WORCESTER’S Meco factory in Bromyard Road will be forever remembered as the victim of the Nazis' only significant bombing raid on the city during the Second World War.
On a dark day in October 1940, a lone German aircraft unloaded its deadly cargo, killing seven employees and injuring 50 more, three seriously.
The complex features again in a new booklet entitled Dowty Days Remembered by Martin Robins, which covers the rise and development of the engineering group founded by Sir George Dowty.
Dowty acquired Higgins Broughton Industries and its principal subsidiary Meco (the Mining Engineering Company) in 1968 and owned it until a management buyout in 1989.
Sir George Dowty and his second wife Lady Marguerite, who was Canadian and 24 years younger
Sir George, who died in 1975 having moved to the Isle of Man from Cheltenham, was the archetypal post-war business boss.
Always immaculately dressed, smooth haired and expensively motored, he oozed top corridor business authority, yet he came from humble beginnings and was admired by his workforce.
Born in Pershore, he lost the sight in his right eye when a boy making fireworks and after attending Worcester Royal Grammar School, left at the age of 15 to take up a job as an apprentice at Heenan & Froude at its factory in the city.
HEART OF THE ACTION: Machine shop and, inset, the machine shop with a specialist cutting and drilling machine designed and manufactured by Meco
In 1918 he became a draughtsman with the British Aerial Transport Company in London in 1931 set up his own company in Cheltenham making aircraft equipment and the town remained his base.
The war years were undoubtedly good for business, his stock rose and in 1956 George Dowty was knighted for his services to industry.
The machine shop with a specialist cutting and drilling machine designed and manufactured by Meco Pictures: Dowty Heritage
Among a clutch of positions he held were president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, president of Worcestershire County Cricket Club and president of Worcester Old Elizabethans Association, the old boys association of WRGS.
He supported many causes in and around his home town of Pershore and received the Freedom of the Borough if Cheltenham and Tewkesbury.
Conveyor system for the Canadian Market
For 28 years, long after Sir George died, the Dowty name was a familiar one on the Worcester industrial scene, employing hundreds of skill local workers.
BUSY: Roller Shop
Among planned tributes to Sir George in Cheltenham, there is also a proposal to have a gathering for ex-Dowty Meco employees in Worcester.
Watch this space.
The new booklet Dowty Days Remembered by Martin Robins, who worked for Dowty
Dowty Days Remembered, cost £10, can be ordered from the author Martin Robins at martinrobins@btinternet.com
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