MAKING LORRIES

We think of the USA as originators of mass production. It is said that the vast meat packaging industry in Chicago, in which carcasses were scientifically dismembered on moving lines of chains and hooks, inspired engineers to do the same operation in reverse with, in their case, small pieces of metal building up to a complete machine. Colt with his revolver is often cited as the first precision mass-producer. Some fifty years later, firms like Ford, Oldsmobile and Cadillac took the ideas further and on a larger scale.

However, before they did, spare a thought for British repetition engineers like Boulton and Watt plus all the steam heroes personified by John Fowler. At Hunslet, Leeds some 2000 men worked on the fifteen-acre Fowler site with overhead cranes to shift the heavy materials between wheel wrights, foundries, drop forgers and assembly positions.

Meanwhile, over in Leiston, Suffolk, Richard Garrett was also at work with a similar primarily agricultural business. To make portable steam engines, the Long Shop (today a museum) was built with a central hall with overhead cranes for assembly and two storey wings