waste energy on hot air
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Works outing 1937 |
| The firm's first female employee, a 17 year old, in her later years described the Wharf Street offices as a cheerless, one-storey building divided into two rooms where office hours were from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays. Of Mr MacWhirter himself she wrote, "He was a worker". She recalled that he was constantly on the go, away to London, Nottingham, Swansea, Glasgow etc., all in the course of business. She also remembered him as something of a 'dour Scot', and indeed after working there for three years, she left to take a job at the Gaumont Film Company, where she received a salary of £1 a week, a 33% increase on MacWhirter's 15/ - a week! |
| Dour Scot or no, Anthony MacWhirter became a very well - known figure in electrical engineering. In 1913 he became the first Chairman of the newly - formed Electrical Contractors Association in South Wales; he was also honorary treasurer of the South Wales Branch of the Association of Mining Electrical and Mechanical Engineers for 33 years, and acted as Branch President in 1925. He certainly remained a true Scot at heart, and was President of the Caledonian Society in 1947; while another of his more unusual distinctions was that of being the only male member of the Electrical Association for Woman. The training of apprentices was an issue to which he attached great importance, and he was instrumental in the setting up in Cardiff of a 'day - release' scheme run jointly by the technical college and industry, enabling apprentices to attend college one day a week. |  Electrical Workshops delivery lorry 1920 |
| Having been involved in both electrical contracting and auto electrics until the mid 30s, in 1934 the Cardiff branch of the firm took over the local Kelvinator agency and began to specialise in refrigeration. The heavy electrical repair side was sold in 1935, and the rest of the business moved to Penarth Road, Cardiff as MacWhirter Ltd, where a new refrigeration department was formed, and the following year this department was awarded the Kelvinator Cup, in recognition of its achievement in recording the highest turnover of Kelvinator business in the UK. |