they didn’t know the boiler or myself, they would want everything doing by the book and it would cost us a fortune. It all came to pass and in less time than you could say Jack Robinson we had sacked Ajax and I was back with my old boiler surveyor, thank God!
In later years, when I was running Ellenroad Engine at Rochdale I came across the modern boiler inspectors. These were young men who were full of theory but had no practical experience at all. They came on the scene because the supply of ex-marine engineers had dried up as our merchant fleet declined. I have to say that they were usually a pain in the bum. Many of them had never seen a riveted boiler before and had no idea of what was all right and what was a problem. The insurance company, National Vulcan, admitted in the end that I was part of their training programme! They sent young engineers down to me so that I could guide them through the procedures for surveying obsolete boilers!
Well, you’ve probably realised by now that I like boilers! Treated properly they are wonderful things and I always enjoy being with a boiler that’s working hard. There’s something very satisfying about being in charge of something that is potentially so dangerous but knowing that you’ve done everything right and all is under control and safe. In later years I worked for Rochdale Electric Welding and was never happier than when I was commissioning a boiler that we had done major repairs on. The best part was always the steaming test, especially if you had stripped the safety valves and rebuilt them. It was very satisfying to see a valve lift at exactly the right pressure without any dribbling or feathering. I remember standing with an inspector with a very large boiler once and it blew exactly at 180psi with a roar that frightened even me! He turned to me and said “You got that one right didn’t you!”. Now that’s satisfaction.

11 April 2001