AJS Factory Photographs
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Background
In 1927 the directors thought it would be good to have photos taken of the factories to show important clients the extent and facilities of the AJS company. Jim Stevens told that the workers stopped work on Friday lunch time to start clearing and tidying up, and they all worked on Saturday as well. The photographers spent Sunday taking all the shots. Jim said it had never been so clean and tidy, normally there were piles of materials, work in progress and bits and pieces everywhere!!!
The final selection was made and then published in bound volumes, every director (and maybe others) had one with their name in gold on the cover.
There is one in the Black Country Museum and at least 3 with family members.
Jim talked about the conditions for the workers, in the Winter it got so cold the water based cutting fluid (suds) froze, they were on payment per piece and they were losing money, so they would take iron bars to heat red hot in the forge and run back to melt the suds. In the Summer it was so hot that before the shift they would climb up to the overhead shafting and tie pieces of card or plywood on to the pulleys to work like fans!
The car bodies in the photos are for Clyno cars, a local company, and they were built by AJS in their sidecar section. Clyno folded in 1929 and this relationship resulted in their Chief Designer, Arthur Booth moving to AJS to design (with Harry Stevens) the AJS 9. (When AJS closed he went to Singer and designed the Le Mans)
Photo gallery
and here's a bit of a guide to the photo's above
