steelway article e & s 17.01.13 page 1 carl chinn

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Thursday, January 17, 2013 Express & StarES 42 www.expressandstar.com

Steelway is a Wolverhamptonsuccess story. It was founded in1928 at the Queensgate Works sitein Wolverhampton by C. W.Goodyear. Three years later itmerged with F. Hammond & Co, anoted manufacturer of handrailstandards.

In addition Steelway was the soleselling agents of drop forged handrailstandards manufactured by J. Brock-house & Co of West Bromwich and inturn Mr. J. V. H. Brockhouse was theselling agent in London for all Steel-way products.

In 1935, this new company made itsmark impressively on the nationalscene. On March 19, Mr Hore-Belisha,the dynamic Minister of Transport,inaugurated the pedestrian guard railsat Britannia Crossing, in CamdenTown, London. They were only the sec-ond such safety barriers in the countryand they had been made by the enter-prising and innovative Wolverhamptoncompany at its factory on the BilstonRoad.

The order had come because the pre-vious year, Steelway had manufacturedthe United Kingdom’s first pedestrianguard rails, which had been installedin July at the busy junction of Prince’sSquare. These safety guards had beenan immediate success in stoppingpedestrians walking off a blind cornerinto the path of motorists and they had

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Loving careand friends

Jane’s aunt and uncle, Florence and David Webb well recall ‘Uncle Joe’ andhave kindly sent in this photo of him with Floss’s mom and Jane’s gran, Flo-rence Hackett. It was taken in the front garden of her house in Daisy Bank,Coseley. Like Jane, her Auntie Floss and Uncle David still live in Daisy Bank,Coseley and last year celebrated their 60th Wedding Anniversary. As for the giv-ing Joe Austin, he became blind in his latter years and died in America

approximately 39 years ago.

Early last year wefeatured anintriguing and

moving story from MikeBaker, now of Wollaston,that highlighted theimportance and value ofneighbourliness in themidst of hard times.

Sadly when he was 18, Mike hadlost his father and five years later,he was living with his severely dis-abled mother in Horseley Heath,Tipton whilst he was working atthe famed works of Horseley Bridgeand Thomas Piggot Ltd.

Mike and his mother lived in aground floor council flat at No. 12Smiths Place, Tipton, but, as he recalls“mother was 61 years old and anextremely severe arthritic to the extentthat she was housebound and had to belifted and carried to the bathroom orbedroom. She had to be virtually hand-

fed and washed and dressed each day.Her name was Martha Anne Baker, acommitted Christian woman.

“I, being in fulltime employment had to leaveher for most of the working day, and in whichcase my Mother depended on neighbours (GodBless them all) to look after her needs and tohave their daily chats and nibbles and theinevitable cup of tea, or two etc.

Angel“A family of four lived directly above us on the

top floor of the flats, namely Reg and Joan Git-tins with their eldest daughter, Susan, agedabout 10 years and youngest daughter, Gillian,aged seven years. Joan Gittins spent so muchtime looking after my Mother that she wasindeed an angel in disguise, and of course thechildren used to help too.

“Imagine my Mother’s surprise and my sur-prise when the ‘Express and Star’ arrived on Sat-urday July 22, 1961, and we saw on page 6 apicture of Gillian as part of an article headed‘May Her Wishes All Come True. Gave away allthree to others.’ Gillian, in an essay at school,was the only pupil in the class who gave away all

three wishes to others. One of the wishes beingthat Mother could walk.

“Sometime later Gillian received a visitor fromNew York, namely a Mr Joe Austin, who I under-stand was a Blackcountry Man, originally fromBilston, who went to live and work in the USAand was very successful. He had come over to theUK to see the Cup Final and called on Gillianand her family and also called to see my Mother.

“During his visit he asked Gillian what shethought Mrs Baker would like as a present, andshe said, ‘a Bible with large print, as her eyesightis not very good’.

“Sure enough some weeks later a large parcelarrived at our flat, and upon opening we discov-ered a Bible with large print produced by theAmerican Bible Society, New York, and on aninside leaf of the Bible it was labelled, ‘To MrsBaker from Gillian’s Uncle Joe in New York’.This Bible is still in my possession and is in pris-tine condition. Some time later an airmail letterarrived at our flat, and upon opening we found apostcard which said, ‘Mrs Baker, I thought youwould like a bookmark for your Bible. It wasmade by a blind girl. Sincerely Joe Austin.’-Reply to J. Austin, Box 186, Bronx Central,NY51-USA.’ In the envelope was a beautiful cro-chet cross in white and pink, which we still have.

“Well in May 1962, after a seventeen-weekperiod in hospital, my Mother passed away andwithin days a letter arrived from America whichwhen opened revealed a poem, written and sentby Joe Austin. With such beautiful words andJoe’s constant concern for my Mother I sum-moned up all my very sparse poetical knowledgeand sent back a very simple poem in return.

Steel company played major

An unknown location from about the 1930s,although it may be a football stadium; Steelway

would have made the stair balustrade

drawn the attention of Hore-Belisha. He had become Minister of Trans-

port in the National Government in1934 and was a man with a mission toimprove road safety. During the yearhe came into office, 7,343 people werekilled and 231,603 injured in road acci-dents. Half of them were pedestriansand three-quarters of the accidentshappened in built-up areas.

Hore-Belisha was appalled at this“‘mass murder” and strove to end it.His Road Traffic Act of 1934 intro-duced a speed limit of 30 mph formotor cars in built-up areas; he re-wrote the Highway Code; and he intro-duced the driving test and Belishabeacon. He also championed the instal-lation of pedestrian guard rails. InMarch 1935 he announced that “aspart of the experiment” which he wascarrying out with the highway author-ities, safety barriers were to be erectedat both the Britannia Crossing in Cam-den Town and the junction with Cam-bridge Road, Stepney.

The guard rails at the latter wereput up on March 22, 1935, three daysafter the one in Camden. Both instal-lations were “at the edge of the foot-paths to prevent pedestrians fromstepping off the kerb in dangerousplaces and to guide them to the markedpedestrian crossings where there willbe gaps in the rails”. It was stated thatif they succeeded “the experiment willbe extended to other important road

junctions in London’. Thanks to thepioneering design and manufacturingexpertise of Steelway succeed they did,as was made plain by an announce-ment from the Minister in February1936. As a result safety barriers wenton to be developed on a large scale inLondon.

Two years after the launch of Steel-way’s first pedestrian guard rail inLondon, the Wolverhampton companymanufactured the sockets and detach-able uprights to form crowd controlbarriers for the 1937 coronation ofKing George VI – parts of which wereused again for the coronation of QueenElizabeth II in 1953.

A letter of appreciation from NewScotland Yard was sent to Steelwayafter the 1937 event. It read: “Nowthat the coronation is a matter of his-tory, I should like to express my thanksto your firm for the efficient way inwhich you met the demand for barriermaterial. As you know the barrierswere of unusual design, which requiredspecial attention by you in manufac-ture. They proved most satisfactory,and I have not had any complaintsregarding them. This is a matter of sat-isfaction to all concerned.”

A pioneering enterprise in industrialaccess metalwork, Steelway becamewell known and highly regarded for itsflooring, ladders, stairs, handrails,guardrails, and platforms. It continuesto be held in esteem for such products.

Malcolm thinks that this smashing photo shows theBilston Road by the canal, and recalls that there

used to be a junkshop in that row of buildings