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training school, which was established by Miss A. G. Shaw, chief supervisor
of women from 1933. Here the girls were taught the correct operational
movements and the use of tools and machines before they started work
in the shops. A preliminary general training period enabled them
to be allocated to tasks suited to their special abilities; then followed
the correct methods of work and movement and their application to
the particular job.
 Throughout
this work the principles of' motion study' were used. Ever since
the 1914-18 war, time study had been an important activity of the
process and rate department, where as early as 1920 W. Symes was
pointing out that the object was not so much to speed the worker
as to cut out useless work. Motion study carried this idea a stage
further. Its aim was to increase the efficiency of the necessary
movements and to eliminate all others: thus the work could be done
with the least effort and inconvenience, that is to say in the most
efficient way possible, and output would be increased and fatigue
lessened.
In
1930 a separate motion study section was set up under Miss Shaw
(who was later appointed motion study consultant for the A.E.I.
Group). Attention was directed to detail improvements of method
in small assembly operations, and an active policy of general education
was begun, particularly for the supervisory staff in the shops.
Subsequently engineers from various departments were given fulltime courses of training, and schools were established for training
operators in motion study methods in general.
During
1929-30 the Company lost three of its oldest servants: John Cliffe,
H. T. Hunt and John Courtney of the ambulance room, fire brigade
and watching staff respectively. Their combined service totalled
seventy-five years. Cliffe had in 1926 received the Vickers Gold
Medal for general efficiency in first aid, and Hunt as chief officer
had made the fire brigade one of the best in any works in the country,
winning the Manchester and District Championship Cup over twenty
other teams. In 1937 another well-known character left the scene,
Ben Spiers, who had served the Company since 1900 and was foreman
of 'B machine' for thirty-three years.
WELFARE AND RECREATION
About 1928 a well-known Stretfbrd doctor, Joseph Robinson, who was
also a qualified mechanical engineer, began to be called in for
advice on first-aid treatment, particularly for foundry burns, scalds,
and sepsis. It was not long before he was attending regularly to
supervise the use of artificial sunlight on selected women, and
to examine new apprentices and those who were going to tropical
climates, giving the necessary inoculations and vaccinations. Qualified
first-aid attendants were
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