Helliwell's 50th  - SHEET-METAL SAGA.
 A Notable Sub-Contracting Organisation Celebrates a Birthday.

POLITICALLY, the first two months of the year 1889 were unimportant. Eighteen months previously Queen Victoria had celebrated the Jubilee of her accession to the Throne. Mr.Gladstone was saying a number of things. of course, but not as Prime Minister of England . He was at issue with the Tories, under Lord Salisbury, over his Home Rule Bill ; in three years he had been defeated as many times. During this balmy period the ancient little township of Dudley , cut off from t he Test of Worcestershire by a "sea" of Stafford," was thriving on the progressive industrialisation of the Midlands, Bricks, iron and coal were all hers for the taking and making.

The Beginning
It was towards the end of February of that year that a youth heard of a new Dudley firm which was about to be formed by a certain Mr. Helliwell to manufacture metal fire fenders, kerbs and other forms of sheet-metal work: He wrote, ' applying for the post of ledger clerk and was promptly accepted at the munificent wage of 4s a week, That was fifty years ago. Next week that same youth, Mr. H Parsons, now a respected member of Helliwells, Ltd will celebrate with his firm their respective fiftieth anniversaries of continued service - he to his company and his company to the public.

Today Helliwells, Ltd , are one of the biggest. firms of sub-contractors in the aircraft industry . With their modern plant, extensive works  and up-to-date methods they are in a position to tackle the most intricate production problems in the industry. From working to limits of a rough and ready + or - 1 inch in the old days of fenders and kerbs, Helliwells, Ltd . now work, with their precision tools and skilled workmen, to limits of + or - .0001 inch.

Behind this imposing frontage of offices lies the main hangar-type shop of the recently completed Helliwell factory at Walsall Airport.

How did this change from one sphere of activity to another come about ? How was it that a firm such as this, which throughout its trading history had been progressive yet typically Midland in character, should suddenly change in the course of a few years from making kerbs and fenders to. handling a multitude of aircraft components?

It is an interesting tale. It is the story of a young man with, those two inestimable qualities - foresight and the courage of his own convictions. This young man, with an amazing capacity for work, linked up with Mr. E.G. Helliwell on the death of the latter's father, the founder of the firm. Eric Sanders is the name - a name which is already beginning to make itself heard and felt in certain quarters up and down the country.

It was in 1933. when he was but 27 years old, that Eric Sanders was persuaded by the trustees to join Helliwells, Ltd . Until then his interest in manufacturing was confined to the windscreen industry - he started as a youth in the Auster factory.

When he arrived at Helliwells, he found the works had expanded from the original small premises in Fountain Street Dudley, to offices and works on the opposite side of the street and to even larger premises in nearby Oakeywell Street. However, the making of kerbs and fenders failed to interest him. Windscreens were, rather naturally, more to his way of thinking. And so it was that Helliwells came to adapt as much of their existing plant as possible to the making of car windscreens.

At the start of 1936 the company's turnover exceeded £2,500 a month. Large contracts had been obtained from three vast firms in the automobile industry. Then Eric Sanders decided on a bold step. Hampered by out-of-date, plant and convinced that sooner or later there would be work to be done in the aircraft industry , he decided to sell out the windscreen business, complete with plant, to his nearest competitor, in whose side he had been a very prickly thorn for some time. This step virtually brought about a liquid state in the company's finances, the importance of which cannot be overestimated. It enabled the company to reconstruct and re-equip in preparation for the work which Eric Sanders was convinced would come as soon as rearmament was threatened


His timing of this step bears the mark of a genius. He obtained contracts, small though they were, from .Hawker, A.V. Roe and Armstrong- Whitworth, to make windscreens and cabin tops. By the end of 1936, fresh contracts began to be placed, earned on the reputation gained by the cabin tops. However, the fact was that the monthly turnover had fallen from £2500 a month to a mere £500.

At this juncture, the aircraft boom started, and Helliwells were ready to cope with the orders almost as fast as they began to pour in. Expansion had started.

Very soon it was realised that the works at Dudley were not large enough. Already one wall had been holed to allow a cumbersome and lengthy component to be removed from the shop of its birth. And so it came about that Eric Sanders and his co-director, E.G. Helliwell, decided to build a capacious factory on another site. Where was it to be and on what lines should it be evolved?

Left: With the aid of this No. 2a Pratt and Witney jig-borer work can be carried to limits of plus or minus .0001in. This machine is housed in a separate shop the temperature of which is carefully regulated.

Right: Some cabin tops and windscreens are built up on a frame of light alloys which require individual assembly on special jigs.

At an Airport
Looking ahead, with his own schemes definitely shaped in his mind, Mr. Sanders decided on an unusual step. He applied to the Walsall authorities for permission to build two hangar type shops, side by side; adjoining Walsall Municipal Airport. One was to have a span of -160ft and the other 90 ft. Across the back of the main hangar a frontage of offices was to be built. Hangar type shops were chosen, for it is one of Mr. Sanders' many goals that Helliwells Ltd., should one day be renowned for their aircraft.

His scheme was greeted with approval by the Walsall authorities. Plans were drawn up .by Noel Proctor and Co.. of Wolverhampton, and building started. The new works were urgently required, And so it came about that as soon as the roof was up, the concrete floors set, machinery and plant were moved in and work had started.

Today the firm of Helliwells, Ltd., occupies works and offices at Dudley, more offices at Walsall, and finally the new extensive works and offices at Walsall Airport. Very soon it is hoped to consolidate at the Airport.

In Fountain Street, Dudley, are the offices, bonded stores and tool shop. At the Oakeywell Street works nearby there is a factory three floors high and with a wing at each end, where day and night shifts work throughout the week.

Briefly, the layout of the Oakeywell Street works is as follows . The ground floor of one wing and the two upper floors a re devoted to sheet-metal work in its many different branches . The ground floors of the centre block and other wing house batteries of automatics. The machine shops are well lit, and it is here that some of the latest types of machinery have been installed to the tune of over £40,000. In the main, the machines a re laid out in two banks with a gangway down the centre. Down one side are seven Herbert No.4 lathes, while three Herbert 39As, with quick releases, are on order. Similarly, there are two Butterworth automatics on order.

On the other side of the gangway there is a battery of two and four-spindle Archdales (with overhead gate-change 4- speed controls), Alba shapers, two Soag Accuramil H.43 universals, Brown and Ward universal millers, a 5/8 Brown and Ward automatic, and a Newton profiler. But that is not quite all, for partitioned off in its own shop , the temperature of which is thermostatically maintained, is a No.za Pratt and Whitney. jig-borer.

Making Tanks
In the sheet-metal department various types of fuel tanks are built up stage by stage by craftsmen panel beaters. Here the majority of the tanks are either De Bergue riveted or tacked and finally welded. In this department the problem of shaping baffles is quickly solved by a Selson Hanging machine which in one or two minutes will produce a neat right-angled flange round the curved edge of a baffle.

In this shop all Class 1 contracts for Vickers and Glosters are dealt with. The tanks a re examined at every stage, washed in boiling water and dried by a special pure air drying plant, before pressure-testing. Of course, there are many other types of work in hand in the sheet metal shops, but in the main most of the work is in light alloys.

On the top floor there is a Kasenit cyanide furnace and a Kasenit muffle for case-hardening and normalising. Both are controlled by a recording pyrometer and both are of the natural draught type.

The layout in the imposing factory, with its attractive suite of offices, at Walsall Airport is as different from Dudley as chalk is from the proverbial cheese. Primarily the two shops are ultra-modern hangars. The work undertaken here is chiefly of the assembly and sheet metal type. Row upon row of benches fill the 25.000 sq. ft. of the main shop or hangar. The services are laid under the concrete floor for the pneumatic Consolidated hand drills-there is no point in borrowing a drill of this type without the pneumatic plant! and Vickers hydro-pneumatic riveters which require boosters up to 500 lb.

The plant in these two shops is of a light semi-portable nature. Here one can watch fascinated as a Pels nibbler cleanly cuts out alloy sheets to the shape of a template. In one corner there is a Midsaw trimmer, with batteries of Denbigh drillers. In another there are Hazelwood and Dent and Sweeney presses.

This view of the main hangar-shop at Walsall Airport gives some idea of the layout of benches in one half of the shop.

Conveniently situated in one side of the main shop are chromate treatment tanks (for the protection of Elektron), annealing and normalising baths (controlled by a recording pyrometer). On the other side is the paint shop.

In the main hangar, with its high sliding doors, its lofty ceiling from which are suspended powerful but non-glare mercury-vapour lamps (installed at the instigation of Rowlands Electrical Accessories, Ltd.) many different types of work are undertaken. Here, on jigs, are mounted the steel strips which form the basis of the cabin top and windscreens of a bomber.

Accuracy is obtained in the ensuing welding process by following a predetermined sequence. Windscreens, windows and panels, assembled nearby the Perspex being rubber mounted in alloy frames are fitted finally to the completed framework.

For certain aircraft a light steel framework welded in predetermined sequences forms the basis for the pilot's cabin top and windscreen.
(Right) Fuel tanks come off the line almost on a mass production basis, to be examined, pressure-tested and finally passed out.

The work undertaken here ranges from bulkhead frames, door ladders and doors to the delicate welding of MG7 tubes for gunners seats. In the adjoining hangar a similar type of work is dealt with, but it is of a more intimate nature. Already the offices are occupied, except for one lengthy and well lit room on the ground floor. This vacant office is reserved for one of the most amazing installations imaginable - the Powers-Samas Accountancy plant.

1939 Helliwells Advertisement Featuring Their Powers-Samas Accounting Machine

Strictly speaking. there are several machines serving one master machine. At the moment it is situated in the company's offices at Walsall. This plant was installed at a cost of over £2,000 last October. To this office is sent every workman's job card. The card itself is tabulated and the workman or machine operator merely fills in the appropriate details with his number, state of work in hand, rates , etc . These cards arrive daily in thousands from each shift. A girl, with the aid of a special machine, translates the information on the card into a series of punched holes. Another girl with a similar machine repeats the process as a check - if a mistake has been made one hole will be out of register with another.

In case the checker has failed to notice an error in this translation stage, all the cards are fed through a machine Which, working rather on the pianola principle, locates the error and inserts a blue slip over the faulty card. This machine can deal with several hundreds of cards a minute.

In the next stage the cards a re-sorted out in order of serial numbers. By setting another machine, over 400 cards can be sorted and placed in their correct order in the space of one minute. They are then fed into the master accountancy machine, which translates the little punched holes into typed figures and facts from which Mr.Sanders can see at a glance the progress made on any one job during any particular shift. It records each man's bonus or debt created each day and provides a weekly balance of time and cost recorded to each batch as against wages drawn from the bank. It records the effective operative time of each machine and it even checks the time consumed daily as against the timm estimated for production . Finally this wonderful machine enters up the factories pay roll, machine and operator's clock number, bonus, and wages, with deductions for National Health and benefits!

Little wonder it is that Mr. Sanders looks upon this machine of his as the very pulse of Helliwells, Ltd. Easy it is to realise how this firm can decide immediately whether an extra shift is necessary on any particular job.

On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of Helliwells, Ltd., one realises how much the company's incredible progress in the last few years is due entirely to the foresight and courage of one dynamic young man, and, above all, of one who has the courage of his convictions.

One of a series of the inspirational Helliwells "Lady Ads" 1939 published at a time of great crisis during the build up to WW2