Blog at the Ballast: Information about

The crucial role of female workers within the shipping, manufacturing, and engineering industries has become more visible recently with campaigns and online content created by University of Glasgow Archives and Special Collections, Glasgow Women’s Library, Go Industrial, Inverclyde Shipbuilding and Engineering and Imperial War Museum alongside other institutions that seeks to understand, identify and raise awareness of the important role women played within Scotland’s Industrial history.

My initial inspiration to write a blog post focusing on 'Women at Work’ came after conversations with colleagues on females working in the shipyards and in engineering firms which led me to find out more about the role of female tracers. The image above is of the tracing department at Fairfield’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan c.1909.

Female tracers worked in the drawing offices and traced over the drawings made by draftsmen to make the final original design. The need for tracers is often put down to the increased demand for engineers, however it was mainly down to the fact that women were able to trace over these plans with care and precision, it took great skill to be able to become a tracer. To become a tracer, you would have to complete an apprenticeship in a tracing office. The length of these apprenticeships seems to vary between companies but range from nine months to five years. The tracing offices were made up of female employees who were very much kept separate from their male colleagues or draftsmen.

The above image shows the drawing office where draftsmen would have completed their plans before sending them though to the tracers. Despite men and women being kept separate both workrooms are similar in layout and there aesthetic. This image was also taken at Fairfield’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan c.1909.

I was fortunate enough to be put in contact with Ann Wilson who had previously completed a nine-month apprenticeship with Loudon’s engineering shop in Paisley and had then gone on to work with the G.P.O (general post office) for 29 years as a tracer. In this blog I have recounted her time spent as an apprentice and then as a tracer to give more information on the job and what was involved.

Tracers worked solely with ink and linen cloth. Once the cloth had been stretched using four pins, chalk was rubbed into the warp and weft of the linen and left overnight. In the morning the plan drawn by the draughtsman would be slid under the cloth and then weighted. In shipbuilding, plans came in two different sizes; 32” and 46”. Tracers would sometimes work together to complete a drawing if necessary.

The use of linen, as Ann recalls, was a difficult material to work with. Using chalk before applying the ink would provide a surface texture making it easier to apply. The tools used were also the same tools used by draftsmen. If too much ink was placed into the pen it would run onto the linen and spoil the drawing. However, the time it took for the ink to dry would have been minutes as it was applied finely onto the linen. The boards used were tilted at an angle towards the tracer, an office could have up to twenty tracers working in the offices at one time. These boards could be adjusted and set flat depending on the need of the tracer. Set-squares, straight edges and curves were all crucial parts of the tracer’s toolkit, often straight lines were drawn first with corners added in afterwards.

We were also fortunate to find some tracers tools which had belonged to Duncan Winning. These would have been used by both draftsmen and tracers.

One of the most useful resources at The Trust is a folder compiled by Duncan for the National Records of Scotland which documents the different types of materials that would have been used for plans. This folder is an invaluable resource when cataloging large rolls of plans made up of different types of material, for example; plastic, cartridge, paper and linen. The image below shows a paper drawing from Ferguson Brothers Shipbuilders, Port Glasgow next to a set of tools that a tracer would have used to draw a similar plan.

Not every plan was simply a straightforward copy, at times tracers were required to add in adjustments or alterations, this included making one drawing from multiple plans; each dependant on what the individual order demanded. Many drawings required different levels of detail which the tracer would build upon until the full drawing was completed.

Thanks to Ann Wilson and Craig Osborne our volunteer for sharing their knowledge on the work of female tracers.

Links and References

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Ballast Trust

“Watching the Waverley go by.” April 2018.

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Ballast Trust

“H is for Headquarters”

This week our #ArchiveZ tag was 'H' in the alphabet and it seemed only appropriate to document the move of the Trust to its current headquarters in Johnstone. On this day 26 years ago, archival work commenced at the Ballast Trust's new headquarters in Walkinshaw street, Johnstone. The move was completed earlier in March 1992, a task which took 3 days!

Prior to moving to Johnstone, the Trust had initially operated from Bill's base at Malcolm's of Brookfield, however this was only a temporary arrangement. The liquidation of Scott Lithgow shipyard saw the Trust begin a large-scale operation to rescue and list the huge volume of commercial and technical papers of the inoperative organisation. The task was of such a scale it was agreed that all surviving records of constituent companies would be centralised in the former Joiner's Shop in the Kingston Yard. It was through this operation that the Ballast Trust were able to secure a new headquarters for the next 3 years and 8 months, from 29^th July 1988 to 19^th March 1992.

This is part of a letter written by Bill to Henry Higgs, giving an update on the move to Scott Lithgow's Joiner's Shop in Port Glasgow from the offices in Brookfield. Dated 17^th December, 1988. Reference No. UGD 301/1/20/120.

This is a letter written by Bill to George Mackenzie at the Scottish Record Office. This is a progress report on the move and subsequent activities in Port Glasgow. Dated 12^th August, 1988. Reference No. UGD 301/1/20/65.

This is correspondence between George Mackenzie at the Scottish Record Office and Bill Lind. Bill highlights the plan for Scott Lithgow's and gives dates when the Trust would be ready to move to Port Glasgow. Dated 30^th June, 1988. Reference No. UGD 301/1/20/49.

It was in Port Glasgow that the working practices of the Ballast Trust developed and the value and importance of its service came to be fully understood and acknowledged. The enormity of this task is apparent in Bill's correspondence, where he estimates over 120 tons of material was collected from Scott Lithgow's and was brought to the Joiner's shop for processing. This process culminated in a rich collection covering a period of 120 years, including written communication about the building of blockade runners on the Clyde during the American Civil War, photo albums and a series of yard manager diaries. These records were then transferred to the Scottish Business Archive at the University of Glasgow by Glasgow University Archive Services.

The successful arrangement at Scott Lithgow also helped to secure the agreement of Kvaerner Kincaid of Greenock, to clear the vast quantity of commercial and technical records from their premises. A similar set-up to Scott Lithgow was granted and Kincaid's allowed the Trust access to the mould loft of the former shipbuilders. At this point the Trust was operating from two independent locations simultaneously.

However, this came to an end in 1991, when Trafalgar House notified the Trust of its intention to demolish the Joiner's Shop and clear the site at the Kingston Yard. A new search for permanent premises led the Trust to its present base in Walkinshaw Street, Johnstone.

The move to Johnstone was a gargantuan task, which required two teams at the Kingston Yard and at Kincaid's along with help from personnel at the Scottish Records Office (now known as National Records of Scotland) and Strathclyde Regional Archives (now known as Glasgow City Archives) and students from Professor Slaven's Department of Economic History in the University of Glasgow. The move began on the 16^th March 1992 and was completed by the 19^th March 1992.

This image shows the outside of the Trust in 1992. Ref UGD 301/6/3/8.

This image is of Bill Lind in his office at the Ballast Trust, now the office for our Archivist and Surveying Officer. Ref UGD 301/6/3/8.

This image is of our central work area before any of the shelving was added. Ref UGD 301/6/3/8.

This is correspondence between Bill Lind and Duncan Haws, Travel Creators Ltd. explaining the Trust. Dated 8^th March, 1994. Reference No. UGD 301/1/26/35.

The premises at Walkinshaw Street, previously a furniture factory of James E. Robertson and Sons Ltd. suited the purposes of the Trust well. Between 1992 and 2007 this was where Bill was able to shape his personal vision for the trust and what was required to identify, list and catalogue technical records in order for them to be accessible and understandable to everyone.

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Blog at the Ballast

Friday Photo 'Coriolanus'

Women working in Industry: Female Tracers.

“Watching the Waverley go by.” April 2018.

“H is for Headquarters”

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