companies and leading industrial companies. Their oil fuel burning products were well known nationally and internationally. They had agents in most European countries, Scandinavia, USA, Canada, Jamaica, Australia and Japan. They exhibited at trade exhibitions, both in this country and abroad. Their work took them as far afield as South Africa, Australia and Japan.
However, much closer to home they oil fired the heating system at
St.Mary’s Church Portchester. But without doubt, their two most prestigious contracts, both with a Royal connection, were the oil firing of the heating system at Windsor Castle and providing the boilers on board the iconic H.M Royal Yacht “Britannia”.
In the early ‘70, Margaret Bell recounts that there was quite a local stir when the cashier drew money from the National Westminster Bank in Portchester for the wages of the task force working at Brunswick Wharf London and disappeared with the cash. A very ugly situation developed as the waiting workforce threatened to burn down the site hut and overturn the site caravan. The day was saved by the arrival of further funds - but the erring cashier was never traced, nor heard of ever again.
In 1972 Combustion Equipment Associates from America bought into the company and they traded under the name of C.E.A. Combustion Ltd, which
in turn changed to Combustion Technology International Ltd (C.T.I.). Eventually one of the subsidiaries in America went into ‘chapter 11’, the USA equivalent of filing for bankruptcy. In 1983 the receivers were called in.
Sadly, this was the end of a firm that came from a small beginning, which grew to a worldwide trading company. It was a massive blow for all the staff at Murrills House, especially for the ABC company chauffeur who had taken great pride in driving around the ‘Rolls’ and ‘Bentley’.
Former members of staff supplied me with the names of some of the power station sites where ABC burners were used in their conversion to oil fuel and it is an impressive list. They were... Battersea, Didcot, Poole, Bankside, Fulham, Brunswick Wharf, Rugeley, Grangemouth, Long Annet which was the most advanced power station in the world in 1970 and Table Bay Power Station in South Africa.
An extract from a document written by Margaret Bell.
Left: Windsor Castle Below: The iconic H.M Royal Yacht “Britannia”
46 | The Report • June 2019 • Issue 88
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