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Kynoch's I M I 1950s Onwards

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ChrisM said:
The Beryllium plant at Witton was specially built to produce this material. Witton also produced a number of other exotic materials at that time, over and above titanium, including hafnium, niobium, vanadium and, especially, zirconium. I think that beryllium manufacture had its own particular problems and this is why special facilities had to be created. It is highly toxic, as Mike mentioned, and therefore hazardous to produce. I have a vague recollection that, in addition, it was an activity which was surrounded by a fair amount of secrecy, perhaps for national security reasons.

There is only the briefest of mentions of this activity in the two Kynoch company histories. And they don't include any images. In fact, in view of the (possible) degree of secrecy it may be that none were ever published. My own potted history of Kynoch/IMI (see link below) reminds me that it probably started in around 1958 but I have no idea how long it lasted. I have a feeling that it didn't continue long into the 1960s, but I may be wrong. It would be interesting to hear if any other ex-IMI employees have any information about this specialised, and rather mysterious, chapter in the Company's history.

I hope you can make some progress, mandys19. Please let us know if you do.

Chris
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During the building of the Beryllium Plant, the company at that time had its own builders and allied trades, the plumbers foreman paid a surprise visit to try and catch out his blokes having a skive. They were involved in fitting a shower unit, not your normal domestic type but one that was designed to douse a person with copious amounts of water to remove contamination. Unknown to the foreman the plumbers had finished the shower and were up above tidying up. The shower was designed to operate when the tray was stepped upon. With the call of “ where the devil are you” the tray was stepped upon!! Unbeknown to the foreman, the whole episode was being viewed by the plumbers that he was seeking. Making sure that no one had seen him the foreman who lived quite close to the factory jumped on his pushbike and pedalled off home to change. Word of this escapade quickly went around the factory, especially as the foreman in question was known throughout the site. Much amusement was enjoyed for a long time by all in the know.
 
Welcome to the Forum, Bodie.

You have successfully quoted an earlier message but unfortunately your comment on it seems to be missing. Could you have another go, please?

Thanks.

Chris
 
Brassed Off said:
During the building of the Beryllium Plant, the company at that time had its own builders and allied trades, the plumbers foreman paid a surprise visit to try and catch out his blokes having a skive. They were involved in fitting a shower unit, not your normal domestic type but one that was designed to douse a person with copious amounts of water to remove contamination. Unknown to the foreman the plumbers had finished the shower and were up above tidying up. The shower was designed to operate when the tray was stepped upon. With the call of “ where the devil are you” the tray was stepped upon!! Unbeknown to the foreman, the whole episode was being viewed by the plumbers that he was seeking. Making sure that no one had seen him the foreman who lived quite close to the factory jumped on his pushbike and pedalled off home to change. Word of this escapade quickly went around the factory, especially as the foreman in question was known throughout the site. Much amusement was enjoyed for a long time by all in the know.
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The Forman was Joe fulard
 
Brassed Off said:
The story that was told at Kynochs following this terrible accident was that a maintenance person was drilling a hole to mount a notice onto the loading chute that led down to the room below. As he neared the end of drilling the hot "pip" of metal from the rear of the hole that was being drilled fell into the hopper below. As soon as it was realized what had happened the man ran for a fire extinguisher that was mounted next to one of the doors. The resulting blast then "blew" the man out through the door and away from the danger area, I understand that his life was saved.
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First post on this forum. The days date always has some significance with me as I remember my father, Allan Heydon, was at work, I assume in the labs, on the 14th November 1973. I remember the day as it was the same day as the wedding of Princess Anne and Capt. Mark Phillips and my mum, sister and I where watching coverage on the TV. There was a news flash on the TV announcing the explosion and it was some time before Dad could phone home and let us know he was well.
Dad never spoke much about this day. Due to medical grounds he retired from IMI in the late 1970s after 30 plus years service.
 
jensen73 said:
First post on this forum. The days date always has some significance with me as I remember my father, Allan Heydon, was at work, I assume in the labs, on the 14th November 1973. I remember the day as it was the same day as the wedding of Princess Anne and Capt. Mark Phillips and my mum, sister and I where watching coverage on the TV. There was a news flash on the TV announcing the explosion and it was some time before Dad could phone home and let us know he was well.
Dad never spoke much about this day. Due to medical grounds he retired from IMI in the late 1970s after 30 plus years service.
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Jensen, welcome to the Forum & enjoy!
 
G G Jean said:
This is a photo of mom with Lill Turner in the Kynoch canteen where she was pastry cook. The second is her retirement and presentation. We all met up at Ansell's social club on the evening for a farewell party for them all.
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Great photos! We will never see times like that again unfortunately.....
 
Hello everybody, I'm from Paraguay and I wrote you because I don't know where to find more information about that company named KYNOCH. We working on a Museum in Asuncion (Capital of Paraguay), in the las 4 years we started the restoration of an ancient factory that was abandoned in 1978. That company started in Paraguay in 1923, with brithisn investors, the name was LIEBIG EXTRACTING MEAT COMPANY.

I have pictures of one of the KYNOCH machines but we can't find any information, because apparently is not a machine for gun ammunition because this factory is for meat extracting (unless they build they own ammunition to kill a cow for example). I hope you can help-me to where I must go (online) to gather more information about this machine.

Sorry for my poor english, is not my born language (spanish, guarani and portuguese are)
 

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Zenoura said:
Hello everybody, I'm from Paraguay and I wrote you because I don't know where to find more information about that company named KYNOCH. We working on a Museum in Asuncion (Capital of Paraguay), in the las 4 years we started the restoration of an ancient factory that was abandoned in 1978. That company started in Paraguay in 1923, with brithisn investors, the name was LIEBIG EXTRACTING MEAT COMPANY.

I have pictures of one of the KYNOCH machines but we can't find any information, because apparently is not a machine for gun ammunition because this factory is for meat extracting (unless they build they own ammunition to kill a cow for example). I hope you can help-me to where I must go (online) to gather more information about this machine.

Sorry for my poor english, is not my born language (spanish, guarani and portuguese are)
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Hello Zenoura & welcome to the Forum enjoy!

Here is a link that might help you : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kynoch_Press

The press in your picture is an OBI, open back inclinable with a rolling key clutch (not very safe). this press is also know as a gap frame press.

It looks like the presses were used for printing marketing leaflets or instruction info or the like.

I hope this helps, good luck with your project!
 
Thank you, Zenoura, you have given us an interesting mystery! How and why did a Kynoch machine find its way to Paraguay?

The Kynoch company did have overseas interests in the early part of the 20th century but these were mainly connected to its explosives business. There is no mention of any sort in the two published histories of the company about any activity in South America.

These are my main thoughts:

1. I believe that there cannot have been any possibility of Kynoch being involved either directly or remotely, in the creation, construction or running of this plant in Asuncion. It was the wrong industry, the wrong type of factory and the wrong part of the world for them.

2. Was this machine manufactured by Kynoch?
Kynoch had a wider range of activities than just ammunition, even though the latter was at that time the most important. The Company had introduced new product lines in the period leading up to the Great War of 1914-1918 and also in the immediate post-war years. Neither of these periods was easy for the Company, and new activities were tried, often unsuccessfully. Over a 25 year period these new products included candles, bicycle components, bicycles, motor bicycles, gas engines, motor lamps, oil heaters, lanterns, padlocks, mincers, textile bobbins and cycle pumps from compressed paper, two-speed gears, petrol pumps, home safes, "general engineering products" and slide fasteners. By 1923 all of these activities were abandoned with the important exception of slide fasteners.
Whether any of these activities included the manufacture of equipment such as the one you have, I do not know. Many things were tried, especially in the desperate post-war period when much of the Company's business disappeared with the cancelling of war contracts and was not counteracted by an increase in other activities. But I am unaware of any activity such as the production of large items of manufacturing equipment. It is probable that it never happened.

3. Was this a Kynoch-owned machine which found its way to South America?
This is a possibility. Who was the contractor who created the Liebig factory? Did they obtain equipment which might have been previously owned by others?
The fact of this press being clearly marked as "Kynoch No.7" makes me ask myself whether it was part of the Kynoch Works equipment and was sold during some factory reorganisation or contraction - perhaps no longer required, perhaps as a way of raising money. The insignia COULD denote that this was one press out of several in a Kynoch department entitled "No. 7 Department"; or it was No. 7 out of a row of presses numbered, perhaps, 1-10. In those circumstances, if the press was not new when it arrived in South America, it could have been used by Kynoch over a long period previously and could be much older than we assume. And/or perhaps it might have arrived later in Paraguay, after the Liebig factory was built.

4. The suggestion has been made of the use of the press for printing purposes. Another possibility has to be metal pressing. Could it have been involved in any way in the manufacture of containers for Liebig products - lids, perhaps, or other components?

5. Kynoch was a large and, overall, very successful company. Unlike many British engineering companies it remains so, amazingly, and thrives. It is totally different from what it was 100 years ago (or even 30!) and is these days named IMI plc. and still based in Birmingham, although not on the original manufacturing site. (I have written a short history of it and this can be found via a link at the bottom of this post). I think it is unlikely that any approach direct to IMI will result in much additional information appearing about your query. I suspect the only source of information they too will have will be the two Company histories I mention above. Both of these are written in broad terms and much of the contemporary detail will now be lost. I think that the best, and perhaps only hope of finding further clues may be from Kynoch factory photographs in the period 1900-1925.

I, and no doubt other members of this Forum, would be very grateful to you if you could let us know anything further which you discover about the history of this old machine. I assume you have contact with those who are conducting a similar restoration exercise on another meat processing factory in Uruguay.

Chris
 
Saudações

You say the company started in Paraguay in 1923 and the name was Leibig Extracting Meat Company. But there is evidence the Liebig Extract of Meat company existed much earlier.

“The Liebig Extract of Meat Company was established on 4 December 1865 in London with a capital of £150,000…….The Liebig Extract of Meat Company was acquired by the Vestey Group in 1924 and the factory was renamed Frigorífico Anglo del Uruguay, also known as El Anglo. The company's assets included over 2-3 million hectares of farm land and herds of cattle in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Rhodesia, Kenya and South Africa. Liebig merged with Brooke Bond in 1968, which was in turn acquired by Unilever in 1984, followed by Campbells Soup, who sold the UK operation to Premier Foods in 2006.”

en.wikipedia.org

Liebig's Extract of Meat Company - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Leibig being such a large worldwide company, the Press could easily of made its way over to Paraguay. Are there any other markings on the Press ? The Press could have been manufactured particularly for Kynoch Ltd ?
 
South America and other developing country’s years ago were prime markets for older or used equipment like the press. It could have made its way to Leibigs factory as such. Today for the most part that market has stopped because those developing counties now add substantial tariffs to such equipment. I would as Pedro suggests look for a tag or serial number on the equipment. That might be another way to understand it’s journey, although I doubt that much in the way of traceability was/is available.
 
Engravings of Leibig in Uraquay 1899 and later remains

www.alamy.com

industry, food, meat extract, plant of the Liebig's Extract of Meat Company, Fray Bentos, Uruguay, interior view, wood engraving, 1899, Additional-Rights-Clearences-Not Available Stock Photo - Alamy

Download this stock image: industry, food, meat extract, plant of the Liebig's Extract of Meat Company, Fray Bentos, Uruguay, interior view, wood engraving, 1899, Additional-Rights-Clearences-Not Available - DDRNWJ from Alamy's library of millions of high resolution stock photos, illustrations...
www.alamy.com www.alamy.com
 
Pedrocut said:
Saudações

You say the company started in Paraguay in 1923 and the name was Leibig Extracting Meat Company. But there is evidence the Liebig Extract of Meat company existed much earlier.

“The Liebig Extract of Meat Company was established on 4 December 1865 in London with a capital of £150,000…….The Liebig Extract of Meat Company was acquired by the Vestey Group in 1924 and the factory was renamed Frigorífico Anglo del Uruguay, also known as El Anglo. The company's assets included over 2-3 million hectares of farm land and herds of cattle in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Rhodesia, Kenya and South Africa. Liebig merged with Brooke Bond in 1968, which was in turn acquired by Unilever in 1984, followed by Campbells Soup, who sold the UK operation to Premier Foods in 2006.”

en.wikipedia.org

Liebig's Extract of Meat Company - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Leibig being such a large worldwide company, the Press could easily of made its way over to Paraguay. Are there any other markings on the Press ? The Press could have been manufactured particularly for Kynoch Ltd ?
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Thats what i thought, someone found it might be usefull for a job that they had in the meat factory. other than ammo manufacturing it was probably made for.
 
Richard Dye said:
South America and other developing country’s years ago were prime markets for older or used equipment like the press. It could have made its way to Leibigs factory as such. Today for the most part that market has stopped because those developing counties now add substantial tariffs to such equipment. I would as Pedro suggests look for a tag or serial number on the equipment. That might be another way to understand it’s journey, although I doubt that much in the way of traceability was/is available.
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or take a pic and email eley kynoch i found them very helpfull.
 
A report from 1910 states that a new company has been formed, South American Cattle Farms Ltd. to take over from Liebig Co.….8 estancias in Paraguay.
 
I worked on the ledger in the supply department for Summerfield my claim to fame Dad wanted to go down to Hereford to work for what ever part was near there this was in the 60's he was in the loco sheds so it would be on fleet management
 
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