A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PULSOMETER ENGINEEERING CO LTD

Author – Amanda Holland 27th November 2011 www.historypin.org

John Eilot Hodgkin was born on 30 December 1829 in Tottenham. He was apprenticed as an engineer at Ransomes & Sims of Ipswich. In 1854 he married the boss’s daughter and started up a small engineering company in Birmingham. He went to London where he met a Mr Mathias Neuthaus, an expert on vacuum, and they purchased the patents of an American steam pump. They made many improvements and called their pump the “Pulsometer”. After two years in 1875, they formed the Pulsometer Engineering Company to manufacture the pump in their Battersea Works.

They then had 30 employees with a weekly wage bill of £50! They opened a London Office where they installed a working model resulting in many enquiries and they had to have an ABC Telegraph Connection with the works. Expansion was so great that they were forced to moved to a larger works in Nine Elms, Vauxhall. Expansion continued and they decided to move out of London into a purpose-built factory. They chose Oxford Road, Reading. They called the factory “Nine Elms Ironworks” after the old London works.

At this time John’s brother Thomas, became a shareholder through his Newcastle Bank, Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease and Spence. Little did he know that this link with the Northeast would be resurrected when we joined Sigmund Pumps, Gateshead. The Reading site covered 11 acres and was occupied in 1901. The introduction of electricity opened up many possibilities particularly it meant that pumps could be operated without the inconvenience of having to produce steam. This resulted in the decline of the “Pulsometer Steam Pump”. New technologies had to be developed for the new age pumping equipment. When John Hodgkin died in October 1912, his sons Stanley & Charles took over the reins later to become Joint Managing Directors, Stanley responsible for finance and Charles for manufacturing.

Commercially the Company came to a standstill with the advent of the First World War. Nevertheless, the works were fully occupied with war work. After the war the Company had a great struggle to survive. Stanley’s son Eliott temporarily joined the company to boost sales. Expansion was slow at first, but optimistically in August 1921, the Directors announced that the works area would be increased by 25% and with new machinery production would be lifted by 50%. At the time they were producing over 700 types and sizes of pumps, filters, sirens and refrigeration.

Once again the boom was halted by the Second World War. The Company became virtually controlled by the Ministry of Supply. A night shift was introduced and the canteen was extended under the supervision of the Ministry of Food. Details of the war effort have already been described in Issue No 5 of the Newsletter. At first 25 pounder high explosive shell cases were made, but when the shells were supplied by the USA complete, the shell shop was taken over by the Ministry of Aircraft Production for fuel and pumps. Inspectors were more than satisfied with our records and they gave us Board of Trade Licences to be used at our discretion. Previously we could only manufacture against specific material authorisations (known as “M” forms).

After the war, it was generally thought that the end of hostilities would mean unemployment, but this was not so as we were manufacturing essential equipment which was urgently required for replacement. Contacts were made with countries reborn after the war and to keep abreast with technical advances we extended research and development facilities. In 1947, the Government decided to expand oil refining allowing us to buy crudes instead of finished products. The experts were the Americans and plants designed by them included American made pumps. The Government agreed to pay America for the know-how but insisted that all components should be made in Great Britain. So, with forethought we concluded an agreement with the Pacific Pump Co of Los Angeles to use their designs.

In the meantime, the Hodgkins had passed, and a new Board of Directors was formed.

Col. Pilkington became the General Manager. Later Mr J S Woodrow who joined the company as Secretary and Commercial Manager, became Managing Director. This was stabilized by 1950, the year of the 75th Anniversary. This was celebrated by works visits in the morning and a sports meeting in the afternoon when over 1500 employees and partners enjoyed a sit-down meal. Even more important each employee was given a bonus payment.

In 1951 Sir Felix Pole, the ex-General Manager of the GWR, became Chairman. Expansion continued and to get more production capacity we bought J Evans of Wolverhampton. We ceased production of many of their obsolescent types which included the road side hand pumps. With this expansion we were short of financial backing and Philip Hill the Bankers stepped in and took over the company. With them the Pulsometer Group came into existence with J Evans, Skyhi, BAL of Birmingham, Thos. Boorne and SPE of Slough. Capacity at Reading increased and the Evans works were closed in May 1960. Further new machines were bought. We were still having difficulty financially and Philip Hill would not offer any further assistance, so Booker McConnell came into the picture.

On 5 May 1961, the General Manager informed the employees of Booker’s takeover. With Bookers came their pension schemes and other benefits. They agreed to give all employees with 25 years’ service a gold watch and it was my pleasure to buy 175 watches. Bookers wishes to concentrate on pump production, so they sold off filtration and vacuum pumps and other side lines. This gave Pulsometer breathing space. Although making a small loss Bookers felt confident and agreed to spend £250,000 to modernise and extend the works. By the end of 1962 a revival had taken place and Bookers merged us with Sigmund Pumps of Gateshead, a company already owned by them. On 1 January 1962, SPP Ltd was formed, to become possibly one of the largest pumping manufacturers in Great Britain. The new company had over 2000 employees and had assets of £3 to £4 million.

With the merger, rationalisation of products, was possible with a unified purchasing and stocking policy. A Plant and Projects Division was formed to supervise complete installations.

Advances were made into irrigation and agriculture. We entered the field of transformer oil pumps and received contracts for borehole pumps etc in Cuba, Romania and Tunisia. In 1966, a decision was made to install a computer system. This was the ICL 1901 system which became operative in 1968. In May 1965, the Government agreed to metrication and the first meeting with the authorities took place in Reading. Metric measures gradually took over although we had to maintain the American threads of ANC, ANF and API for our American pump units. The cost of the changeover cost the company many thousands of pounds.

On 29 November 1968, Booker purchased Plenty of Newbury and merged businesses of form the SPP Fluid Handling Group. Cost of purchase was approximately £2 million. In 1969 Gateshead Works made a huge loss which affected the whole group. Bookers felt that there was no way out but to sell the works. It was disposed of on 10 May 1970 to Ingersoll Rand, sale price approximately £1.75 million plus value of stocks not taken by SPP giving a total of £2.75 million. Most traditional Pulsometer products were returned to Reading. By selling complete installations our demands for electrical control gear increased considerably so in 1972, we purchased Burgess Controls of Thatcham renaming the company SPP Controls. A large parcel of land to the rear of the works adjacent to Norcot Road was seldom used so the capital gained was used for new factory extensions with up-to-date testing. These were completed in 1973. The front office extension was completed in 1974.

The more recent history will be well known to you which culminated with the move to Coleford, and the closure of the Oxford Road works in 1987.

Pulsometer Water Purification Plant