A Gazetteer of Lock and Key Makers

JAMES GIBBONS LTD

by Frank Spittle


2.  A Family Firm

One can always bring to mind the happier moments of one’s working life as opposed to the not quite so pleasant. Remembering the factories and what they produced for local, national and export markets can be found in old records.   But of even greater importance is the workforce, from tea boy to factory owner. 

Early factories usually had family ownership, directorships came later and were dished out first to the family members and then to key white collar workers.   It was rare to find a shop floor, blue collar worker elevated to the board room in the early days of industry. The union movement did however force some management to promote union leaders to posts of importance and responsibility, mainly to help prevent strikes or stoppages. When the choice was to be put on the staff payroll with better pension schemes and longer holiday or continue to serve his mates of the union then, as in most things, money talks to save money in the long run.  Some dedicated leaders did look to their family commitments first, though in earlier days the gaffer would eat much longer than the chaps on strike. Membership of a union could be a two edged sword, obtaining a better deal and fair price for a good days work, but sometimes killing and closing the place of employment. 

James Gibbons was in the main the sort of family owned concern that predominated in the Black Country.  Later would come takeovers that destroyed the respect of the work force for the management. To be part of a family on the shop floor is quite different to being a number in the clocking on rack".  Many a worker at the Gibbons factory would start as a boy and stay all of his working life. Fifty years service was commonplace.


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