A photograph showing three men working in the forge, Kennedy’s Enginneers c1975.
I am researching Kennedy’s Engineers – they had a factory on the Riverside, Stockton until the 1990’s. It became Lionweld Kennedy before moving to Middlesbrough. Does anyone have any photographs of this plant especially during the 60’s and 70’s?
Photograph and details courtesy of Derek Smith.
My Dad, Max Moses (originally from Durham) worked for Allan Kennedy and Co out of an office in London, Victoria. He was involved in promoting the use of Safetread in various power stations (including Winscale and Fulham among others) and breweries (Watney’s in Mortlake).
I remember driving up to Stockton on Tees with him, at some point in the early seventies, we visited Mr Ken Brown, the works foreman, at his home (which backed on to Redcar race track). I remember he gave me one of the new 50 pence coins!
Dad worked for them until the firm was taken over by T.W. Industrial Holdings, whereupon he complained that he had become a glorified salesman, not an industrial engineer, and took retirement.
He always had a sample of Safetread in the back of his Ford Cortina company car.
I remember your Dad he used to come and visit when I lived in Norton. My father ran the factory until he retired in 1977.
My father was a blacksmith at Kennedys in the 60s, George Hopper. I remember watching him work after school forging handrails remember, floor shaking and sparks flying, I remember the Tees flooding the workshop. Dads bait was frying eggs on top of the furness then a croggy home on his bike. Anybody got any photos of this time?
My grandfather was Robert Kennedy! He died when I was a baby so never met him. We had a piece of safe-tread flooring by the back door which we used as a mat to get the mud off our shoes.
charlie mcsauley, john mcdonald, george derbyshire, les buxton, margaret butler, carol fewster, gil laskey, peachy taggart, tommy howe, vic addey (i drove him to work), pete austin, sheppy, vin relph, splash, many more, and mr long (who gave me my first job having asked at my interview as an apprentice draughtsman what was half of 99 – i said 45 and a half!! – still got the job) – great times then Lionweld came along – still remember safetread, stanweld, safe lock, etc
I worked at Allan Kennedy from 1978 and worked through various takeovers by TWIL, Bridon, Vector Industries, and finally Pacifica of Australia. I was positioned to Hong Kong in 1996 to expand the overseas operations and Customer Base, leaving the Company in July 1999.
I well remember the early days with Eric Bailey, Vic Addey, Tom Howe, Les Long and David Ingham as our MD – Great times and a fabulous Company.
Alan Smith
Ex-Export Sales Manager
I have a little knowledge of Allan Kennedy @ Company Ltd, my grandfather and his three sons, Tom, Norman and Bob started the firm in Middlesbrough during the 1920s. They worked hard for many years building up the firm and acquiring a patent for Safetread Steel Flooring {I still have some welded by my father, Bob}
I am searching for more photographs of Kennedy’s for a project . Could mine above of Jimmy Lambert with Denis Smith and I think a Mr Storr be the only one? There must have been brochures done over the years and maybe workers took the odd snap, I’d very much like to see them if they exist. Lionweld in Middlesbrough sadly don’t have any archives. Does anyone know what happened to them ?
Michael, sorry that I don’t remember your name but my first job of any real substance after leaving school in 1968 was as an estimator at Kennedys from 1970 to 74. I have fond memories of the place and Bob Irwin I remember you well dropping into the drawing office on a regular basis where I occupied a corner with Tom Howe who was a great friend and colleague. I believe I was taken on as Ernie’s replacement and who I later got to know by going to watch the Boro and having a pre-match drink in the Yellow Rose. The D.O. was full of characters Terry Hawkins, Pat Clocherty, Terry Griffiths, Stu Imeson and others whose names have slipped my mind. How times have changed; in those days the “bosses” were addressed as Mr. Long, Mr. Bennett (later “Les” when we discovered he knew my Dad and I had been a school with his son) and my boss Mr. Bailey. Vic Addy joined the estimating department a couple of years after I started there and I left shortly before the company was taken over by Lionweld. I made lots of friends and if anyone wants to drop me a line I’m sure the website coordinators will be happy to assist. A particular hello to Tom and Pat if they are reading this; I enjoyed the several evenings of home brew and other shared experiences. Hope all those colleagues and friends I worked with during my time there are doing well. Bob Pennock where are you now?
John ‘Ronny’ Rayner. Is there another Bob Irwin as I have never worked at Kennedy’s although I did mention Vic Addy who I knew from my drinking days in the Malleable Club. He sat with me and my friends.
Bob Irwin, my apologies for any confusion. I appear to have confused your name with that of the person I was thinking of.
Ronny, Great to here from you. This note gives Picturestockton the OK for you to have my email address. It will be fun to catch up. Bob Pennock.
‘Ronny’, you may be pleased to know that my Dad, and your former boss, Eric Bailey is still hail n’ hearty and only just beginning to slow down, now aged 97 and still living at Nunthorpe. He may have some material ‘stashed’ that is relevant to your quest regarding Allan Kennedy & Co. I’ll certainly ask him tomorrow when I call in. If you’d like my email address, please contact the site moderators and they’ll no doubt pass it on. Otherwise, I think Dad’s home phone number is still one of the few still listed.
In actual fact my father Eric Bailey back in 1965 managed to persuade Works manager, Mr Brown to create a couple of student labouring jobs for myself and my cousin during the summer recess. Over a period of about 8-weeks, we were therefore given all manner of jobs to do around the main workshops and the riverbank.
The worst job being emptying a huge road-trailer full of solid tubular section steel of varying diameters x 4-5m in length. This was used for making handrail stanchions and each length had to be manually racked-up in a pigeon hole system, wearing merely a 6″ ‘square’ of thick leather, (with a slash in it to put your fingers thru’), as hand protection. I recall, it took both of us nearly 3-days to clear the first of these and as ‘college-boys’ we were utterly exhausted and almost on our knees by the last day, when we finally cleared the trailer. Next morning, we turned up for work eager to find out what task Ken Brown had in mind for us,….and there parked in the yard, was another trailer waiting for us, fully loaded!
The best job we were given involved ‘clearing’ the riverbank on warm summer days. This involved picking-up offcuts of flooring section, discarded timber ‘chocks’ and crates, plus all manner of industrial detritus and putting it in a series of skips. The job was good because A) No one could see us, or what we were getting up to, and B) We could chat with the girls who worked at the Rembrandt (Bellrise) dress-factory next door. This, whenever they used to stand on the fire-escapes drinking tea, or having a cigarette at break times, i.e. in the morning, lunchtime, or afternoons. We’d always make sure, that we were working up that end of the site, in time for these regular appearances!
On our final day, a couple of the spot-welders took us over to The Dolphin pub on Maritime St, and even though we were just short of our 18th b/days, managed to force a pint down both of our necks, and wished us well in our future careers.
Happy days, of nearly 50 years ago! I’m retired now…Whoosh! That certainly went quickly!
I remember “Allan Kennedy & Co Ltd (Safetread flooring). I was a tecnical clerk in the Forge and Handrail dept. around 1967 consisting of Mr Ralph, Peter Taggart and John Bolan. Part of my works training was the drilling and tapping of 100’s if not 1,000’s of dowels for the handrail joints. The blacksmiths were really tough guys, it was heavy and hot work, they drank gallons of water each day and just as much beer each night. The flooring D.O. had some characters too, Stu Imeson, Dave Griffiths, Terry McDermot. The chief draughtsmen Mr Long and Mr Bennet and two estimators called Tom and Ernie?
Allan Kennedy was working there at the time I believe, it was a great place to work and the people all friendly
Michael Snaith, do you remember a chap called Vic Addy? He eventually went onto work at the M’bro outlet.
Hi Bob, don’t remember a Vic Addy? sorry..
Hi Mike how are you? I worked with you at Kennedys after I left school for about a year or so in handrail D.O, a small pre-fab hut separate from the main building. You showed me the ropes and where all the dodgy magazines & illicit hand drawn cartoons were kept! Remember the old print room with dyeline printing and strong whiff of ammonia?
Bob Bell was the foreman, and I remember Ken Brown was the manager.
I worked on the forge from 1971 till about 1983. the fellow in the middle of pic was Jimmy Lambert the blacksmith. I was his hammerdriver for a while , and also a driver for Chris Elgina and Alfie Spieght. Alfies brother Jimmy was our striker. we had four hammers and four furnace.