​International Combustion Ltd from American roots to Sinfin Lane

Through good times and bad

Alan Gifford, a retired employee at International Combustion, has written a history of the Derby firm, tracing its origins back to the late 19th century.

IN 1898, an American called W.R. Wood formed the Automatic Furnace Syndicate, with its head office at 18 Walbrook, near Cannon Hill Station, in London.

The furnace stoker machines they marketed were initially built under some railway arches in East London.

The stokers at this time probably used a mechanically-driven metal worm to force feed small pieces of coal up into the hearth of the furnace. Such machines were still being made 60 years later.

The syndicate then made an agreement with the Railway and General Engineering Company, of Nottingham, to manufacture the machines for them.

At that time, coal-fired steam boilers were in use in almost every factory in the country, from textile mills to steel works and from bakeries to brickyards.

All were fed with huge quantities of coal via hand shovels.

Mr Wood’s new automatic furnace stoker machine, which he had brought in from America, was a revolutionary device which mechanically fed coal directly into the hearth of the furnace – a truly amazing operation in those days.

In 1902, the firm changed its name to the Underfeed Stoker Company, which more properly described the product being sold, and manufacture switched to Slough.

During this same period, a new engineering works, designed to make woodworking machinery, was being built by Alan Ransom, at Newark.

It was soon recognised by both parties that the requirements of high-quality castings for both woodworking machines and stokers were similar.

A deal was done and the Underfeed Stoker Co staff from Slough were moved to Newark in 1903. Stokers were designed and made there for the next two decades.

Up to 500 tons of the product were shipped out each month and the business did very well.

In 1922, the entire Underfeed Stoker Co operation transferred to a new factory at Derby which was initially called, for reasons still quite unclear, the Derby Works of International Combustion Engineering Ltd.

At the same time, up in the north-west of the country, other compatible events were occurring. In Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, a small company emerged, in March 1924, called Vickers and International Combustion Engineering Ltd.

The firm, whose name was soon to be changed to Combustion Engineering Ltd, specialised in the new concept of producing and burning powdered coal in power stations.

This powdered coal was produced by one of two special machines known as either Lopulco roller millers or pulverisers .

This black flour-like product was blown into the furnace and burnt, almost like a gas.

The works were in Barrow, in a beautiful location by the shores of the Walney Channel, but its design and sales operations were both London based. The works ran under the direction of Mr Mc’Highton, who soon had problems when local housewives found their washing often turned black with powered coal dust from the test facility!

After about 12 months, a local drawing office, under the control of Mr Phillip as head draughtsman, was set up and designs were evolved for roller mills producing up to 15 tons per hour of coal powder – an unheard-of amount at that time.

Miss Pope was the first typist, Miss McConnell the first tracer and Mr J.P. Gillver joined the accounts department. The first two apprentices taken on were Mr A. Rodger and Mr A. Hingley, all of whom were later relocated to Derby.

One of the apprentices, although employed slightly later, was Ralph Belshaw, better known to all as “Curly”.

He was apprenticed for five years, from May 31, 1926, to the Vickers Co as a trainee sheet metal worker.

He was to be paid 7s 6d a week in the first year, rising to 18s 0d in the final year.

But, if by good conduct and diligence he excelled, the rates would rise by a further 3s 0d a week.

In 1928, he was being paid 25s, so he must have exceeded the required criteria.

Curly was also one of those who was later transferred to Derby and became a well-known figure in the Plate Shop for many years. He died in 2003, at the age of 93.

By 1927, the limitations of the Barrow works were becoming apparent. There was too much direct dependence for certain operations on Vickers manufacturing equipment and many home-made devices, such as a plate bender, were constructed.

The problem was recognised, however, and a site for a new works was chosen near Barrow.

However, behind the scenes there had been major dialogue between the manager of Underfeed Stokers, Mr R. Greenwood, who had already moved from Newark to the new works at Derby, and George Usher, of Vickers (he was later knighted).

It was eventually agreed that the Barrow-based company would also move to the new works at Derby and that the two companies would merge, becoming International Combustion Ltd, with a London office, in Woburn Place.

So what was the new works like and where exactly was it?

Sinfin was first mentioned in charter roles of 1251 as Sydene Fen, meaning broad fen. For ages it remained a hamlet of scattered small cottages and farmsteads situated on the edge of a bleak area of marsh and moorland.

In February 1922, it was announced that a large engineering works was to be built on these dismal lands and that some 50 acres (later 62) had been acquired for the purpose.

The site was selected purely on economic grounds, the land being cheap and the rail communications with the rest of the country very good, thereby minimising transport costs.

In those days, Sinfin Lane truly was a lane, a twisting muddy cart track, with branches off to various farms.

The opposite side of the lane from the Normanton Barracks was bordered by a steep, tree-grown bank which continued until about opposite the entrance into the works, where there was a small row of cottages on the site of what became F.W. Hampshires, famous for the manufacture of Zubes.

No buses ran right down the lane and there was only an infrequent service from the town to the barracks.

Beyond the works, a stream crossed the lane at a hump-back bridge and meandered off across what is now the golf course.

The first sod for the new works was cut and an entrance into the site was created beside a large oak tree, which soon had to be felled.

There was also some early trading between the blossoming new works and Richardson’s, the tannery by the railway bridge, whose old brick kilns site were brought into use to store the stream of machines which were constantly arriving, many of which were purchased second-hand at First World War disposal sales.

Incidentally, the bricks for Normanton Barracks, built some 50 years earlier, were made at the old brick works and the nearby clay pits were reputed to be 80ft deep.

The first building on the site was a corrugated iron hut, with a floor made of discarded railway sleepers, which was soon populated by rats.

There was no sanitation, heating, washing or drinking facilities. There was one telephone and the only service was provided by a “mashing” lad, who boiled the water on a brazier and was required to provide a constant supply of tea!

In the lane, there were often queues of up to several hundred men, all waiting patiently in the hope of obtaining a casual labouring job.

Mail was delivered once a day by a postman who always made the works his last port of call, after covering Barrow, Arleston and Stenson.

When challenged about his route, he was aghast and said this was the route he had followed all his life, and his father before him, and he was not changing his ways.

A key requirement of the specification for the workshop designer, Mr A.W. Farnsworth, was that he should maximise the use of natural light.

Previously, this had always presented problems, since such buildings tended to be hot in summer and cold in winter and it was never easy to keep the glazing clean.

The features he adopted claimed to have overcome these difficulties. Additionally, the basic design of the steel structure for both the machine shop and the foundry had to be the same.

Foundry work was a key feature in the construction of mechanical stokers and similar devices which were the initial products.

Provision of a foundry was considered essential to a successful business.

Two 15-ton and one six-ton cupola for producing cast iron were used and large storage areas were allocated for all the required raw materials.

The 15-ton cupolas were to be among the largest in the country at that time.

The initial build saw the construction of the machine shop, a foundry, a pattern shop and a small office unit, including a drawing office.

A separate boiler house for heating and transformer/switchgear connected to power supplied by Derby Corporation were also included.

The internal roadways were surfaced only with rolled ash.

The works was connected via railway sidings to the LMS railway, while the lines ran directly into the shops to facilitate loading.

The machine shop was 226ft long by 150ft wide, while the foundry was longer, at 262ft, but with the same width.

Each of the buildings had one central bay with a 60ft span and side bays with spans of 45ft, all of which were 32ft to the eaves.

The machine shop was said to provide 33,500sq ft of working area, while the glazed wall area was bigger, at 34,100sq ft, although there was no glazing in the lower 6ft, to minimize the risk of glass breakages and to facilitate installation of machines, benches and other equipment.

There were large lanterns in the apex of each bay, each fitted with multiple swinging sashes, which could be opened or closed from ground level.

In addition, numerous opening hoppers were fitted in the side walls to help control ventilation. Rainwater from the roof was taken down inside the main building supports and then fed directly into the site drains and there were walkways in the roof provided so the glass could be cleaned – very occasionally one suspects!

Just to the north of the foundry was the large pattern shop and store where wooden shapes for all the many castings, both large and small, were carefully produced by skilled craftsmen, who had to work with special rulers which allowed for the shrinkage which took place when the molten iron cooled.

Two electric-powered travelling cranes were installed in all bays and there were numerous swinging hand-powered cranes provided to quickly free the main cranes.

Handling outside was by two steam-powered mobile cranes, which ran on the rail tracks, and they could be driven directly into the shops.

Heating for the site was by four, low-pressure steam boilers and it was claimed that a temperature of 60F was maintained when the outside temperature was freezing.

All the shops were illuminated by electric lighting, the main bays having 1000 watt gas-filled lamps.

By the end of 1923, International Combustion Ltd’s new factory, on Sinfin Lane, Derby, had been established. In those early years, the factory was very focused on the production of castings from its new foundry.

The first castings were actually made on October 2, 1922, something commemorated by the production of a number of special memorial plaques. A new era was dawning. In the period between 1923-28, major business changes took place to the original Underfeed Stoker Company, which became International Combustion Ltd, and the Vickers company in Barrow-in-Furness which was closely associated with the production and combustion of powdered coal. They merged to from one company under the ICL name.

A big team of workers were to be transferred to Derby from Barrow and major expansion was urgently needed to accommodate these newcomers. The early workshops and offices, which had only occupied a narrow strip at the north end of the site, expanded to cover more than 20 acres, with the balance of the site still preserved as meadow land.

The office and drawing capabilities more than doubled in size and there was room for 60 draughtsmen and tracers to carry out both general and working drawings. This effort was supplemented by additional drawing and design capability in the firm’s London office, where all proposals and estimates were prepared.

The machine shop, originally 150ft wide by 226ft long, was extended to a new length of almost 500ft. Seven new bays were added, similar to the originals except that the opening fan lights in the roof lanterns were replaced by louvres. The centre bay was served by a 15-ton and two 5-ton travelling cranes, plus numerous 1-ton jib cranes. The southern end of the shop was set aside to be used primarily as an erecting shop for the various machines being produced.

Following the completion of the new building, all the heavy machines were moved into the centre bay, while the lighter ones were sited in the two outer ones. Most of the machines were driven by belting from overhead line shafting, powered by 20HP electric motors. A large lathe turned the steel shafts used in the chaingrate stokers, which were up to 26ft long and 10ins in diameter.

Chaingrate stokers moved coal into the furnace of steam boilers, carried on top of hundreds of small castings, tied together with metal rods to form a continuous rotating loop through and under the furnace – they could be huge.

The foundry was also increased in size by just under 40 per cent. The cupolas for the production of cast iron were all located in the centre of the north side of building, with spouts for the molten metal leading directly into the shop.

These had a capacity of 12 tons of iron per hour and typically 150 tons per week was being produced at that time, an increase of about 50 per cent on previous capacity. Initially, there was no form of mechanisation and everything was done by hand, resulting in a large labour force.

The sand was prepared in the shop and castings ranged in size from a few pounds to up to 14 tons in weight. A small non-ferrous foundry was built on the northern end to supply all the bushes, bearings etc required for the various machines being built.

A totally new shop was also built in 1928 to supply the structural work associated with the Lopulco system of powdered-fuel boilers, which included a great variety of plating and girder work, hoppers, cyclones, fuel pipes, boiler tubes etc. The building was 190ft wide and 262ft long, with four bays, three being 45ft wide and one 60ft. It was similar in construction to the machine shop and foundry, with cranes between two and 5-ton capacity.

The shop was well equipped with shearing, punching, plate and angle bending machines, together with many radial drills. There was also an early automatic welding machine in the shop, used to produce the welded fin tubes required for the powdered-fuel boilers.

Both acetylene and electric arc welding were generally used in the shops, with the former being eventually phased out. Bare wire welding was still used for a while but coated electrodes soon took precedence. Managers of note in the shop were Ted Pearson (always known as “Peeo”), who came from Barrow. He was succeeded by Bill Kellie.

To the east of the plate shop, a new 6-ton Craven travelling gantry crane was built, working in the open air. It covered an area of 250ft by 600ft and greatly expanded the capability to build large plating assemblies, although at times working conditions for the workers were very harsh.

An entirely new department was also set up just beyond the foundry as a test house, or demonstration plant. It was equipped with several sets of full-sized coal-pulverising machines and was used to show customers the benefits of the various devices marketed.

The new buildings provided the general manager and works director Mr R. Greenwood with a spacious new office, which had windows overlooking much of the works. A canteen, capable of seating some 700 workmen, with a separate area for staff, was also provided and it was then a works’ rule that any food brought in by workers must be left in the canteen area before they started work. No food was permitted to be eaten in the shops.

In addition, a licensed clubroom, with billiard tables and other games, was also included; this acted as the headquarters for the various sports activities the works encouraged such as football, cricket, fishing, bowls etc. Jobs were few and far between in the early 1930s and money was scarce.

Most people walked to work, while a lucky few had bikes. Only the manager had a very small car. The firm had just one vehicle – a light Ford pick-up type truck painted in what became known for years as “combustion red”. Workers sat in the back of the truck, on boxes, and often got snow-balled in the winter months!

The same truck was also used to collect visitors to bring them to the works from the railway station in Midland Road. There were about 1,000 employees in the works at this time, with the hours of the main works being 7.55am to 5.30pm, for five days and a further half day, while the foundry operated from 7.30am to 6pm but for five days only.

There was one week’s holiday a year, plus bank holidays. ICL continued to prosper under changing ownership and became a world renowned name for the production of power boilers, milling plant and other similar equipment. It worked especially hard supplying military equipment during the Second World War and, afterwards, built hundreds of boilers, large and small, across the world.

The company also provided much specialist equipment for nuclear power plants and became the workplace for a large workforce of up 2,000, including many generations of Derby people. The company enjoyed very long periods without industrial relations problems, quite a success when there were also up to 1,200 men employed on short term contracts erecting the plant on site.

Purchased by Rolls-Royce during the late 1990s, ICL became mainly involved in the fabrication of co-generation power plant, to other companies’ designs, by the provision of the waste heat boilers heated by the pass-out gases from gas turbines. Although lucrative, this plant was not to be compared with the glory days of the large coal-fired boilers.

A change of policy by Rolls-Royce led to a reduction in its exposure to the power industry, thereby reducing ICL to little more than a fabrication shop. Much of the site has now been cleared and, with the company name along with the design expertise having been sold off, what remains today in Sinfin Lane is just a shadow of its former self.