Shortround6
Major General
No 24 cottage Elswick gun works.
Why did the British airforce adopted highly similar Hurricane and Spitfire at the same time? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Nodeo-Franvier
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Its a weird small world!
I just love the organic and unpredictable way these threads creep.
A final thought for our non Brit compadres (and even those who suffer from altitude sickness venturing as far North as County Durham) - The denizens of Hartlepool are know to the rest of the UKs folk as 'Monkey-hangers' due to an apocryphal story involving a wrecked Napoleonic French ship and its most unfortunate mascot.... Monkey hanger - Wikipedia
Coincidentally or not, its also the building in which Dracula spent his first night on (in?) British soil
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
On the whole cottage industry issue. This is kind of in my wheelhouse so to speak and if you will forive me, I'll plunge into a little segue:
This term is often misunderstood. It derives from the high medieval period, originally. During this period in Central Europe and Italy there were hundreds of very independent towns with significant autonomy from feudal control - ranging from complete independence as a "city state", to nearly full independence as a "Free City". These were basically most of the Continental European towns with household names today - Florence, Milan, Bologna, Sienna, Venice, Ragusa (today Dubrovnik) ... Barcelona, Valencia... Strasbourg, Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Nuremberg... Berne, Zurich, Lucerne... Hamburg, Bremen, Stockholm, Visby... Lübeck, Danzig (today Gdansk), Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Buda (and Pest)... Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen. And dozens of others.
The little complex of buildings you see on the lower right in this 15th Century painting of Nuremberg is the Stromer paper mill, the first paper mill built north of the alps. It was placed outside of the city walls because it generated bad smells (like all paper mills) so they thought it was bad for the health of the citizenry. Nuremberg was a "Free Imperial City" at this time.
These places are where the Renaissance first started and spread, and the first proto-industrial revolution came along with that, starting in the late 13th C and peaking in the early 16th. They were very small communities by the standards of even the Victorian era - the largest had maybe 100,000 people, down to about 5-10,000 for the smaller ones. But they were all thriving centers in which new technology and industrialization first took off.
Originally industry was powered mainly by new improved types of water wheels, (windmills came into increasing prominence a bit later in some areas). Some of the key components of the Merlin engine and all internal combustion engines turned simple wheels into complex machines that drove industry. The cam shaft and cam slider for example, allowed the round and round motion of a water wheel (or windmill) to turn into the back and forth or up and down motion of a giant saw, a bellows, a giant trip hammer, a fulling mill, and so on. The toys of Archemedes and Heron of Alexandria were scaled up industrial machines.
This is a waterwheel powered blast furnace. Sawmills and bloomery forges like this were still being made well into the 19th century and even into the 20th in many places.
Most of these towns were originally organized around trade and a textile industry. Later this expanded into metals, mining and ore processing, shipbuilding, victuals like salted fish and beer, and a ost of other more specialized crafts. And mechanization meant rapid growth. One 13th Century 'overshot' water wheel could grind as much grain as 50 slaves had during the Roman Empire. In Rome those people might just go on the dole or be sent to a salt mine or something, in the medieval towns this meant basically 49 or 48 people are freed up and brewers and bakers guilds were established almost overnight. Once the sawmill was up and running, you immediately had a carpenters and joiners industry, and probably a shipyard. Catalan forge and Barcelona Hammer led to blacksmiths guilds which quickly split into various specialties - armorers, cutlers / swordsmiths, gunfounders, latteners, lock-smiths, bell founders, clockmakers and so on. One goldsmith got creative and made a new metal compound which he made into little individualized letters, combined these with an oil press and his name was Johannes Gutenberg.
All this meant an increased demand for raw materials and - (here's where 'cottage industry' comes into play) the towns had a very small work force - with increasing regional and even international markets. Some were trading all the way to China. So they organized the peasants in the hinterland around the town first for basic things like producing charcoal, bringing in lumber, growing grain and so on. But by the later 14th Century many towns were organizing the precursor stages of their major industries to be done in the hinterland. The most well know example of this, which was still being done in the 19th and 20th Centuries in some places, was carding and spinning and early stage textile processing, done in cottages of rural peasants.
This is Albrecht Dürer's 1494 watercolor of a wire pulling mill set up outside of his home town of Nuremberg. This is a 'cottage industry' facility.
But they quickly went beyond that and towns with military control over their hinterland started setting up little water mills all over the place for things like fulling cloth, processing dye, grinding grain, sawing logs into boards, smelting iron, forging steel, and processing metal. For example, they made nails and bolts and reinforcing brackets and so on. Sword blanks. This 15th Century Albrecht Dürer painting depicts a 'wire-pulling mill' - this is where metal is heated up in a forge, hot ingots are placed into a water wheel powered machine which extrudes wire through a draw plate. Goods like wire were moved at low expense back to the town mainly via rivers and canals. This is why so many medieval towns like Amsterdam, Venice, Bruges, Strasbourg etc. have all these internal canals linking them to the river (most older European towns are on rivers)
Many of the centers of metal production in particular during the medieval and Early Modern period were also (I think not entirely by accident) also industrial production centers during WW2. For example Augsburg, a textile and metal manufacturing center since the 14th Century, where they made a lot of the Bf 109s, and today I think BMWs. The name 'Messerschmitt' literally means 'cutler' or 'blade smith', and his family was from Frankfurt am Main which was another metalworking center. The Germans had shifted into modern industrialized production methods already in the 19th Century but still had 'cottage industries' with a lot of work done by subcontractors in small workshops, (many of which still trained workers according to some version of the old guild apprenticeship system). Same for places like Switzerland, Sweden, and Czechia. So I suspect when the Germans had to disperse some of their industries into smaller workshops so as to make them less vulnerable to bombing, these places and these old systems helped them do it.
IIRC in the 19th and 20th century in the US this 'cottage industry' thing was still done at least in the textile industry and probably many others even if more in the sense of contractors and subcontractors, which is what it already essentially meant even in say, 1400.
Of course, when it comes to something revolutionary like a Spitfire in the years leading up to WW2, the early versions are often 'bespoke'. They are almost like finely made flying sculptures. Gradually these are transitioned into something that can be made in a highly efficient manner on an assembly line, but that takes a while to work out.
This term is often misunderstood. It derives from the high medieval period, originally. During this period in Central Europe and Italy there were hundreds of very independent towns with significant autonomy from feudal control - ranging from complete independence as a "city state", to nearly full independence as a "Free City". These were basically most of the Continental European towns with household names today - Florence, Milan, Bologna, Sienna, Venice, Ragusa (today Dubrovnik) ... Barcelona, Valencia... Strasbourg, Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, Cologne, Nuremberg... Berne, Zurich, Lucerne... Hamburg, Bremen, Stockholm, Visby... Lübeck, Danzig (today Gdansk), Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Buda (and Pest)... Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Groningen. And dozens of others.
The little complex of buildings you see on the lower right in this 15th Century painting of Nuremberg is the Stromer paper mill, the first paper mill built north of the alps. It was placed outside of the city walls because it generated bad smells (like all paper mills) so they thought it was bad for the health of the citizenry. Nuremberg was a "Free Imperial City" at this time.
These places are where the Renaissance first started and spread, and the first proto-industrial revolution came along with that, starting in the late 13th C and peaking in the early 16th. They were very small communities by the standards of even the Victorian era - the largest had maybe 100,000 people, down to about 5-10,000 for the smaller ones. But they were all thriving centers in which new technology and industrialization first took off.
Originally industry was powered mainly by new improved types of water wheels, (windmills came into increasing prominence a bit later in some areas). Some of the key components of the Merlin engine and all internal combustion engines turned simple wheels into complex machines that drove industry. The cam shaft and cam slider for example, allowed the round and round motion of a water wheel (or windmill) to turn into the back and forth or up and down motion of a giant saw, a bellows, a giant trip hammer, a fulling mill, and so on. The toys of Archemedes and Heron of Alexandria were scaled up industrial machines.
This is a waterwheel powered blast furnace. Sawmills and bloomery forges like this were still being made well into the 19th century and even into the 20th in many places.
Most of these towns were originally organized around trade and a textile industry. Later this expanded into metals, mining and ore processing, shipbuilding, victuals like salted fish and beer, and a ost of other more specialized crafts. And mechanization meant rapid growth. One 13th Century 'overshot' water wheel could grind as much grain as 50 slaves had during the Roman Empire. In Rome those people might just go on the dole or be sent to a salt mine or something, in the medieval towns this meant basically 49 or 48 people are freed up and brewers and bakers guilds were established almost overnight. Once the sawmill was up and running, you immediately had a carpenters and joiners industry, and probably a shipyard. Catalan forge and Barcelona Hammer led to blacksmiths guilds which quickly split into various specialties - armorers, cutlers / swordsmiths, gunfounders, latteners, lock-smiths, bell founders, clockmakers and so on. One goldsmith got creative and made a new metal compound which he made into little individualized letters, combined these with an oil press and his name was Johannes Gutenberg.
All this meant an increased demand for raw materials and - (here's where 'cottage industry' comes into play) the towns had a very small work force - with increasing regional and even international markets. Some were trading all the way to China. So they organized the peasants in the hinterland around the town first for basic things like producing charcoal, bringing in lumber, growing grain and so on. But by the later 14th Century many towns were organizing the precursor stages of their major industries to be done in the hinterland. The most well know example of this, which was still being done in the 19th and 20th Centuries in some places, was carding and spinning and early stage textile processing, done in cottages of rural peasants.
This is Albrecht Dürer's 1494 watercolor of a wire pulling mill set up outside of his home town of Nuremberg. This is a 'cottage industry' facility.
But they quickly went beyond that and towns with military control over their hinterland started setting up little water mills all over the place for things like fulling cloth, processing dye, grinding grain, sawing logs into boards, smelting iron, forging steel, and processing metal. For example, they made nails and bolts and reinforcing brackets and so on. Sword blanks. This 15th Century Albrecht Dürer painting depicts a 'wire-pulling mill' - this is where metal is heated up in a forge, hot ingots are placed into a water wheel powered machine which extrudes wire through a draw plate. Goods like wire were moved at low expense back to the town mainly via rivers and canals. This is why so many medieval towns like Amsterdam, Venice, Bruges, Strasbourg etc. have all these internal canals linking them to the river (most older European towns are on rivers)
Many of the centers of metal production in particular during the medieval and Early Modern period were also (I think not entirely by accident) also industrial production centers during WW2. For example Augsburg, a textile and metal manufacturing center since the 14th Century, where they made a lot of the Bf 109s, and today I think BMWs. The name 'Messerschmitt' literally means 'cutler' or 'blade smith', and his family was from Frankfurt am Main which was another metalworking center. The Germans had shifted into modern industrialized production methods already in the 19th Century but still had 'cottage industries' with a lot of work done by subcontractors in small workshops, (many of which still trained workers according to some version of the old guild apprenticeship system). Same for places like Switzerland, Sweden, and Czechia. So I suspect when the Germans had to disperse some of their industries into smaller workshops so as to make them less vulnerable to bombing, these places and these old systems helped them do it.
IIRC in the 19th and 20th century in the US this 'cottage industry' thing was still done at least in the textile industry and probably many others even if more in the sense of contractors and subcontractors, which is what it already essentially meant even in say, 1400.
Of course, when it comes to something revolutionary like a Spitfire in the years leading up to WW2, the early versions are often 'bespoke'. They are almost like finely made flying sculptures. Gradually these are transitioned into something that can be made in a highly efficient manner on an assembly line, but that takes a while to work out.
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
Damn! That is a BUTCH looking picture
yulzari
Tech Sergeant
A one time colleague who worked in Japan in the 1960s and 70s observed that every huge high tech Japanese factory was supported by a plethora of surrounding family run cottage businesses.
yulzari
Tech Sergeant
Actually they made and flew four of them. All hail the Short Sperrin.
Short Sperrin - Wikipedia
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
As recently as the mid 1990s i knew a guy in Southern California who worked in a small machine shop about the size of a 3 bedroom house, where they made fans for the engines of some kind of tank the US was exporting to Turkey.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,712
- May 13, 2018
Simplex motor bikes were built in a small shop in New Orleans. Although eclipsed by Japanese motorcycles in the early 60s, Simplex motor cycles were exported to Asia till the early 70s.
The history of the Hurricane (and Spitfire) must be read alongside the timeline of the gathering storm that lead to the war. In 1934 when it was first being discussed it was just the next generation of fighter, Hitler was in power which concerned some. Around the time it flew and getting put into production Benito was having his crisis in Abyssinia and Adolf was reoccupying the Rhineland making boys join the Hitler youth and passing anti Jewish legislation. Shortly after it started to be introduced Hitler was annexing Austria and invading Czechoslovakia.
On a different time line from around 1934, 100 Octane fuel went from being available only in small quantities for research at $30 a gallon to $2 per gallon and available in huge quantities meaning that power could be increased by other means than just getting a bigger engine.
On a different time line from around 1934, 100 Octane fuel went from being available only in small quantities for research at $30 a gallon to $2 per gallon and available in huge quantities meaning that power could be increased by other means than just getting a bigger engine.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
During the early 1980s and into the mid 90s there were dozens of machine shops, plating and heat treat shops as well as other various industrial shops throughout Southern California. I worked for Lockheed at the time and became a Supply QA Analysis. I would do quality audits, inspect parts and trouble shoot and quality issues. These were good times but it came to an end when the wall came down.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
I recall that Southern California had aerospace outfits all over the place from large corporate conpanies to small one shop vendors tucked away in industrial parks. There was even a large facility at the corner of Westminster Ave. and Seal Beach Blvd. where they manufactured lower stage boosters for the space program.
It all started to decline in the late 70's, early 80's.
Wild_Bill_Kelso
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,231
- Mar 18, 2022
It's too bad we seem almost incapable of harnessing such ingenuity and employing so much skilled labor for something other than war these days. I'm hoping they can get some platinum or something else good from 16 Psyche and then maybe we will enter a true space age soon. That might do it. Automation poses challenges of course but that has been a factor since the water wheel and before. It's all in what you decide to do with those extra 49 people...
Last edited:
Hi
Reference British "cottage industry", a few figures for the production of aircraft and engines pre-war:
Note the increased labour force that had to be trained to undertake the work required.
Also aircraft during the war, compared with Germany:
It should also be noted that Britain produced the most motor vehicles in Europe pre-war:
Although Germany produced the most machine tools in the world during that period (about 50%) much more than Britain, indeed more than Britain and the USA combined.
Equipment for the Army in the pre-war expansion schemes had a lower priority than RAF and Royal Navy needs, some equipment production figures for early war:
In the late 1930s and early war the British were not only expanding production in Britain but also ordering aircraft from the USA where they also had to pay to expand and equip US aircraft factories so they could produce the aircraft ordered (after Lend-Lease was introduce the US Government paid those costs back as the British paid for facilities were not being used in full for the purpose paid for).
Mike
Reference British "cottage industry", a few figures for the production of aircraft and engines pre-war:
Note the increased labour force that had to be trained to undertake the work required.
Also aircraft during the war, compared with Germany:
It should also be noted that Britain produced the most motor vehicles in Europe pre-war:
Although Germany produced the most machine tools in the world during that period (about 50%) much more than Britain, indeed more than Britain and the USA combined.
Equipment for the Army in the pre-war expansion schemes had a lower priority than RAF and Royal Navy needs, some equipment production figures for early war:
In the late 1930s and early war the British were not only expanding production in Britain but also ordering aircraft from the USA where they also had to pay to expand and equip US aircraft factories so they could produce the aircraft ordered (after Lend-Lease was introduce the US Government paid those costs back as the British paid for facilities were not being used in full for the purpose paid for).
Mike
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Of course, cottages with black crosses on them guaranteed they could outperform any other cottages, especially ones with those draggy RAF roundels!
Greg Boeser
2nd Lieutenant
Those roundels are to confuse the enemy into aiming at the least important parts of the aircraft.
You've never seen them painted on the engine cowling or cockpit, have you?
You've never seen them painted on the engine cowling or cockpit, have you?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Actually they made and flew four of them. All hail the Short Sperrin.
Short Sperrin - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
If my dog looked like that thing, I'd shave his ass and teach him to walk backwards.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Greg Boeser
2nd Lieutenant
Well, that's the navy for you.
