The Jowett Workers reunion 8th August 2026 at Eccleshill Industrial Museum Bradford
by John Aldersley
For members and guests who are into old cars that were locally built, have a look on the Jowett owners club website and I include the Wikipedia site also below :-
Your reporter attends the event with his Dad who served the first 3 years of his apprenticeship (as a tool room turner) for Jowett cars and then completed his apprenticeship with International Harvester (tractor manufacturer). The factory was based at Idle in Bradford.
The weather was great around 24 Deg C and as my Dad is now 91 we don’t walk the mile and a half no more, so we went by car.
There was a good turn out of Jowett vans, I believe called Bradford vans. The secretary, Paul Beaumont who has given the association two talks over the years said Hello, and my Dad met a chap who was 97 who had served a graduate apprenticeship with the company, which some readers may have thought that was something modern, but no….
We also met Wilma who is 90 this time round and will be celebrating her 60th year of marriage to Jack. There was only one other person, that was Bernard who is around 90 and still as bright as a button.
Unfortunately other ex-employees don’t attend, mobility probably along with health stops them. Most of my Dad’s old mates are friends of mine as they carried on at International and many were senior figures up until the closure in October 1982.
Here are some photos of the cars and vans.
And for those who haven’t visited the museum here are a few of photos from inside. As a machinist you will have to put up with the machine tools. There are several steam engines, water wheel and textile related items, well worth a visit and is free to enter.
Here is a link to the Industrial Museum:- Bradford Industrial Museum
Below a nice old centre lathe, one of many.
And below a gear shaper (thats a guess)
Answers on a postcard for this, a slotter at one end and possibly a boring/milling on the other spindle….
Dean Smith and Grace, DSG
Grinding wheels will be 80 years out of date !!!
Vertical miller, a hundred years behind what our Cameron, Martins, Ben and Harvey are used to. Notes of your reporter, fitted with a coolant pipe, has an end mill in the tool holder, not much use for doing a closed slot, end mills of this vintage cut size to plus, keyways are usually undersize to the nominal.
Another centre lathe the chuck seems a little out of place ?.
A “chug a lug saw”, a health and safety inspectors favourite !
The drill below is very interesting as it has a dovetailed vice arrangement and a rotary table on the other end. I bet that was state of the art back in the day.
A shaper above, quick return quadrant and clacker box for those of a certain age, but this isn’t one, but what would you call it?
A Horizontal miller with a slab mill, superseded nowadays with face milling on a vertical machine. The horizontal still useful for slots, Graham our current president (2026) will miss his splitting of the hexagonal nuts.
John Aldersley – 2026
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