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Tradition of innovation

I wrote last week about the work of Cornelius Britiffe Tully (1861-1930) in the field of gas engineering.

Although a native of London, Tully chose to site his business in Newark in 1919 to take advantage of the town's excellent communication and transport links.

It was here that his first and most innovative contribution to the gas industry - the basic Water Gas Plant - was manufactured and distributed.

In this process a measured amount of steam was passed through the red hot coke left over after the initial carbonisation (gas producing) process had been completed.

This had the effect of producing an additional quantity of gas (so-called Water Gas) which would otherwise have been lost.

Not surprisingly the Tully process proved exceedingly attractive to gas producers, particularly those companies or local authorities manufacturing gas for mains supplies, who could produce more gas for less money.

By the Thirties Tully gas plants were listed as being in operation as far afield as Jersey and Guernsey, Carmarthen, Wick, Alderney and Enniskillen - not to mention those at Newark's own gas works on Parker Street.

In 1924 the firm of Tully Gas Plants Ltd was put into voluntary liquidation and refounded as Tully Sons and Co. Ltd. It continued to trade from its previous premises on Millgate on a site next to the long-established engineering firm of Wakes and Lamb.

From this time onwards, C. B. Tully himself - now in his sixties - relinquished control of the business in favour of his sons and began to enjoy some of the material benefits that success had brought him.

He had for some time been living at the Grey House in Carlton-on-Trent where his large family of seven sons and six daughters had enjoyed a comfortable upbringing. C. B. Tully had had the co-operation of three of his sons as co-directors on the board of his first Newark company, while other sons, benefiting from their father's training, had taken up prominent positions in the gas industries of France and Montreal. There is still a Canadian branch of the Tully family to this day.

By 1925, however, C. B. Tully, now fully retired from the business, moved from Carlton-on-Trent to Henley-on-Thames.

Here, despite spending a great deal of time pursuing an active interest in golf, he retained a strong interest in the world of gas engineering.

Indeed, it was while on a business trip to Scotland in August 1930, while addressing a conference of gas engineers, that he was taken ill with a seizure and died aged 69.

During the second world war the reformed Tully Sons and Co. Ltd was led by Mr A. V. Tully and his chief engineer, Mr. O. E. Yoe with the support of three of the Tully brothers.

It was a reserved industry and occupation as it was essential to maintain gas supplies to the nation. Following the second world war and the sudden death of two of the brothers, the Newark business passed into the hands of John Edwin Tully, a grandson of C. B. Tully.

For a time demand for the company's carburreted water gas plants and Tully complete gasification plants remained high. Indeed the company was one of only four in the country then engaged on the construction of the former, and the sole producer of the latter.

The nationalisation of the gas industry in 1948, however, proved a difficult time for Tully's as the new regional gas boards began to develop their own plant and distribution systems.

Demand for Tully's products began to decline and in an effort to maintain sales the company began to diversify into two new product areas - structural engineering and automatic control systems for such installations as gas plants, power stations and chemical works.

One notable order at this time, however, was the last and largest gas plant produced by Tully's to serve the city of Johannesburg in South Africa.

By 1951 demand for Tully's new products had reached such a level that new premises had to be sought to enable production to increase by a stated 300%.

The decision was made to construct an entirely new custom-designed headquarters - the Newbridge Works (pictured) on Northern Road (at the Lincoln Road end) - which would provide enough room to achieve the increased output and accommodate the 56 staff.

Here were carried out both the fabrication of structural components for Tully's new line in steel-framed buildings and also the co-ordination and management of large-scale projects such as the erection of new works for the Coalite and Chemical Co. Ltd. at Grimethorpe and Rossington.

Large-scale project work continued into the Seventies with two notable frame buildings being erected for British Sugar at Cantley near Norwich in 1975 and for Boots at Beeston in 1978.

Many other examples of Tully industrial and farm buildings, meanwhile, are still in use throughout the Newark area.

In the late Fifties Tully's became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Manchester-based West Group (later WGI) who were involved, among other things, in mechanical engineering, civil engineering, piling and industrial pipework.

By the early Eighties the effects of the recession were beginning to bite hard at Tully's and in January, 1982, the structural division of the Newark factory was closed down with the loss of 70 jobs.

Two years later, in May 1984, in spite of some encouraging orders for the company's new specialism -remote controlled gates and turnstiles and barriers for car parks - Tully Engineering was taken over by the West Yorkshire firm of FKI Electronics plc.

Within a month FKI had closed down the Newark plant and relocated production to its existing factory at Brearly near Halifax.

Although a handful of the Newark workforce was relocated to Halifax, about 40 people were made redundant, bringing to a rather sad end a long tradition of fine engineering and innovation in Newark.

In completing this article I am indebted to Mr Ian Tully of Newark, former director and works manager at Tully Engineering.

ABOVE: Tully's new purpose-built factory - the Newbridge Works - constructed on Northern Road in 1951. The building is now home to Westpile Ltd.

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