Hand in Glove

The meeting began on a very sad note as the death of committee member Mrs Jean Thomas was announced. Jean had been ill for some time and had served on the committee for many years. A minute’s silence was then marked in her memory. Our sincerest condolences go to our Chairman Gwyn on his loss.

The speaker this month needed no introduction since it was none other than Society member Mr Ken Thomas. Mr Thomas apart from being the dependable projectionist at Brynaman Public Hall for many years,had made his living as a training officer in the manufacturing industry. He explained that as much of his work had involved visiting various manufacturing works which guarded their secrets carefully he had signed the Official Secrets Act which prevented him from going into detail. To this effect he had produced a film on the glove industry of the UK, though originally in VHS format, the film had recently been digitalised. Despite the fact that he had written the script himself he had ensured that any claim on intellectual property had been settled before showing the film publically.

The talk began with a brief introduction to the clothing industry in the UK which was once enormous and had clothed the world, but was now largely a shadow of its former self. The Manchester area alone at the start of the last century employed over a million workers in textiles. Worcester was the centre of the glove industry and at its zenith employed over 50,000 workers.

The glove trade itself is ancient and its roots can be traced as far as the Romans. Gloves are essential in the protection of the hands against heat, cold, blades and disease. It was stressed that the Queen always wears gloves when meeting the public to protect her from being poisoned ( a fact which was made so real recently by events in Salisbury Ed ). The revolutionary change in the quantity of their production came with the invention of the sewing machine in the USA in the 1860s. It is normally assumed that this innovation was solely the work of Irwin Singer, however the originator of the sewing machine was actually a man named Elias Howe and indeed there was such bitter rivalry between the two, that they were given co-patency of its licence. The sewing machine whether driven by handle, treddle or water wheel speeded up production though it was still largely a manual skill until the 1960s. The trade for gloves dropped off in the second half of the twentieth century and its footloose nature allowed it to relocate to the cheaper west country of England around Yeovil, where Dent’s remained the sole manufacturer (now sole importer) of gloves in the UK. Owing to foreign competition from Asia no gloves are now produced in the UK, indeed the Glove Guild of the UK ceased in the early years of the present century.

The film itself was a gem and appeared far older than its fifty years. Some of the early handmade preparation could have been placed in the same workshop as the Anglo-Norman names given to the components of a glove. It was obvious that the workers were on a piece rate since they worked with both speed and efficiency. Even then, it was obvious that many of these practices were old fashioned and the late introduction of mass production was unable to save it. Nevertheless, the loss of hundreds of thousands of well-paid and skilled jobs done by both sexes was a crying shame. Mr Thomas was of the opinion that the glove industry alongside other manufacturing trades had been sacrificed by Mrs Thatcher in the 1980s in order to gain aerospace contracts with those very same far eastern countries.

Mr Trefor Jones, deputising for Mr Gwyn Thomas gave a vote of thanks to fellow “Brynamanite”,  Mr Ken Thomas for a most enjoyable evening.