HISTORY OF ROSE BROTHERS (GAINSBOROUGH) LTD.

(NOTE: The following is intended as a brief history of the way in which the company developed over the years. A more detailed history of the development of packaging machinery and processes within the Baker Perkins group in general will be found in History of Baker Perkins in the Packaging Business)

INDEX


The Rose Brothers badge (the origin of Cadbury’s Roses Chocolate selection).

The Early Days

William Rose

William Rose's original wrapping machine, for which he took out a provisional patent in 1881, was for packs of tobacco, which had hitherto been weighed and wrapped by hand. This development was looked on as something of a miracle, tobacco being the first commodity to be mechanically wrapped for sale.


Rose’s provisional patent document dated 8th January 1881

William Rose was something of a boy prodigy – a riveter’s assistant at the age of eleven, he then became a barber’s assistant. It was during his time in the barber’s shop that William first saw the need to sell tobacco in packets. When a customer called for tobacco, the lather-boy had to dry his hands and run to the counter to weigh it out hand and wrap it and he wondered why it could not be sold in packets instead of loose. He resolved to make a Tobacco packaging machine.

Entirely self-taught – in his bedroom until late into the night and at weekends, he taught himself the rudiments of mechanical drawing, applied mechanics, mathematics and all the other skills required to develop complex mechanisms - he devised a machine that could quickly wrap half-ounces of loose tobacco into neat cylindrical packages. Trained engineers of later generations marvelled at his ambition and tenacity. It was said that he could hardly have started with a commodity more difficult to pack than tobacco. Sweet wrapping machines are much simpler mechanisms than the original tobacco packer with which William Rose “established the basic principles of automatic wrapping of later years”.

After becoming owner of the barber’s shop, he continued to work at his models – “with neither equipment or resources, only mechanical problems, financial troubles – and heaps of ridicule”. It took seven years of effort before he completed a machine that did what he wanted, and he took it to the old-established tobacco firm of Wills in Bristol. This proved a very wise move as in their joint names, a patent was taken out in 1885 (Wills later renounced all claims to the patent rights).


Where William Rose started	William Rose’s first lathe

ENTERING THE EXPORT MARKET

A chance visit to a London tobacconist by an American who was taken aback by the sight of a pile of Rose’s neatly wrapped packages, started William on a whirlwind development that involved Richard Harvey Wright (the American visitor), agreeing a contract which gave him exclusive right to sell, manufacture, lease on royalty and otherwise handle the Rose Tobacco Packer in the USA, Canada and Cuba. A clause in the contract required William to adapt his machine to produce rectangular packets for the American market and soon, William Rose had grown out of the premises formed from two bedrooms knocked into one and had fifty men on his payroll in a new factory built on the banks if the River Trent.

	"Express” Round Tobacco Packeting machine. (NOTE: One of the early round tobacco wrappers is in Lincoln Museum, having been moved in 2004 from the Gainsborough Heritage Buildings).
	“Reliance” Confectionery Packaging Machine
	“Rapide” Cube Wrapping machine

THE COMPANY IS FORMED

By 1905 he had sold machines to the value of over £36,000, his profits for the year topping £3,000. In 1906, William and his brother incorporated themselves as Rose Brothers (Gainsborough) Ltd. Within a few years, Rose began to apply the principle of this machine to the wrapping of other products. Rose Packaging machines were to be found in chocolate and confectionery, bakery, biscuit and tea factories.

He was able to develop a cigarette packer and was approached by John Mackintosh of Halifax with an experimental twist-wrapping machine for confectionery which he perfected and was then allowed to exploit (The early machines were for toffee sized by hand and fed into the cut and wrap machine). He set aside a special section of his works to manufacture cartons for Reckitt & Sons of Hull. This operation grew rapidly and William formed the National Folding Box Company with his son-in-law Hugh S. Ridley as manager.


The Factory in early days

Car Production

William Rose's interests did not end at packaging machines. In 1898, while in his thirties, he decided to manufacture his own cars rather then buy them. . His first car was so successful that personal friends became potential customers. Commercial production was started, but as a 1905 National catalogue pointed out:

“Progress was, however, slow as with the experience gained in manufacturing succeeding cars many alterations and experiments were found compulsory in order to deliver what the makers aimed to supply, viz., the perfect automobile; but it is pleasing to know that every car was an advance on the last”.

Most components, including the nuts and bolts, was made in his Gainsborough factory and by 1908, 37 Rose National cars had been sold. A three-cylinder engine became the standard power unit, although a four-cylinder model was introduced later. The 18-22 hp engine operated at 900 rpm and gave a top road speed of 40 miles per hour at 1,200 rpm. Petrol consumption was said to be 26 miles per gallon. Six different models were made, and the early wickerwork bodies were replaced by coachwork with real leather upholstery.

A Rose car won a hill climbing competition run by the Lincolnshire Automobile Club in September 1905 and this ability was mentioned in the 1905 catalogue as –

“The change-gears enable us to climb any hill on a turnpike road in the world with the full load and without exertion”.

It is understood that this car had caught fire the previous day in the fitting shop. A motoring paper reporting the accident stated –

“It was probably caused by one of the workmen having a lighted candle underneath the car”.

Rose cars were exported widely. One model was known to have been used on a touring holiday in France. Unfortunately it overheated in the hot continental sun and was abandoned until it could be towed by horse to Rouen and eventually shipped back to Hull. Rather human in their temperamental ways, these old cars provided an adventure and frustration to their owners that is somehow missing in present-day motoring.

The National was made in both the Landaulette and open styles. The price of a six-seater Landaulette, complete with electric lights, was £625, a not inconsiderable sum in those days. One of his creations, a 40hp model, raced at Brooklands, before being converted into a fire-engine, in which guise it remained in service at the Rose works until WW2. The engine - now in Lincoln Museum - had many interesting features not least the aluminium cylinder block of unusual toughness supporting individually cast cylinders. A dual ignition system – trembler coil for starting and magneto for running – was employed with two sparking plugs in each cylinder. An up-draught carburettor of Rose design fed the petrol mixture, the jet position being adjustable from the steering wheel. The clutch was a leather faced cone, and although it gave good, easy gear changes, its tendency to slip under load was apparently cured by a handful of sand.


Rose National Car	1905 Rose car

A number of the constituent companies of the Baker Perkins Group were caught up in the motor manufacturing hysteria that permeated the engineering industry at the beginning of the 20th century. A.M. Perkins &Sons had toyed with the application of steam power to road traction in the previous century but Rose Brothers (Gainsborough) Ltd, Job Day & Sons Ltd and Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd had all seriously attempted to produce viable motor vehicles but had met with varying levels of success. Even Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd had taken an agency for an American built car. It is understood that, perhaps the nearest that the Group came to becoming a car giant was - according to the 1945 diary of the father of Rose Brothers’ sales manager, W.L. Fitchett – when, “Sir Herbert Austin came to the Gainsborough works with a view to taking them over. If this had taken place, Gainsborough would have become the home of the Austin car”.

THE NORTHERN MANUFACTURING COMPANY IS FORMED

Because so many gears were needed for both his cars and wrapping machines, Rose decided to make them himself. A department was set up for gear cutting and this expanded far beyond his own needs and he began to supply gears to other firms. As a result the Northern Manufacturing Company was formed in September 1906.

By 1908, William Rose was getting very involved in the manufacture of confectionery machines and, very wisely as it turned out, decided to cease production of cars and concentrate on the expansion of his packaging machinery business.

The War Years

World War One

William Rose had a poor impression of those responsible for equipping warplanes in WW1. The Royal Flying Corps were dropping their bombs from the fuselage by guesswork and William had invented a bombsight to increase the chance of hitting the target. He submitted the invention to the authorities whose response was to ask if such gadgets were really necessary. The design was not taken up. It is said that an air crew looked at the bombsight during WW2 and declared it to be far ahead of one that the RAF had been using in 1939.

World War Two

Alfred Rose OBE

William Rose died in 1929 and Rose Brothers was left in the very safe hands of his son, Alfred who ran the company successfully for 28 years but very much in his own way and for his own benefit. Some of Alfred Rose's finest hours could be said to have come during the dark days of WW2. His father had earned a reputation for accepting orders for machines irrespective of how difficult they might be to execute, and with little worry whether or not they would earn a normal profit. He was much more concerned with retaining his highly skilled craftsmen and achieving high engineering standards and thus he was able to turn with confidence to the production of war materials.

A fuller account of the contribution made by Rose to the war effort can be found in Chapter 21 – "Equipping the Services" - in Augustus Muir's "History of Baker Perkins". Suffice it to say that the company's considerable energy and ingenuity was put towards developing pom-pom directors, gun sights, trench mortar and Stiffkey sights, breech loading mechanisms and many other items. However, it was in their swift reaction to problems brought to them by a continuous stream of RAF personnel who were made welcome at the Gainsborough factory, including Air Chief Marshal "Bomber" Harris, Guy Gibson and Leonard Cheshire, that they excelled. Over a thousand modified gun mountings were made for the rear turret of the Hampden bomber – which transformed its performance.

Hampden bomber

Tom Greatorex of the fitting shop at Gainsborough recalled these early mountings –

“The gun was mounted on a rail with pegs inserted in holes to give the gun five firing positions. This was superseded by the Mk 2 that worked on rollers but moved by hand to cover an arc of 180 degrees. Later a small motor was added to make the gun fully automatic”.

Another very useful item of equipment designed and produced by Rose Brothers was the oxygen economiser. Oxygen was stored under pressure in the aircraft in metal cylinders and when in use quite a lot went to waste, the only part used being that breathed in by the crew member. The economiser was a rectangular container containing about the amount of oxygen needed for one breath. It filled, then a valve closed off the supply and only opened after the crew member had emptied it by breathing in, via his oxygen mask.

THE ROSE TURRET

Sir Arthur Harris was quoted as saying – "Later in the war, Roses, that is Alfred Rose himself, Curtis the designer and Fred the foreman – were again to pull us out of the soup with a beautifully designed and made 0.5inch turret" – this was the famous "Rose Turret", an example of which can be seen at the Royal Aircraft Museum at Hendon. A slightly different version of the story suggests that Air Vice-Marshal Sir Edward Rice and Alfred Rose collaborated on the design of the new turret. “Despite a lack of official interest”, Rice went ahead and helped Rose with the winning design, the Air Ministry placing an initial production order for the turret in June 1943. Work had started on the design and development of the turret on late 1943/early 1944. Production began in 1944 after a few prototypes had been tested and modified, mainly to eliminate vibration. Ten turrets were produced by June 1944 after which production was steadily improved. Although over seven thousand Lancaster bombers were built during the war, most were equipped with Frazer-Nash hydraulically operated tail turrets, fitted with four .303 calibre machine guns. Only four hundred were fitted with Rose turrets. This might not seem many but it was a fantastic achievement in such a short time, especially by a firm that, prior to the war, had not been involved in this type of work. Rose Brothers developed a strong relationship with the personnel of RAF Hemswell (just east of Gainsborough and 14.5 miles north of Lincoln) and it was here that the Rose turret was fitted to the Lancasters of 150 Squadron, No 1 Group, Bomber Command, in November 1944.

It is claimed that a Lancaster fitted with a Rose Turret was the first to shoot down an armoured German night-fighter.

(NOTE: Some fine shots of the Rose Turret fitted to a Lancaster can be seen in the superb "Archive of War" film - "Night Bombers". This was filmed at RAF Hemswell in late 1943 and is one of the few records in colour of a complete mission over Germany).

	The men and women who built the Rose Turret. Photograph taken at Gainsborough on 6th March 1945.
	The Rose Turret fitted to a Lancaster bomber.

The turret contained twin mounted 0.5” Browning Automatic machine guns, three hundred and fifty rounds per gun, with an effective range of six hundred and fifty yards. The heavy guns were for daylight use, as the limited visibility at night made their longer range ineffective compared to the more rapid fire of the .303 Brownings. The heavy guns were for daylight use, as the limited visibility at night made their longer range ineffective compared to the more rapid fire of the .303 Brownings. It used a Barr & Stroud Mk IIIA reflector sight with a traverse of +/- 94 degrees, elevation 49 degrees and a depression of 59 degrees and allowed for a total firing time of 24 seconds, compared with the 130 seconds firing time for the four-gun Frazer-Nash turret). It was fully hydraulically operated, and therefore easily manoeuvrable, Should the plane be damaged and the order to bale out given, all the rear gunner had to do was to fall through the hole in which his gun manoeuvred. This in itself saved many lives. Ted Beswick of the heavy machine shop at Gainsborough flew in a Rose turret as rear gunner -

“It had more room than in other types and it was possible to wear a back type parachute and so bale out of the turret. It was, however, very cold due to the cut-away Perspex, which left the turret completely open. This made for better vision but it was necessary to wear four pairs of gloves. One also had to be careful when entering the turret not to catch one of the control rods with the right foot, causing turret rotation. The turret was controlled by grasping a control box with both hands (this was about four inches square and set at about eye level) and also carried the reflector sight and firing button. By moving the control to the left, the turret swung to the left, and so on. Ammunition was stored in side the rear of the turret in tanks. In other makes of rear turret, the ammunition was stored in the fuselage and fed via the bottom of the turret.

In front of the turret was another knob which could be used to rotate the turret, known as the search lever. It was used when searching for fighters, as this was less tiring than stretching up all the time operating both the guns and the turret. The turret could also be operated by hand if motors or hydraulics failed”.

Lancaster bomber

A key part of the Rose turret mechanism was the valve chest. This facilitated a rapid change in the direction that the guns pointed by instantly altering the flow of oil in the hydraulic system. The turret and guns were lined up instantly wherever the sights were pointed. The gun turrets were tested at the Rose factory and some of the men who worked on these guns also installed them in the aircraft.

The Rose turret was only used by Nos. 83, 101, 153 and 170 Squadrons of No. 1 Bomber Group from the middle of 1944 onwards. Frazer-Nash later developed the F.N.82 turret which was also fitted with twin 12.7 mm (0.50 in) Browning machine-guns and equipped the Lancaster Mk VII.

Letter to Alfred Rose from Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, dated 19th June 1945. The final part of the letter is particularly telling – “....what is easily the best turret to date. Furthermore it is the only turret from which gunners can escape, if they have to abandon the aircraft, with any real chance of getting away with it, and we have had several Rose turret occupants back as the sole survivors of crews....“.

It is believed that Rose also supplied hand-operated dorsal turret gun mountings for a small number of “special transport” (troop carrying) versions of the Armstrong Whitworth Albemarle medium bomber that were transferred to the Soviet Union in 1943/44.

ROSE BROTHERS AND THE DAMBUSTERS

Rose’s links with RAF Scampton were almost as close as with RAF Hemswell and Guy Gibson, Leonard Cheshire and others were frequent visitors to the Albion Works. Gainsborough also made parts for the Lancasters that carried out the Dam Buster raid. The story of this is told in length by Augustus Muir in his chapter on “Equipping the Services”. After the raid, Gainsborough was visited by Guy Gibson and a number of the aircrew, complete with their new medals.

(Of the 133 aircrew who went on the raid, 53 were killed and three bailed out to be made POWs. Of the surviving aircrew thirty-three were decorated at Buckingham Palace on 22 June, with Wing Commander Gibson awarded the Victoria Cross. In total there was one VC, five DSOs, ten DFCs and four bars, twelve DFMs and two CGMs).

CREATING SAXILBY AND A NAVIGATION INSTRUMENT

Augustus Muir also tells the remarkable story of how Alfred Rose responded to an unexpected request from the Air Ministry, the result of which was that, in a new ‘dispersed’ factory in the village of Saxilby the site for which was found, buildings erected, machinery put in, electricity, water supplies and drainage laid on and roads built, all within little more than 30 weeks – a new navigation instrument,an air position indicator that allowed navigators to read off their positioning degrees and minutes, described as “the most efficient type then in use”, was produced.

This device continued to be made at Saxilby after the war. Mrs Plummer, who had joined the company at its opening in April 1943, was responsible for the welfare of the well over 100 women who worked in the factory when it was on full production. Finding digs for them all in Saxilby was quite a task.

This illustration is of what is believed to be the type of instrument for which Saxilby was first set up to manufacture. Eric Foxley has kindly given permission to use this image from his website. We understand that the instrument now resides at Bletchley Park (of Enigma code-breaking fame).

This unit is from UK wartime aircraft, and computed an aircraft's latitude and longitude using an entirely mechanical (analogue) process, involving integration, sines and cosines. The current speed and direction were fed in on servo-motors on the right of this photograph. The speed was split mechanically into sine and cosine components for latitude and longitude changes, and integrated to give the current position. The longitude calculation also needed an inverse "cosine" component (longitude changes more quickly nearer the poles proportional to the cosine of the latitude). The mechanical process would, of course, have failed near the north or south poles.

Rose's involvement in weapons production was not confined to working with the RAF. The firm's work for the Admiralty had begun during the 're-armament period' of 1937 and continued unbroken until 1985. The largest war contract executed by Rose Brothers, requiring the erection and equipping of a separate workshop, was for STAAG - designed in 1941 - twin Bofors guns on a stabilised platform rotating through 360 degrees with a very high elevation and low depression. STAAG first came into service on Royal Navy ships in early 1942.

Post War Developments

NOTE: For the history of the development of the Rose Bearings business at Saxilby, see History of Rose Bearings, Saxilby

Alfred made sufficient money during WW2 to buy the 18th century gothic Fillingham Castle, in the village of Fillingham, not far from Gainsborough. Many of the skilled men working at Rose Brothers also spent time working on the Fillingham Estate.


Lunch Time in 1948	The Rose Sports Ground	The Sports Pavilion

THE PRODUCT LINE

Rose Brothers put on a ‘Crafts and Export’ Exhibition in the Drill Hall, Gainsborough in March 1948. It was aimed at showing the people of the town how the men and boys of the town were helping the country in its post-war crisis. Among the Rose products on show were:

	Razor Blade Cartoning Machine
	Rose F.W.T. Fold-wrap or Twist Machine
	The “Unique” Caramel Wrapping Machine
	“Premier” Twist Wrapping Machine
	Toffee Cutting & Twist Wrapping Machine
	Bread Wrapping and Slicing Combination
	Tea Packing Machine
	Caramel Cut & Wrap Machine
	Tobacco Packaging Machine

THE SKEGNESS FACTORY

A small factory was opened in Skegness, Lincolnshire in 1954 as an additional machining shop. The 10,000 square feet factory was built in 1906 to house a laundry and remained a laundry until Rose moved in. Two shifts were worked with 70 on the day shift and nearly 30 on the night shift. The factory made parts for the factory at Gainsborough as well as for the bearings factory at Saxilby.

ACQUISITION BY BAKER PERKINS

Rose Brothers became part of the Baker Perkins Group in 1961 after the death of Alfred Rose, William's son four years earlier. Alfred's sister, Mrs Hugh Ridley, had become managing director and Hugh Ridley was chairman.

The company had been managed almost completely by Alfred Rose himself and the Baker Perkins board decided that a managing director from the parent company must be appointed. R.H. Wilkins took on the task of replacing old working methods, reducing the waste of labour and of machine tool time, all of which had been left unchecked. He was ably assisted by Eric Cowell, an ex-Forgrove man, who was appointed assistant managing director. Eric Cowell introduced efficient progress systems, production scheduling, improved rate-fixing and methods engineering and bonus schemes.

Eric Cowell

The result was that output per productive worker of wrapping and packaging machines was more than doubled. The range of equipment produced was reduced and wage rates improved. Rose Brothers was the first company in the Baker Perkins Group to have tape-controlled drilling and boring machines.

Hugh Sandford Ridley, chairman of Rose Brothers, Northern manufacturing and Job Day & Sons, died in November 1964 at the age of 64. He was appointed director of Rose Brothers and manager of the national Folding Box Co. in 1921 and became chairman on the death of Alfred Rose. In 1961, he was prominently associated with the negotiations to merge with Baker Perkins.

1962 – THE 8-YEAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Following the acquisition, a major rationalisation and re-building of the Gainsborough plant was carried out. 1962 saw the start of an eight-year plan to transform the Gainsborough factory. A complete re-building and stream lining plan was formulated, designed to bring a logical flow through the factory from raw material to finished product. – without production being disrupted. Much of the modernisation was carried out using existing buildings but there was also a great deal of demolition work to be done:

1963: 4,500 square feet, two bay extension built to provide buffer area constructed and the Staag shop – 18,000 square feet, first erected in 1943 - re-clad to house large machine tools.

1964: 40-year old single boiler replaced by two new units.

1965: New combined 11,520 square feet foundry erected on the North Warren Road site, close to the company sports ground. This replaced the existing separate iron and brass foundries.

1966: New main machine shop constructed and the scattered machine tools housed under one roof. New premises found for the erecting shop and drawing office. A new ambulance room was established as was the new apprentice school in the grounds at Ropery Road.

1967: The old confectionery machinery erecting shop was demolished to make space for a new 36,284 square feet light machine shop, complete with a centralised work progress and allocation system. 200 machine tools were moved during the two-week works holiday – these had been deliberately dispersed around the site during the War to avoid the possibility of disruption from bombing. A two-storey canteen building began serving meals on the 6th February 1967, the old canteen was converted into a drawing office and an extension bay was added to the paint shops. The first half of the Trent works conversion was completed to form a self-contained erecting department.

1968: Trent works was completed and the heat treatment shop enlarged. The old machine shop was converted to house the packing and despatch departments.

1969: A complete system of roads and drains was laid, the remaining old buildings demolished and a new personnel and reception area built. 28,000 square feet of space was also converted to house the Job Day division from Leeds.


Demolishing the old buildings	Old core shop being converted into confectionery fitting/erecting shop	The new Foundry	Demolition, construction and completion of new canteen

When planning the new light machine shop it was realised that , in the old machine shops that the new building replaced, skilled men were spending far too much time collecting their own drawings, materials, jigs and tools. This was sheer waste that prevented the man earning himself bonus and the company from getting the fullest use from expensive machine tools. The answer was to bring the job to the man – the final solution being based on the electric light switch.

The centralised work progress and allocation system

Each of the 160 milling, boring and turning machines in the shop was equipped with a light switch with a corresponding light in the central control panel that was monitored by two ladies. On completion of a job, the machine operator switched on his light and the lady control panel operator automatically clocked him off that job and on to the next – that had already been delivered to his machine. Two allocators, sitting near to the control panel, took job cards from the progress departments and allocated them to the correct machines. Skilled machinists were kept busy cutting metal (and earning bonus) and machine tools earned their keep. This simple system delivered a 3.33% increase in production – the equivalent of five extra machinists – without making the machine operators work any faster.

This aerial shot of the Gainsborough site was provided by Andrew Birkitt and It is thought to have been taken in the 1960s.

Starting at the top of the picture, the big building with the silos is the old Townrows Mill site, now to be replaced by a Supermarket. The first part of the Rose site is marked by the long buildings with the white roof in the top centre of the picture. This was the new light machine shop and steel stores. The next building across - with the white front and the ventilation stacks on the roof - was the Staag Shop or heavy machining. This is the building that had the big "Baker Perkins - Rose Forgrove" sign on the front. The next, smaller building with the what looks like a water trough on the top, housed the old Northern Manufacturing Company and later became the gear cutting shop. The first building along the front with the flat roof was the old Nursing Station and offices and the long building behind that with the white roof was the first of the fitting shops.

The older buildings along the front - the three with the gabled fronts - are early parts of the factory. There were offices here with, it is thought, the boardroom etc, upstairs, The long-fronted building with all the windows was the old drawing office and the buildings behind were known as Trent Works and housed all the Fitting Shops. These buildings also housed the Paint Shop and Hardening Shop.

The big area in the front centre of the photograph was the company car park and the buildings to the right of this are the Aeromarine Division Buildings. Also in this area was is Drill Hall that housed the Exhibition put on by Rose Brothers just after the War.

THE FORMATION OF ROSE FORGROVE

When Rose Forgrove was formed on 1st January 1967, Rose Brothers became the Rose division, specialising in not only wrapping and packaging machinery but also in spherical bearings and ball joints. This latter activity took place in the factory bought during WW2 in Saxilby, a village near to Gainsborough. The manufacture of bearings and ball joints took the company into hundreds of new market areas – aviation, transport, and motor racing to name but a few (See also History of Rose Bearings, Saxilby).

Raymond Bailey, Rose Brothers’ technical director, retired in 1967. He began work in 1916 when the founder of the company, William Rose, was governing director and his working life was shared between the drawing office and fitting shops. Raymond Bailey became technical director just before Baker Perkins bought the company in 1961 and he and John Edis, Forgrove’s technical director were given the daunting task of rationalizing the product lines so that the old enemies no longer competed.

THE GAINSBOROUGH WORKS ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Gainsborough factory works advisory committee

1967 saw the first anniversary of the setting up of the Gainsborough works advisory committee. Composed of an equal number of representatives from supervisors and men, its purpose was to facilitate management to consult and seek advice of employees and to promote understanding of the company’s policies and programmes.

PRODUCT GROUPS

The Rose Division packaging/wrapping machines of 1970 looked very different from those of 1948. They did, however, perform similar functions with confectionery wrapping machines figuring prominently as they always did. The range of machines was split into Product Groups:

Product Group 1 – Confectionery.
Product Group 4 – Dairy and Ice cream.
Product Group 5 – Razor blade machinery.
Product Group 7 – Cartoning.
Product Group 8 – Tea and granular products.
Product Group 9 – Overwrapping

ROSE BROTHERS AND THE POST-WAR ARMAMENTS BUSINESS

Rose’s relationship with the armed forces that had started in 1936 when they were among a number of companies selected to take on work for the Admiralty had set the pattern for the Aeromarine section that, in the 60s and 70s, was engaged on the production of Seacat missile launchers for the Royal Navy and other navies around the world., also Tigercat missile launchers, a land-based version of Seacat, and twin 30mm anti-aircraft naval gun mountings.

The Seacat ship to air missile was one of the success stories of the aeromarine division of Rose, Gainsborough. The division made the launcher and control console and were responsible for much of the development work on the system. Work started on the missile in 1958 then being developed by Short Brothers & Harland, Belfast. Trials, after pre-production and prototype work, lasted for two years, following which, in 1962, the missile was accepted. First put into continuous service with the Royal navy, Seacat was later supplied to the navies of Sweden, Holland, West Germany, Chile, Brazil, New Zealand and Australia.


Seacat Missile	Tigercat ground to air missile

In 1973, Rose Forgrove received The Design Council Award for the R75 FWT confectionery wrapping machine. This was designed at Gainsborough by a team led by Reg Johnson. Reg had been with the company for 38 years and in the following year he was awarded the MBE – the second Gainsborough man to receive the award, Bill Collier having that honour in 1961 for design work carried out for the Ministry of Defence.

Open Day at Rose Brothers

1976 Open Day

The Gainsborough factory opened its doors to more than 3,500 people on 17th July 1976. It was a popular event with current employees and their families, former and retired employees and townspeople taking the opportunity to see wrapping machines in action and machine tools being operated.

Getting your feet wet

The Gainsborough factory had always been susceptible to flooding, the previous occasion, and many said the worst, being in 1947 when it was quite possible to row a small boat through the works. Despite it being only a few months since Gainsborough, along with the rest of the country, was suffering from drought, the River Trent again burst its banks on Sunday 27the February 1977. The works fire brigade worked from Sunday morning until the following Wednesday to pump water back into the river, preventing any damage to the factory. For those travelling to work from nearby villages found that a three mile journey was turned into a 70 mile detour.

The Skegness Factory

A new 28,000 square feet factory was built at Skegness in 1977 to replace the Church Road Rose Bearings factory and also the Victoria Road works that carried out machining work for the packaging side of the business. Costing £450,000 to build, the new factory contained an apprentice school, the first of its type in Skegness.


Opening of the Skegness factory in 1977

The foundry at Gainsborough, which also supplied the Leeds and Gateshead factories, was extended in February 1978 to become one of the largest in the area. A £130,000 machining centre was also installed at Gainsborough, part of a £300,000 investment in numerically-controlled machine tools on this site.


1985: The Skegness factory	Automatic machining at Skegness

The Skegness factory was extended by one and a half times its original size (from 28,000 to 70,000 square feet) in 1979. The workforce was expected to increase from 156 to 250. An integral part of Rose Forgrove's five-year expansion plan, total investment at Skegness was over £4 million.

During the recession of the early eighties, Rose Forgrove order taking generally continued at too low a level and hoped for defence contracts did not materialise. Skegness and Gainsborough had to take their share of the inevitable short time working followed by a 12% reduction in manpower in 1983.

The Rose Fire Brigade


Rose Brothers Fire Brigade – 1948	Rose Brothers Fire Brigade – 1971	Rose Brothers Fire Brigade - 1985

Mention was made earlier of the original Rose car that was converted into a fire engine for use on the Gainsborough site. An old "Green Goddess", purchased for £500, was later used. In 1985, the Lincolnshire County Fire Service presented the Gainsborough Works Volunteer Fire Brigade with a new engine by the on permanent loan. As with the Westwood Works Brigade, as well as acting as a first line fire fighting force on the works site, the part-time brigade were always ready to help out the County force when asked.

THE WITHDRAWAL FROM DEFENCE WORK

In 1985, Rose Forgrove decided to withdraw from defence work at the Gainsborough factory and out of the total workforce of 390, 45 were made redundant. The company also sold some surplus land and buildings, including its sports field and clubhouse – totalling some 16.5 acres. The manufacturing facilities at Gainsborough were re-organised as part of a plan to strengthen the company as the UK's largest manufacturer of packaging machines. The company retained the capability to produce the Sea Wolf missile launcher against the possibility of new orders being placed in the near future.

Low level of business in early 1986 forced Rose to announce 90 redundancies. The demand for castings also continued to decline and the foundry at Gainsborough was closed with the loss of 30 jobs. The workforce then stood at 310.

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

In August 1986 restructuring aimed at creating individual companies with responsibility to serve customers on an industry basis, the Rose division was split off from Rose Forgrove Ltd, and Baker Perkins BCS Ltd assumed responsibility for the supply of packaging equipment to the Biscuit, Candy, Snack and Beverage industries based at Gainsborough. The design and production of biscuit and snack packaging equipment, and some relevant personnel, were transferred from Leeds to Gainsborough.

APPRENTICE TRAINING AT GAINSBOROUGH

The training of apprentices at Gainsborough was taken as seriously as it was in the rest of the group. Prize giving ceremonies for the |Rose apprentices were often held at Leeds but, in 1969, prizes were awarded at Gainsborough by Sir Edmund Bacon.

Apprentice Prize giving – 1969

The Sports Club

The Gainsborough factory had a thriving Sports Club (early photographs can be seen above) and many sports were available with matches between individual departments and against other companies in the Baker Perkins group.

One well-established fixture was an annual bowls match between the Gainsborough factory and Baker Perkins, Peterborough:


1964 - Rose versus Forgrove sports event		1965 - Rose Versus Forgrove bowls match	Gainsborough 1984

Long Service presentations

As in the rest of the Baker Perkins group, Rose had its fair share of long-serving employees. This was recognised in yearly long service award ceremonies.


1965: Long Service awards	1968:Long service Awards	1969: Awards for 35 years service	1970: Long Service Awards	1975: Long Service Awards

The End

In October 1987 the closure of the Gainsborough factory was announced and the business was transferred to Rose Forgrove Ltd at Leeds.

This poem appeared in a local paper at the time of the closure of the Gainsborough factory.

In 1990, three years after the merger between Baker Perkins and APV, the Rose division was sold to AM Packaging and became AMP-Rose, Gainsborough.

NOW SEE:

History of Baker Perkins in the Packaging Business
History of Rose Forgrove
History of Rose Bearings, Saxilby
History of Northern Manufacturing Company
History of National Folding Box Company