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Sunday, 1st August 2010
WELFARE OF WORKERS
The 1938 Dickinson band after it broadcast on the BBC.
FROM the very start John Dickinson had an eye on the welfare of those who worked for him.
He provided funds for education and housing locally, a tradition carried on after his retirement with donations to the West Herts Hospital and other welfare and leisure support.
The company always gave what it described as “a generous donation” to the employees excursion fund. These excursions were tremendously popular and back in the 1890s the firm would hire a whole train for employees to travel down for a day out on the south coast.
Long before the National Health Service Dickinson’s maintained a special ward at the local hospital, and as early as the turn of the century introduced their own system of old age pensions for former staff.
In the 1880s the Dickinson Silver Band was formed and soon no local occasion was complete without the band, which often gave public concerts on a Sunday on the bandstand which was then in Heath Park.
By the 1930s the band was playing on the BBC - radio, of course, as TV was only just becoming a reality.
Our picture taken in 1938 shows the band after one of their national radio performances during which they performed the march Basildon. This was specially written by their conductor Mr J. C. Dyson who is pictured seated on the immediate right of the bandmaster.
The 1905 Dickinson fete goes through Apsley
At the time of the company’s centenary in 1904 every worker received an extra week’s pay, the number of pensions available to workers was doubled - albeit from 20 to 40 - and £105 each was donated to the West Herts Infirmary, Herts Convalescent Home, Watford District Hospital, Apsley Parish Room and Kings Langley Parish Room.
Mind you, John Dickinson himself had a fiery temper and when faced by a strike among his workers in 1821, he “discharged” all those who were discontented and filled the vacant posts with ordinary labourers from around the district who he then trained up.
By 1830 the introduction of machinery to make paper was causing much discontent around England among the old craftsmen fearing for their traditional skills, and this culminated in violence known as the Swing Riots which saw gangs of machine breakers at large.
A large gang marched on Nash Mills from Buckinghamshire, but met members of the Berkeley Hunt in the field and, mistaking their pink outfits for military uniforms, decided to retreat rather than face what they thought were soldiers sent to quell them.
If they had got to Nash Mills, they would have found it well prepared. A system of defence had been organised by General Beckwith, a Peninsular War veteran who was staying with John Dickinson at the time.
In the years between the wars a pension fund was started and in 1920 working hours were reduced to 44 without loss of pay.
The agitation of workers in most industries throughout the country which led to the general strike of 1926 led to the formation of the Union of the House of Dickinson.
It was set up in place of an outside union and the company allocated £50,000 of special reserve which remained invested in the company at five per cent and gave £5,000 for the relief of special cases of distress.
A committee of management was elected and a trust fund of £100,000 was set up to meet the union’s pension obligations.
The rules laid down that there should be no strikes or lock outs, but it should be an aim of the union to secure conditions where workers could earn more than minimum trade union rates.
A guild of sport was set up and sickness and unemployment benefits arranged. Paid holidays were also to be provided.
To return to the John Dickinson introduction page, click below
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