Plastics Afloat
Albert Attwood

Roanoid Plastics Ltd. was a specialist plastics moulding company established to produce items for the shipping industry and which went on to supply trade mouldings to some of the world's leading companies. Its factories at Tyseley, Birmingham and Hillingdon, Glasgow employed nearly 600 people. The author of this pen picture of the early days and subsequent demise of the company is a former director and general manager.

Roanoid Plastics Limited was founded by Rowan & Boden Limited, well-known suppliers of furnishings and floor coverings to the shipping industry. It was in the 1920s that the company saw the potential of plastics in this work and consequently registered Roanoid Plastics on 3 October 1923. A small factory was purchased in the St. Paul's area of Birmingham to make such products and this complemented the existing offices in Glasgow, London, Belfast, Newcastle and Liverpool. The plastics business showed early promise and in due course moved to a larger factory in Tyseley where new, more sophisticated machinery was installed.

One of the highlights of these early years occurred in 1936 when the Cunard liner Queen Mary was launched on the Clyde. She provided Roanoid and a number of other plastics companies with a wonderful opportunity. Many of the cabins were fitted with Roanoid toilet fittings and cabinets as well as thousands of feet of plastics-covered round and oval handrails. Later, such products were also supplied to other shipping companies such as P & 0, Orient Line, Blue Funnel Line and Canadian Pacific Steamships. Roanoid fittings were also specified by the Admiralty, London County Council and railway hotels.

In 1938 the then works manager was sent to Germany to visit Eckert & Ziegler, makers of pneumatic injection machines. As a result, two machines with plunger injection units were purchased which made it possible to produce new mottled colours in thermoplastics which complemented those being manufactured in urea formaldehyde. So valuable an investment were these machines that, with the threat of war, a government department asked that they be removed from Tyseley and taken to 'a safer place' at Stroud, Gloucestershire. There, TH&J Daniels was developing Edgwick machines which became very popular in later years for moulding nylon and thermosetting materials.

During the Second World War, the Tyseley factory produced both thermoset and thermoplastic products in aid of the national effort. Among other things, this established a customer base which included some of the leading companies in British industry - Thermos, Philips Electrical,

Smiths Industries and Ford, for instance. These contacts were maintained and expanded in the post-war years, during which Roanoid was also kept busy with refits of ships neglected during the conflict. The company's employees were skilled and had long experience in producing first-class mouldings such as door furniture, electrical fittings and bathlights. Orders were received that frequently had to be delivered within days and at a time when the ship concerned was in port. The staff often worked overnight to meet such demands.

New materials and products

Production of mouldings for the shipping industry continued to form an essential part of the business. Thermosets such as urea and phenol formaldehyde continued to be used but changes were made to the materials employed in injection moulding. Up to the 1950s, all injection-moulded products were made from cellulose acetate where every part required an aluminium alloy insert to give mechanical strength. When nylon became available it was preferred for many applications because it needed no support.

A particularly interesting product around this time was aluminium reinforced cellulose acetate rails for supporting curtains used in showers, cubicles and the like. This had originally been developed for the shipping companies but interest was being shown in a new development of the idea called Roanrail by hospitals in the UK and overseas in countries as far away as Nigeria. This enabled the hospitals to enclose bed space totally to provide complete privacy and eliminate the need for screens. Another innovation was a complete range of melamine tableware in a wide range of colours. Customers for this included educational authorities and, again, hospitals. So popular was the latter that the double-daylight 350-ton presses worked 24 hours a day to produce the quantities required.

End of an era

The last major project for Roanoid was the building of the Canberra which required, among other things, 600 toilet cabinets incorporating fluorescent lighting and multi-socket shaver terminals. Due to delays by the subcontractor supplying the transformer units, the work was delayed and only completed with less than one hour to spare before the liner left Southampton for trials in the English Channel.

Roanoid Plastics ceased trading in 1987, largely because of the huge downturn in British shipbuilding. The company will be remembered in the history of the industry as an early and successful moulder of high-quality products and the workplace of several hundred people with unusual skills and dedication.