Interview about working at McCorquodales and life in Wolverton.
McCorquodales printing works was originally set up in Newton le Willows to do the printing for the Manchester and Liverpool Railway. G.C. recalls how by the 1930’s it had diversified not only into working for the railway but also for the government and insurance companies.
When G.C. joined the company in 1931 they were producing registered letters, pension books, postal orders, stamped stationery and postal drafts. In 1927 McC’s lost the pensions contract to Harrow Post Office stationery office and quite a lot of staff were sacked. The government’s security work however, remained at McC’s.
G.C. compares wages and hours worked between the printing and railway works. He notes that ‘they didn’t mix. …you couldn’t work for one and then work for the other.
Very little changed at McC’s; for example the manager started in 1912 and retired in 1951. Conditions compares favourably with the alternatives of domestic service or mill work. Mentions pensions and if you were sick how the Good Samaritans society would support hospitalisation.
Wolverton’s continuous ‘hooters’ are described ‘…one at half past five…. another one at ten to six, two toots, five to six there’d be three toots, six o’clock there’d be one toot… at ten to eight McCorquodales would blow a whistle, at five to eight… at eight o’clock they’d blow it again… quarter past eight the railway works would blow another… at ten to nine, toot, two toots… Then five to nine three toots, at nine o’clock one’.
Details of the various jobs G.C. did, how during the war, due to the shortage of men, he took over the running of three departments miscellaneous, binding and finishing. Refers to how envelopes were folded by hand (machinery came later) and (the women) ‘squatters’, ‘they used to fold these envelopes and to keep them pressed down… pop them under and sit on them’.
In 1936 the Works was short of young men so they took an ‘unprecedented step… all those who’d left within ten years offering to come up and apply for a job’. After the war the Works’ gradually declined, paralleling the general decline in the railways, and the number of employees has dropped steadily more or less ever since.
Also discusses the provision of education in Wolverton, the schools and the Science and Arts Institute. Refers to housing in Wolverton.
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