Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 21578 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| PALMERS HEBBURN | 1949 | 1949-01-01 |
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Details
Original Format: 16mm Colour: Black & White Sound: Sound Duration: 21 mins 18 secs Credits: Organisations: Palmers Hebburn Co Ltd, Individuals: Alvar Liddell Genre: Sponsored Subject: Working Life Ships Industry |
| Summary A promotional film made for Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd highlighting the various products and services offered by the company. The first part of the film shows their constructional engineering works at Hebburn and steel frames under construction for a building. The second part of the film documents the ship repair and construction yards at Jarrow including the construction of a new cargo ship, the ‘Afghanistan’. |
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Description
A promotional film made for Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd highlighting the various products and services offered by the company. The first part of the film shows their constructional engineering works at Hebburn and steel frames under construction for a building. The second part of the film documents the ship repair and construction yards at Jarrow including the construction of a new cargo ship, the ‘Afghanistan’.
Title: “Palmers Hebburn”
The film begins with aerial photographs of the shipyard at...
A promotional film made for Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd highlighting the various products and services offered by the company. The first part of the film shows their constructional engineering works at Hebburn and steel frames under construction for a building. The second part of the film documents the ship repair and construction yards at Jarrow including the construction of a new cargo ship, the ‘Afghanistan’.
Title: “Palmers Hebburn”
The film begins with aerial photographs of the shipyard at Jarrow with a number of ships in dry dock.
Exterior view of a modern office building with sign for ‘Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd’.
The iron gates hold a sign for ‘Palmers Hebburn’. The right-hand gate swings open.
Title: Constructional Engineering
General view of men at work inside a drawing office. Men lay out the foundation of metal frames on a concrete floor inside the engineering works.
Outside in the yard, large sections of steel girder lay on the ground. A man in the foreground hammers indentures in one of the sections of girder while a large crane moves sections around the yard.
Inside a large factory workshop men use acetylene torches to cut sections of steel girder. A large tank is under construction. A man uses a machine to bend a section of metal sheet into shape.
Outside a crane is built onto a long gantry that crosses the whole yard. All around are large sections of steel girder.
A lorry drives past and out of the yard carrying sections of metal girder. The livery along the side of the lorry reads ‘Steel Works Palmers Hebburn Co. Ltd’. A train passes carrying a large metal frame.
A steel frame has been constructed as part of a new building extension. Inside another building, bricks have been built up around the frame.
A crane moves a section of framing into position for another building as men help to maneuver sections into place.
The film cuts back to the fabrication shop and a man putting another sheet of metal through the bending machine. Standing nearby, two men use hammers to shape a piece of flat metal held by a third man. Two men move a ship's funnel and stand it next to a number of other funnels. General views of men working on sections of rounded metal with acetylene torches and a hammering machine.
Title: Galvanizing and Pickling
Inside another part of the factory, sections of sheet metal, frames and tubing are lowered into a vat of protective zinc. Men use poles to move the liquid around and to remove excess material. The galvanized metal products are wheeled outside to be placed beside other finished metal sections.
Title: Ship Repairs and Ship Surgery
General views of the Palmers Dry Dock repair yards at Jarrow. A number of boats are moored along a quayside, and in dry dock, including a Royal Naval vessel.
On board a ship, men work on the deck using a pneumatic riveter and acetylene torches.
Inside a woodwork shop, carpenters work to construct wooden items for a ship. By their workbenches are a number of round tables and chairs. In another section of the workshop, a man polishes a table while next to him other men polish cabinets and other tables for ship interiors.
General views of the ‘Plumbers Shop’, ‘Fitting Shop’ and ‘Electrical Ship’. A group of men pose for the camera outside the canteen.
A trolley of linked anchor chairs comes out of a furnace.
General view showing the exterior of a modern office building. Inside men work on drawing and plans.
A series of photographs follow showing an aircraft carrier, cargo ships and passenger liners.
Thick smoke comes from the funnels of both cargo ships and tugboats on the River Tyne. Along a quayside men pull on ropes to bring the ‘Brisbane Star’ alongside.
A photograph shows a ship partially under construction.
In an empty berth men work to position sections of metal frame along the keel of a new ship. There are views of the ship under construction with men working on both the decking and frame as sections of steel plate are lowered into position. A view of the stern identifies the vessel as the ‘Afghanistan’.
With the ship now complete, paddle tug boats move the ship away from the quayside. General views of the ship at sea and a man in naval uniform looking out to sea.
The film ends with workmen come down a gangplank of a ship and out of the yard through a set of iron gates.
Title: The End
Context
Sponsored by Palmers (Hebburn), founded in the nineteenth century as Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited but owned in the 40s by Vickers-Armstrong, this film showcases the company’s constructional engineering works at Hebburn, where steel components were just as likely to end up in cinemas and theaters as in ships, as well as the ship repair and construction yards at Jarrow.
World War Two restricted industrial filmmaking as factual film production was co-opted into working on state...
Sponsored by Palmers (Hebburn), founded in the nineteenth century as Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company Limited but owned in the 40s by Vickers-Armstrong, this film showcases the company’s constructional engineering works at Hebburn, where steel components were just as likely to end up in cinemas and theaters as in ships, as well as the ship repair and construction yards at Jarrow.
World War Two restricted industrial filmmaking as factual film production was co-opted into working on state propaganda, training and public information. This scene proved a fertile foundation for the post war boom in industrial filmmaking with its range of functions, from public relations to sales, industrial relations and recruitment. This late 1940s production also shows the influence of early cinema and the ‘factory gate’ actuality genre in its ending sequence, the camera operator here capturing as many homeward-bound workers on film as possible. This technique was usually motivated by the commercial interests of commissioners. However, in this case Vickers-Armstrong's aim may have included an element of industrial relations. To accompany the 'factory gate' scene in this film the commentator recites an exceedingly long list of workers’ crafts (each trade represented by different unions) and also emphasises Palmers’ tradition and longevity through their employment of generations of families in the area. Ironic when considering the lack of job security and corrosive industrial relations encountered throughout the history of shipbuilding in Britain, and the hardship of the Depression era in both Hebburn and Jarrow. It’s no surprise that veteran announcer of the BBC, Alvar Lidell, who came to national prominence reading the wartime news, was selected to lend this corporate promotional documentary its authoritative edge. Back in the 1930s, writer Compton Mackenzie (Whisky Galore) deplored the “finicking, suburban, synthetic, plus-fours gentility” of the Corporation’s rigid presentation style, but announcers such as Lidell with their detached, precisely-enunciated tones, were still frequently the ideal for post war industrial films by the likes of ICI on Teesside or on commissioned promotions for shipyards. Tord Alvar Quan Lidell (known as Alvar Lidell or Alvar Liddell) started his professional life as chief announcer for BBC Birmingham but the following year, he was transferred to London. In 1937 he was appointed deputy chief announcer; he remained in this position until 1946 when he was promoted to chief announcer for a BBC Third Programme broadcast between 1946 and 1967. When BBC’s news service was reorganised in 1952, Lidell returned to his former job as a newsreader however, he also dabbled in a little bit of television work. His career came to an end in 1969 when he retired at the age of sixty-one. Five years prior to his retirement, Lidell was awarded an MBE. During his career, he made some historic broadcasts, such as the announcement of Edward VIII’s abdication in December 1936, and he read the ultimatum for Germany as well as introducing Neville Chamberlain when he made his national announcement that Britain was at war with Germany. This lead to Lidell’s distinct voice becoming closely associated with news reading. Due to enemy propaganda, the BBC started to announce the name of the newsreaders – “Here is the news, and this is Alvar Lidell reading it" – where previously speakers remained anonymous. Many recordings of Lidell’s news bulletins have been featured in films set in Britain during World War Two: an example is Battle of Britain (1969). Palmer’s original company was founded in 1852 (although the film commentary states 1851) by local industrialist Charles Mark Palmer and his brother, George Robert Palmer, in Jarrow, County Durham. Palmer was a Liberal MP and colliery owner who originally entered shipping to support the transport of coal from his County Durham mines. Though Jarrow was the company’s main base, they also operated at Hebburn and Willington Quay, on the River Tyne. As well as producing ships, the company manufactured its own metals, including steel, and its products such as Reed water tube boilers and marine steam engines. In 1910, the company’s Chairman – Christopher Furness, 1st Baron Furness – acquired a lease over a graving dock at Hebburn from Robert Stephenson and Company in order to expand the business. Operations ran smoothly for the company until 1929 when the Great Depression struck, almost destroying the shipbuilding industry that was only truly revived due to World War II. Due to this, Palmers posted a loss of £88,867 in 1931 (equivalent to £5,931,000 in 2018), which led to them receiving a moratorium from their creditors in order to extend repayments. However, the company was unable to survive. The steelworks closed in 1931. In 1933 Palmers Hebburn shipyard closed and was acquired by National Shipbuilders Security Ltd. In 1935 the site was demolished, though the 715 feet dry dock was taken over by Vickers-Armstrong and continued in use as Palmers Hebburn Ltd. for ship repair until 1973, when it was acquired by Swan Hunter. For an extraordinary record of Hebburn and Jarrow locals at the brink of the Great Depression, many of the men no doubt Palmers shipyard workers, see the films Opening of the St. Aloysius Infant School, Hebburn and Jarrow Carnival preserved at North East Film Archive. Both processions took place just a few years before the sharp decline in orders led to Palmers’ bankruptcy and the Hebburn works was taken over by National Shipbuilders Securities Ltd (NSS), a government company which acquired redundant yards. During the early 19th century, Jarrow’s main industry was coal. However, that changed in 1851 with the establishment of the shipyards owned by Palmers on the banks of the River Tyne. The company was central to the town’s economy due to the high numbers also employed in other businesses that supported Palmers, the largest shipbuilder in the world in the latter half of the nineteenth century. By the early 1900s Palmers' employed 10,000 workers and turned Jarrow from a colliery village into a boom town of 40,000. For seven years the firm had the highest output of ships in Britain. Its community influence earned Jarrow the nickname ‘Palmer’s Town’. Its downfall was catastrophic and ultimately sparked the Jarrow march. The town will for ever be associated with the Jarrow Crusade of 1936, when 200 local men marched 300 miles to London to petition the British government in protest against unemployment. Around 70 percent of the local workforce were unemployed by early 1933. The march, supported by the borough council, achieved a legendary status that the many hunger marches organised by the more radical National Unemployed Workers' Movement (set up in 1921 by members of the Communist Party of Great Britain) had not. The Labour Party and Trades Union Congress (TUC) feared that they would be associated with the marches so they stood aloof from it. However, for the post-war party leadership in 1936, The Labour Party adopted the march to use as a metaphor for “governmental callousness and working-class fortitude”. Looking back, historians have recognised the Jarrow March to be a defining event of the 1930s. On the fiftieth and seventy-fifth anniversaries of the March, “the spirit of Jarrow” is evoked as re-enactments take place to celebrate the event and for their campaigns against unemployment. References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsored_film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvar_Lidell https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Palmers_Shipbuilding_and_Iron_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmers_Shipbuilding_and_Iron_Company http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/PalmerDD.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarrow_March https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/100-voices/radio-reinvented/the-network-voice https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/exploring-history-shipbuilding-film http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1084507/index.html http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/964488/index.html |
