Queen’s Engineering Works of Bedford

Members of the Bedfordshire Yeomanry from the Queen's Engineering Works [Z791/9]

Saturday 26th December 1914: The Chairman of Queen’s Engineering Works in Bedford has been looking back at an extraordinary year.[1] No less than 304 employees from the Works have joined the Colours, a source of great pride for the Company. Despite this considerable progress has been made in the Company’s manufacturing work. Steam turbines completed during the year include two built to drive dynamos on one of His Majesty’s ships. Due to internal reorganisation of the premises extra space for a new Dynamo Shop has been found without reducing the area of the Iron Foundry, where many more high quality castings are being produced. The company has been developing machinery to use in connection with its condensing plants, and installations have been made at the Corporation Electricity Works in Rochdale, the London Underground power station at Lots Road, Chelsea, and in South Wales. Orders for large condensing sets have also been received from India, Japan, Australia, and South Africa. Due to the unusually small rise in the Nile in 1914 the Company has been asked to supply a correspondingly large number of pumps for use with artesian wells in Egypt. These are used to raise the water lying below the desert without interfering with the Nile itself. Other work carried out by the Company included the main drainage system at Cairo, pumping machinery for a new dock at Hull, another dock pumping plant in Japan, and machinery for a floating dock for Holland. The Works has also been called upon to meet urgent orders for machinery it makes for the British Navy.

On the outbreak of war the Company Directors announced that until further notice the wives of men employed at the Works who were called upon to serve with the Colours would receive 7 shillings per week while they were away, with staff members being paid half their salary. Letters have been received from a number of  those employees now serving their country, of which these extracts from a letter from Private Harry E. W. Auger, a member of the Test Bay staff now in France with the 74th Motor Transport Company, are a sample: [2] 

Private H.E.W. Auger (right) [Z791/9]

“When I left the Works in September to join the Colours, I was successful in getting into the 74th M.T.Coy., and was soon after put on the first aid lorry, which is a kind of travelling workshop for roadside repairs, a very good job. Our machine was a fine new Leyland lorry of 64 H.P., with a tarpaulin cover. This we found much more comfortable to sleep under than a canvas tent, with no bottom, such as we had the first few weeks.”

“After making all preparations, we had to wait about three weeks for orders to move abroad, during which time we received many false alarms. I have been out here about a fortnight now, and we are getting well into our work of taking food up for the troops every day. We load our lorries at rai-head and ten take them to a point some distance from the firing line, where we are met by the Horse Transport, who take the food practically into the firing line.”

“We are up about 5.30 in the morning; no “quarters” over here. I am still sleeping on my lorry, so I am pretty handy for getting at it first thing. It is jolly cold, so we run our engines all night to keep the radiators from freezing. This saves a lot of “winding” in the morning.”

“The towns about here are very badly knocked about. This morning we were in a village which had been shelled the night before, only 1½ miles from the firing line. Some of the roads are fearful, especially those which have been shelled; also you can see shells stuck in the trees and unexploded as you go along.”

“The food we get is quite good; plenty of bully beef and biscuits, of course. We get English papers distributed to us free the day after issue, also letters get through easily … Our chief difficulty is getting a bath and washing our clothes, and it would amuse you to see me washing out my socks and shirts.”

“I think the most remarkable feature for this war is the multitudinous uses the petrol engine is put to in ambulances, motor lorries, light cars for officers, aeroplanes, motor cycles, and armoured cars. We have had several German aeroplanes round us, but they get a pretty warm reception from the anti-aircraft section, and they soon leave.”

“I do not think much of the French cigarettes, and have to get from home all I require in this direction, as we cannot buy English ones here. Our chief amusement, when not working, is making tea in the lorry with a blow lamp, which we find very useful for the purpose. Please remember me to all the chaps at the Works. My Parisian accent is becoming most pronounced.”

Source: The Queen’s Engineering Works Magazine, January 1915 [Z791/9]

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[1] The company Chairman was Mr W.H.Allen. The Works magazine carries an obituary for his sixth and youngest son, John Francis Allen of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, age 33, who died of wounds in hospital at Ypres on November 5th 1014. Captain Allen received his wounds while rescuing two men who had been buried by the bursting of a shell.

[2] Harry Edmund Warren Auger was born in Lower Heyford, Oxfordshire c.1892 and appears in the 1911 as an engineering apprentice at Bedford. He appears to have survived the War. The 74th Motor Transport Company was serving in the 8th Division Supply Column of the 4th Army Corps.