Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Archival Industry: William Doxford and Sons

by Tom Bonamici
A friend of Archival Clothing pointed me towards this incredible set of images showing the plant of William Doxford and Sons in the late 1950s. Follow the link to get more history on Wm. Doxford, one of the biggest British shipyards of the 20th century. I'm wowed by the scale of the operations here - just look at the size of the lathes!






I've done flame cutting, too - on 0.5" steel. That slab above must be 12" thick!





Please see Old Town for outfitting before your in-person field trip. Ideally, please schedule your visit between 1955 and 1962. Wm. Doxford was shuttered in 1980.

5 comments:

Paul M said...

There are still examples of British work wear from this era to be had at prices that seem scarcely to have risen in the intervening years. See here for example, for an engineers jacket as modeled by the chap in the third photo.

Anonymous said...

If you like images of large scale industry, take a look at the Westinghouse Works movie series, shot by Billy Bitzer in 1904. All of them are on YouTube courtesy of the Library of Congress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP4aIUeQnt4&feature=channel

Philip Sanderson said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Philip Sanderson said...

have on of those Yarmo jackets mentioned by Paul M. They are good 100% cotton made in England though not as classy as the Old Town gear however they are a fraction of the price. Interestingly a designer got Yarmo to make up a lot of interesting "workwear" to sell in Japan. Go into google images and type in Yarmo to see what I mean. Sadly you can't buy any of it outside Japan.

Tom Bonamici said...

Paul and Philip,
Thanks for your tips to Yarmo. We'll look into carrying their goods and possibly doing Japanese-style collaborations with them - no promises, but do keep your fingers crossed.