Memories of Stoke-on-Trent people - Ken Green

Ken Green

A Life in the Ceramic Tile Industry 
section 12

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1960/1967

The first year of the decade was one of consolidation.  Coburg and AG2 were both brought to a satisfactory state and the long established Brownhills and Pinnox factories continued to operate profitably.  Pinnox was by now, of course, receiving biscuit tile from AG3.  The AG3 biscuit unit exceeded all our expectations.  It was obvious that it could produce a much larger quantity of good quality biscuit than we had planned for.

The single-fire AG1 plant was our main worry for a variety of reasons.  Included in these was that it had been intended to supply the DIY market with a limited number of shapes in a limited number of colours.  We failed to achieve the necessary scale of DIY sales but traditional sales continued to increase.  Consequently, the number of shapes and colours at AG1 increased and the plant could not deal with variety.  

Ten shapes in ten colours results in one hundred stocks by the single fire process, whereas only ten biscuit stocks are needed for a two-fire process.  The method of glaze application was by compressed air spraying.  Frequent colour changing and difficult-to-clean spray machines caused excessive losses of expensive glaze.  (The only certain way to prevent such losses is to have no drains)  The glaze surface quality was acceptable for DIY, but not for the traditional market, and it did not match up to the quality of our main competitor, H & R Johnson.  The solution was obvious!  Use the potential extra capacity of AG3 to supply biscuit to AG1 and revert to twice-firing.  We did so in 1961, but with heavy hearts.  We feared it might appear that we had had to do so because of technical failure and our pride was wounded.  I moved my office from Pinnox to Adderley Green to be where the problems were, and made my daily tour of the factories in a different order.

There were many difficulties of space and layout in making the changeover to twice-firing.  The Adderley Green factory was brick built and intended to last.  Such buildings had been fine in earlier times; but their dimensions could not easily be altered to allow for changing layouts.  Sectional buildings with good heating, air-conditioning and adaptable to dimensional alteration were used henceforth.

Raw materials from Australia: 

It was in 1961 that we started to look for raw materials in Australia in order to produce biscuit tile.  I made annual visits.  Air travel was quite luxurious in those days and business travel was especially so.  However, it took a minimum of 38 hours from UK to Melbourne, with a minimum of three, but usually four, intermediate stops.  I used to stop over in North America on the way out and in the Far East on the way back, or vice-versa.  A friend and ex Richards colleague, Terry Johnstone, had taken a job in Cincinnati and I stayed with Terry and his wife, Kaye, or visited agents and tile plants.  Several ex Army colleagues had taken jobs with trading houses in the Far East and were good hosts.  There were no tile plants of industrial scale in the Far East at that time.

Graham Mee became manager of the Coburg plant in 1960.  Over the next few years we sourced the necessary clays in Bendigo, about 100km north of Melbourne, and quartz in Ballarat, about 50km to the west.  In UK, we were used to proven and consistent raw materials.  In Australia, we had to adapt to variable materials and learn how to control them.  The quartz from Ballarat was a bye product of the gold mining carried out in the late 1800’s.  Standing on top of the quartz mounds one could make out the layouts of the miners’ huts.  In spring, daffodils bloomed where planted by the miners, decades before. 

Large quantities of Australian raw materials were sent to Tunstall for trials and processing.  The sliphouse at Pinnox was no longer used for regular production and we were able to use it for production scale trial batches.  The resulting “Australian” biscuit was tested in UK and also sent to Coburg, Australia for testing there.  Things worked out well.  The only equipment we did not have at the time, to provide complete simulation of the planned factory, was a spray dryer.

In Section 9 (Technical Change), I described how we came to adapt spray drying to ceramic tile technology and why the first such dryer of the Richards group was installed in 1962 at Philkeram Richards, Thessaloniki, Greece.  Georges Philipou had found raw materials on the island of Milos (the home of Venus), where his family had connections.  Unfortunately Philkeram began to suffer production losses due to a fluorine content of the Milos clays.  Matters were rectified by sending clay from UK to Thessaloniki.  I mention this because it impressed on me, that bulk shipments by long sea journeys can be cheaper than for much shorter overland journeys.

Richards Tiles was a privately owned company until 1964.  Campbell Tiles was a public company.  A “reverse take over” was effected in 1964 and the Richards Campbell Group was formed as a public company.

Richards was approached early in 1967 to take over Commonwealth Ceramics, a tile plant operating in Mascot, Sydney, Australia.  In April, Stanley Johnson, of the Campbell Tile Company, and I went to investigate.  I first went to Coburg and met Harold Boulnois, who had just arrived from England with his family.  Harold had, in fact, carried out in Tunstall the practical work of developing the body for indigenous Australian biscuit.  He went on to help manage the newly installed biscuit plant in Melbourne.  Commonwealth Ceramics became part of the Richards Group one months after Stanley Johnson and I reported.

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