Friends of Age
Exchange
Age Exchange Theatre Trust has set up a
Friends Organisation. Age Exchange was founded in 1983
by Pam Schweitzer. It began as a reminiscence theatre company mounting original
productions based on people’s memories. The Centre in Blackheath Village is
visited by 30,000 people a year and is the base for national and European
networks of reminiscence practitioners. The centre also produces valuable
advice and a service to carers of elderly and people with dementia. GIHS is very grateful to Age Exchange for use
of their meeting facilities. The friends organisation will help ensure the
future of the organisation and also provide a focus for those interested in the
work undertaken by the organisation but not able to participate in it.
Lowne
Instruments Ltd - Visit to a closing family business
Sue
Hayton writes: Members of the GLIAS Recording Group had
been surveying and recording the small factory unit of Lowne Instruments Ltd,
Boone Street near the junction with Lee High Road for some weeks. John West, Sylvia MacCartney. and I
were grateful to Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS) - and in
particular to David Perrett - for an invitation to join a small group on a
visit to this industrial premises in Boone Street, Lee. The visit was on
Saturday, 8 December, a matter of weeks before the business was due to close
down.
An industrial activity in Boone Street?
We think this will surprise many members and it certainly did. It was fortuitous that one of the staff,
George Arthur. is also a GLIAS member - George may be known to some members as
he has from time to time attended our meetings.
The
business has been essentially a family one. It was founded by Robert Mann Lowne
in Finchley. In about 1894 he transferred operations to Ravenscroft, Bromley
Road, Catford. The firm became known as the Lowne Electric Clock and Appliance
Company in about 1910. It moved to Lee in 1927.
Over the years it produced a small range of specialist equipment, which
in recent times has focussed almost exclusively on anemometers, which are used
for measuring airflow in mines and air conditioning. The customers have been
various and have included the National Coal Board, British Rail Engineering,
Casella, Sainsbury, the Public Health Laboratory Service, and Griffith &
George.
During
the last war there were about forty staff, but by 1973 there were fifteen, and
at the time of our visit there were only three. We understand that the business
closes at the end of January.
As a result of our interest, a Lowne synchronous electric clock made
at the beginning of the 1950s in Boone Street was presented to GLIAS for the
museum collection. There are already examples of the Lowne slave clock and
master at work in the Science Museum, as well as examples of the Lowne patent
barometer and spirometer.
This article is taken from the
Lewisham Local History Society Newsletter.
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Bygone Kent – Vol. 23, No.2. includes the second part of Mary
Mills’ article on Maudslay Son and Field and their Greenwich shipyard,
AGE EXCHANGE –
THE STORY SO FAR. This is a twenty year
retrospective of this local organisation by Pam Schweitzer, the Artistic
Director.
Subterranea Britannica – Secretary’s Newsletter. All good stuff, but not much (if anything)
about Greenwich.
Siren – the newsletter of RSG – this is cold war bunker studies. All good stuff – and edited by our member,
Nick Catford. Nothing about Greenwich –
come on, Nick, put something in the next issue!
Contact through Sub Brit
Industrial Heritage – the current issue, Winter 2001 contains an oddly
familiar article about the Tramshed in Woolwich by a Jack Vaughan ………… nice to know Yorkshire cares about
Woolwich.
London and the Thames Valley ed. Denis Smith.
We have not seen this book but an advertisement has been sent by the
publishers: Thomas Telford Publishing (Institution of Civil Engineers). Members
will remember that Denis was our keynote speaker at this years’ AGM. his is a new guide dealing with the works
which keep a large city running.
Crossness Engines Record. The Winter
issue includes news of the David Evans Engine – which was in the now closed
silk works at Crayford. It is a small Stewart (Glasgow) diagonal duplex.
Crossness Engines have negotiated with David Evans for it and it will soon be
at the Museum and on display.
The Record also
contains an article by Leslie Tucker on the Original Crossness Building in
their architectural context and the usual ‘News from the Octagon’ on current
work and progress. Crossness Engines
always require volunteer help
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