Maddock's Foundry

Maddock's Foundry

Werner Ziegenhagen	I always called Maddocks "The Black Hole of Calcutta!"
Jack Savage	My first thoughts were that I had gone back a thousand years, because we came from Yorkshire and we were more up to date there.
Keith Bloor	When you went past the bottom works and looked in, it was somewhere where David Attenborough wouldn't walk in and he's been up to his knees in it. It was a crime against reason.
Dennis Shepherd	I should say that Maddocks was worse than the mines.
Ron Bradshaw	I always remember in 1931 I was out of work and there was some jobs come along at Maddocks and they called them "assing". That's what the blokes in the district called work at Maddocks.
Nancy Mulliner	It was scandalous, the conditions. I worked in this green shed at the top of Maddocks. I worked there with Mrs Tonks, and I was loading castings a hundredweight at a time on to a lorry. Rights for Women? Biggest farce out! I was told if I couldn't do the job, I knew where to go.
Len Harris	I went in 1964. There was nothing else. Donkey's work! It was the hardest job in the world. Feeding the cupolas, you know. The most we ever put on was 74 tons, manhandling!
Nancy Mulliner	You are only a number in a factory. The only time you are recognised by the boss is when it's your obituary!

White hot molten iron used in the production of malleable castings

George Eldridge	The heat from the castings and the cupolas in the confined space, and the heat from outside, it used to get appalling. And I mean appalling, there's no doubt about it. You used to sweat lumps. Oh, I've seen them with their trousers saturated right through with sweat.
Werner Ziegenhagen	Many a time I came home my feet were actually bleeding from no where at all. From standing in the hot sand all day long - the sand is actually red hot when it comes out of the boxes, see. We were wearing boots, but your feet were that hot that the pores just open up and blood comes through them. Sometimes you could stand your socks up at night when you came home.
Jacko Roberts	In those days you couldn't afford to blow up. You were on short time and you couldn't afford to blow up.
George Eldridge	Then there's the burns! With grinding you got all those sparks. You used to get your hands burnt.
John Roberts	You got rubber gloves, but you had to buy them yourself! They didn't give them to you.
George Eldridge	When they took this stuff around the foundry in these big ladles, it only needs a spot of water and it will fly all over the factory like a firework. This is the thing that you can't stop, a spot of condensation or something like that. Pfffttt! Its gone. Any direction.
John Roberts	I've been there when there have been very bad burns at Maddock's.
George Eldridge	You know, splashes. You get a splash, it'll make your flesh burn straight away because it's gone straight through your clothes. It's molten metal!
John Roberts	I know one man, he was about eighteen months in hospital with burns.

Paul Rogers pouring the iron into the mouth of the furnace

Jacko Roberts

Now that's the iron coming from the furnaces. This is Paul Rogers (above). He's pouring it into the furnace there. He climbs up about seven or eight steps onto a platform, then there's a big wheel up there. He fastens it and turns it and the iron goes into the mouth of the furnaces there.

Then it's got into these smaller ladles on a monorail, and then transferred to these manhandling ladles. When they're full, they're sometimes around half or three quarters of a hundredweight. That track (below) is the monorail.When these moulds are full on the line, a chap presses a button and it takes them away.


Neville Whitehead casting moulds	Ted Hoggins grinding castings

The Dust

Dennis Shepherd	Outside, coming down the road, outside the walls, you could shovel it up by the bucket-full in the 30's and 40's.
Norman Shepherd	You wanted blinkers on!
Dennis Shepherd	You wanted blinkers on and you had to have a handkerchief over your face. If you'd got a white suit on, God help you by the time you got to Oakengates. It was the sand they were using in the smelting. Black sand. To my idea, Maddock's was worse than the mines for dust. You got it everywhere you work, but I reckon Maddock's was worst of all. Maddock's and Sinclairs. My brother Roger, he worked at Maddock's for 40 years in the dust. He couldn't walk above 50 yards before he'd stop to get his breath.
John Roberts	I had a brother (Jim) who had to finish work at 50 through this dust, with silicosis.

Women grinding castings

From Oakengates in the words of Oakengates people

by George Dorricott and Graham Woodruff ISBN 0 946076 02 2