January - February 2014
MODERN QUARRYING
23
In 1940 the headquarters, which
by then had moved to London,
were evacuated to the relative
safety of Tintagel, Cornwall. It
was noted at the time that it was
not easy to produce a journal
from an air-raid shelter.
Organising exhibitions was as traumatic then
as it is today. All the arrangements had been care-
fully planned by Simon McPherson, exhibition
manager; Thomas Lant quarry owner, and Oswald
Bond, the Secretary of the Trade Members’Section.
Unfortunately, two days before the show was due
to open it rained heavily and the field became
waterlogged. This prevented vehicle movement on
the site and 42 wagons loaded with heavy machin-
ery were held up in the local station yard waiting
for the ground to dry out. However, the intrepid
Thomas Lant came to the rescue and built a road
across the field in record time so that the exhibi-
tion could go ahead. The event was adjudged to be
a great success and three subsequent exhibitions
were held before it was merged into the British
Industries Fair in 1931.
The Institute was also largely responsible for
the idea of organised quarry visits. In 1917 it was
very rare in the UK for a manager or proprietor to be
invited to look round a quarry of a near neighbour,
but ten years later such visits were commonplace
and a regular feature of Institute programmes. The
first quarry visit organised in conjunction with a
conference was in 1922 when Leicester was the
venue. Parties were taken to look round the local
granite quarries at Mountsorrel and Enderby and
also the engineering works of Goodwin Barsby Ltd.
The year 1922 also heralded the first meeting
of the Council, or Executive Council as it was then
called, at the Raven Hotel, Shrewsbury, England,
under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Maybury. By
this time the dual role of being editor of the journal
and Honorary Secretary of the Institute was prov-
ing to be a heavy burden on Simon McPherson and
at the 1922 AGM he tendered his resignation as
Honorary Secretary. He was, however, persuaded
to stay on with the promise that a full-time sec-
retary would be employed to help him with the
administration. As he remained in this position for
a further 35 years, it is interesting to consider how
differently the Institute might have developed if his
resignation had been accepted.
During these early days the journal grew
quickly in size as it was attracting an increasing
volume of advertising. At the 1923 conference a
proposal was put to Council to form the Journal
into a limited company. A problem had arisen
because advertisers were slow in paying their bills
and a large amount of money was owed. Thus, as
liability was unlimited, in the event of the Journal
getting into financial difficulties the President
and Secretary would have been held person-
ally responsible for the debts. Consequently The
Quarry Managers Journal Ltd was formed in 1924
with the Institute as the major shareholder. The rest
of the shares were sold to provide some develop-
ment capital so that an office could be established
with Simon McPherson as a full-time employee.
Over the years the company published a number
of titles in addition to the Journal. These included
Good Roads, Cement Lime and Gravel, Stone Trades
Journal, Monumental Journal
(Commemorative Art)
and the
Directory of Quarries and Pits
.
In 1925, after a certain amount of protest,
the office was moved from Caernarvon to the
more central location of Birmingham. During this
year the Benevolent Fund was started with con-
tributions amounting to £7,00, and the first lady
member Mrs Anne Greaves was admitted into
membership.
The first move to develop a system of exami-
nations for the quarrying industry in the UK was
made in 1930. It was also proposed that the
Institute should assist in establishing and main-
taining a chair in quarrying at a university or col-
lege. This idea never got off the ground because,
apart from a lack of textbooks, the industry was not
prepared to give the necessary support. However,
the first seeds had been sown and the Education
Committee was established which was to have an
increasing influence on the future of the Institute.
The Membership Committee was formed six years
later. It had been suggested that, owing to the
keenness of the General Secretary to increase num-
bers, he was not always sufficiently rigorous in his
scrutiny of new applications.
INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTE FOCUS
