Peter Tracey - memories of my grandfather
As a boy I used to spend a lot of time at my grandmothers house Oaklands. WH Scott had ‘Oaklands’ built. The only original thing you can see in the entrance hall there is an Edwardian stained glass window. He designed these windows with special hinges; you could clean the windows without using a ladder. He was very innovative like that. In the kitchen there was a wonderful electric oven which was on the table and was like a gas cylinder which went up into the air so the whole cylinder had the electric elements on the inside and when it went up into the air there was your cake sitting on the tray on the table. It was thrown away unfortunately.
WH Scott was a very free thinker. He was also searching for the truth and at one time became a Unitarian and he also had correspondence with the local paper on the ‘open mind’ and what it meant.
WH Scott came to Norwich with hardly any money. I think his parents were teachers. He is thought to have come from either Cambridgeshire or the Midlands. It is said that he was ill in his youth and he had a lot of time to reflect on life instead of playing etc like other children.
When he came to Norwich he told Jeremiah Colman “I think I can make better motors than the ones I am installing for you”. There is a tale that Jeremiah Colman had had a legal battle with a Company who made machines for packaging mustard under licence. This Company were making the same packaging for other Companies also, so there was a legal battle and went the Company went bankrupt. Jeremiah Colman acquired the factory as a result of this. Jeremiah gave the factory to WH Scott and told him to see what he could do with it. This was where he started.
He employed people who were good with rope-work on, for example, Norfolk Wherries etc for windings on the motors.
He started off at 19 (1882) with Paris but then Laurence (who was a Stock-Broker at Laurence Keene and Gardner in London) was brought into the business because Scott had very little money of his own.
The Scott family never had a huge stake in the Company.
Laurence Scott put the initial lighting in Norwich streets. It was said that the pavements were always dry as the cables were in open clay pipes and were warm therefore warming the pavement – before the days of insulation. Scott had ‘power-sharing’ with batteries to take ‘load-sharing’ at night. Scott had an agreement with Norwich Waterworks so he could take heat out of the river.
When I was small, I found a lot of these things in my Grandmothers house, my Grandfathers office. On one occasion I found a lot of papers and I gave these to the Company and they got lost. These papers included his adiabatic diagrams where he designed compressors. His brother in law, my Grandmother’s brother started Reavell & Co in Ipswich – they built compressors and WH Scott designed them.
As a little boy I used to be dragged round by my grandmother and she used to take fruit to employees who were sick – a very patriarchal organisation.
He was offered a Knighthood. My grandmother told me that when the offer arrived, he called upstairs and told her he had been offered a Knighthood and then said “but I don’t want it” when she asked why he said “it will put the Hotel bills up”. He did accept an OBE however – he felt he could accept this because the title didn’t appear at the front of your name.
There was a lovely man who worked for Laurence Scott for many years as a Chauffeur and many other things. His name was Wright and he related to me about the Dyno starter which was invented by WH Scott before the first World War. This was a very simple dynamo and starter for cars with an epicyclical gear on it. Someone came along with a Crossley car with one of these fitted. Wright suggested he drive the car round the yard on the starter which he did. The first World War came and they concentrated on producing shells and the Dyno starter was forgotten. It wasn’t worth going back to after that because of the developments in the American car Industry.
After the first World War WH Scott had a tough time. I was told by a man who had a boat built by LS – it took three years to build as there was no money to complete it.
The Twenties were OK but in the Thirties there were many problems and LS were doing a lot of Marine work. They built all the motors for the Queen Mary and this work stopped They had to lay off many workers which he hated. He had organised profit-sharing schemes in the Twenties and had many schemes for the employees benefit.
He had two sons Jim (first marriage) Tom (second marriage) and three daughters – one whom was my mother. Tom died in 1937, the year I was born – the ‘heir apparent’ – he was expected to do ‘great things’. Jim died at the beginning of the War. It was thought Tom died from “something picked up in India”
WH Scott always had an office where he could see the factory – he was part of it. After he died it was taken over by the accountants and the feeling of working together was lost. The office block completed the separation.
They loved travelling. In the early twenties and took a car and drove all round the Pyranees – driven by their chauffeur.
Clare Scott came from Alnwick. She was the daughter of the Chief architect for the Duke of Northumberland.
WH Scott died was very sad about his son’s death and was also very depressed about the future of the whole world.
WH Scott also worked on secret tasks which may have been developing radar systems. He used to come home and say things like “I am working on some very exciting things but I can’t tell you about it”.
WH Scott went to a local village school somewhere in the Midlands.
There was a nice story from the thirties. He had a small area where he developed things. There were some motors due to be dispatched the next day. The motors were already down in Norwich Station. In the middle of the night he decided we can do this better and rang his ‘mate’ and they got some barrows and took the motors back to the factory. This caused chaos the following morning once the motors were discovered missing.