An Honourable History Mark Anthony, Editor, Demolition News
In advance of a new book due out later this year, Demolition & Dismantling editor Mark Anthony has been researching the History of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors. And it provides a fascinating insight into the Federation and the industry it serves.
There can be very few historic studies that combine condolences at the passing of a king, planning for the deconstruction of the Festival of Britain, and the design of a primitive site toilet. But the History of the National Federation of Demolition Contractors is far more than a look back at a trade association that emerged from the rubble of Blitz-torn London and which today represents an elite group of demolition contractors that are responsible for around 90 percent of all the demolition that takes place on UK shores. In fact, the book is as much a social history as it is the reminisces of a rough, tough industry, charting the rebirth of a nation beaten but unbowed by war and united in recovery.
Major Achievement Of course, no book on the NFDC can fail to mention the fact that it was started to address the need to clear and make safe houses damaged by the Luftwaffe onslaught aimed at bringing London and, ultimately, Great Britain to its knees. But while legends speak of Winston Churchill himself having given the order to assemble the demolition professionals of the day as part of the war effort, the facts are even more impressive. At one time, Charles Willment (who would go on to become the newly- born Federation's first and longest-standing President) had at his disposal a 10,000-man strong workforce that could be mobilized at a moment's notice.
Such was the relationship between the Federation and the Armed Forces that Willment and his fellow founding father Samuel Allison were temporarily granted the honorary rank of Major in the Army when they took part in a British mission to report on the problems of clearing up the bomb damage in Germany and, in particular, Berlin.
At the same time as they were mobilising men and machines to keep the Home Front safe from unstable buildings, the founding fathers of the Federation were already turning their attention to the challenges of the post-war future.
But for all the far-sightedness of the original NFDC
Image: The new book will be out later this year.
committee, demolition in the 1940s was certainly no bed of roses. With an ongoing shortage of steel and iron due to the war effort, operatives were often expected to provide their own tools and personal protective equipment generally meant a cloth cap.
A Dirty Job According to the minutes of a 13 March 1945 meeting of the Demolition Industry Wages Board, an organisation established in conjunction with the National Federation of Building Trades Operatives in 1943 to regulate and standardise wages across the combined industries, “foul money” was payable to operatives required to work in exceptionally dirty or unpleasant surroundings. The archives sadly do not record what constituted “exceptionally dirty or unpleasant”; but the agreed payment for those required in what must have been horrendous conditions was a paltry 3d/hour over and above their normal wage rate. Even those operatives working on “non-foul” sites faced site conditions that would make the demolition professional of today shudder and down tools.
Notes from a Demolition Industry Wages Board meeting on 1 June 1948 even offered detailed guidance on the specification and construction of Trench-Type on-site sanitary conveniences. That need to safeguard its workers was evident some six and a half decades ago,
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