Tube Investments Group Research Laboratory, Hinxton Hall (1954–88)

Abstract

It was probably Sir Ben Lockspeiser (formerly Director General of Scientific Research in the wartime Ministry of Aircraft Production) who played the most influential part in the decision to set up the Tube Investments Group Research Laboratory (TIRL) in the first place. Sir Ivan Stedeford was then Chairman of the Tube Investments Group (TI) of more than 50 manufacturing companies, which produced a highly diverse range of products including steel, steel tube, bicycles, machine tools, gas cookers, vehicle exhaust systems, rings for jet engines, and mechanical seals, among much else. Sir Ben, then a member of the TI board, persuaded him that basic research, which had contributed so much to winning World War II, would be good for industry and aid its postwar resurgence.The Group was expanding rapidly and had set up, at Walsall Airport, the TI Technology Centre, which housed computer and operational research facilities. The core of the Group was the Steel Tube Division, which consisted of several companies, mainly in the Birmingham area, manufacturing steel tubes by a variety of processes. Over and above the essential production control facilities possessed by individual companies, the Division had set up the Department of Development and Research, which then became part of the Technology Centre. It addressed short-term customer complaints and production problems and conducted such research as might uncover the causes of perennial examples of both.Set against this background, the commercial rationale for buying an old country house and transforming it into a basic research laboratory may not have been obvious at the time to some of the senior management. Nevertheless, Sir Ben Lockspeiser was not alone in urging the need for change. This was the era in which no blue-chip corporation was complete without its 'ivory tower': AEI (Associated Electrical Industries) at Aldermaston Court, Pilkingtons in St Helens, ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) and BP (British Petroleum) all had, or were setting up, major laboratories for conducting basic research.Close contact with a major university was deemed essential, as was remoteness from any of the operating companies that might be tempted to overload the Laboratory with production problems. Hinxton Hall, nine miles outside Cambridge, had been on the market for some time and fitted these criteria admirably. TI bought it in 1953 together with the plans of

Michael James Stowell. 10 July 1935—27 February 2022

“…Finally, it is essential to contemplate the history of TIRL, and Mike's role in it, as recounted in a very readable paper (11). To quote from its concluding paragraphs: The laboratory … was in a very real sense a founder member of what later became known as ‘The Cambridge Phenomenon’, the fruitful interaction between university and industry.…”