Asbestos, the Turner Brothers Magazine: The Archive, 1918–1920

Asbestos was the house magazine of Turner Brothers Asbestos Company of Rochdale, England, whose works there were then the largest of their kind in England. It appeared quarterly from January 1918, free "to all who are sufficiently interested in it to apply for a copy," and was written for the firm's staff, its workpeople and its customers. Every cover carried the same drawing by Bernard Partridge of Punch, the firm's "House Mark": a figure of "Asbestos" standing between civilization and the destructive elements. This archive holds all twelve issues from January 1918 to October 1920, free to read online or download.

Asbestos is not the same magazine as Asbestos, the American trade monthly published in Philadelphia from 1919, whose archive is here. The Rochdale magazine reprinted a few of its articles.

How to use the archive

Each year has its own page with that year's four issues and an index of their articles, grouped by topic. Choose an article in the index and the issue opens at its page. The magazine never printed an index, so we compiled one from each issue's contents. Its pages are numbered straight through each volume (Volume 1 is 1918, Volume 2 1919, Volume 3 1920), and the index uses those printed numbers.

• 1918, Volume 1: January, April, July, October
• 1919, Volume 2: January (the "Anniversary and Peace Issue"), April, July, October
• 1920, Volume 3: January, April, July, October

What is in it

Each issue opens with the editor's essay, "Thoughts from the Editor's Fireside," and carries the firm's views on the war, the peace, trade unions, nationalization and Bolshevism, alongside works news from Rochdale and the Trafford Park works in Manchester: the Council of Employees, the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, sports, allotments, the roll of honour of employees serving in the war, and presentations to long-serving workers.

The articles that matter most for asbestos history are listed in each year's index under "Asbestos Fibre & Mines," "Products & Applications" and "Research & Technical." Among them:

• H. W. Rowell's series "The Origin and Properties of Asbestos" (1918–1920), the firm's technical account of the fibre, from where it is mined to its chemistry and its use in heat insulation;
• W. F. Gibson's articles on asbestos-cement sheeting and tiles, made at Trafford Park (1918–1920);
• Théo. C. Denis's account of the asbestos mines of Quebec, where most of the firm's fibre came from (1920);
• "A Chinese Asbestos Factory" by Lady Dorothea Hosie (1920), on asbestos spun by hand at Tientsin, ending with the hope of machinery "for the sake of the workmen and their health";
• a tribute to Sir Samuel Turner at eighty, with the firm's history from 1871 (April 1920);
• the directors' notice of the amalgamation with the Washington Chemical Company and Newall's Insulation Company (January 1920), the merger that created Turner & Newall.

Why it matters

These issues show Britain's leading asbestos firm describing its fibre, its works and its products in its own words, at the very time its workers were breathing the dust. They say almost nothing about that dust. The only mention of dust in the works in three years is a Belgian visitor's letter praising "the order and cleanliness" of the Rochdale works "in spite of the dusty nature of the raw materials used" (April 1919). The firm wrote of welfare and "Safety First" in general terms; the one call for "better hygiene for the workers" in an asbestos factory came from the asbestos workers' union secretary, H. H. Duke (July 1918).

Nellie Kershaw, a spinner of asbestos yarn at Turner Brothers' Rochdale works in these years, died in 1924, the first death recorded as caused by asbestos dust. Her case led in time to Merewether and Price's survey of 1930 and Britain's first asbestos industry regulations, in 1931. For the company's later history, see Turner & Newall, and for claims against it today, the Federal-Mogul and T&N asbestos trust.

About this copy

These are scans Google made of the bound volume in the New York Public Library, which received the issues as they were published. The volume is complete from January 1918 to October 1920. A few pages were missed in the scanning: printed pages 73–74 and 117–118 of 1918, 21–24, 53–57 and 103–104 of 1920. According to the library's catalogue, the magazine was suspended after one more issue, January 1921, which the library never received. We have found no copy of it, and no later issues. If you have one, we would like to hear from you.

Rights

Published 1918–1920 by Turner Brothers Asbestos Co. Ltd., Rochdale, England; in the public domain. Scanned by Google from the New York Public Library's copy.