Highlights from Work in Wartime exhibition at Bilston Craft Gallery
They were buzzing hives of activity during conflicts and now a new exhibition is to pay tribute to the role played by Black Country factories in the war effort.
The Work in Wartime exhibition at Bilston Craft Gallery highlights the scale and importance of factories in Wolverhampton and Bilston during the First and Second World Wars.
The exhibition features dozens of archive images from Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies and also original items, including Villiers engines, a motorcycle and bicycle used by the British Cyclist Corps during the First World War and a very rare Sunbeam military dispatch rider's motorcycle on loan from the Black Country Living Museum.
Also on show are objects, documents and photographs from factories including Boulton Paul, Guy Motors, Goodyear and Sankey.
As well as illustrating the range of factories involved in supplying British and other armed forces, the display aims to highlight social changes brought about by war – including many more women joining the workforce.
Boulton Paul was an aircraft manufacturer that began in 1914 in Norwich and moved to Wolverhampton. It lasted until 1961. The company mainly built and modified aircraft for other manufacturers but had a few notable designs of its own, such as the Defiant.
Guy Motors was a Wolverhampton-based vehicle manufacturer that produced cars, lorries, buses and trolleybuses.
As early as 1923 Guy Motors was working on military vehicles, and by 1928 the company was making a six-wheeled armoured car for the Indian Government. Guy armoured cars were considered of such quality that they were used for the protection of the Royal Family and Winston Churchill.
The Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Company arrived in Wolverhampton in 1927. By the end of 1940 the company was Britain's second largest producer of aircraft tyres.
Joseph Sankey & Sons were a Bilston-based firm that produced steel helmets at their Albert Works in World War One, helping to save many lives. Sankeys no longer exists in Bilston. The Morrisons superstore now stands on part of the old site.
The free display at the gallery, on Mount Pleasant, is open to November 13.
