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Albert Street, George Sankey, Hadley Castle, Harold Sankey, Joseph Sankey & Sons, Ministry of Munitions, steel helmets, Sydney Sankey, war memorials, women
Despite being a large and thriving company, Joseph Sankey & Sons Ltd was not immune from being affected by the First World War. Not least because the firm lost large numbers of workers to the armed forces. Combined with this loss, the company also had an increase in orders, particularly from the Ministry of Munitions, with the works at Albert Street and Hadley Castle producing field kitchens, mine hemispheres, aeroplane parts and bombs, rifle grenades, mortar bombs anti-submarine bodies and shell bodies. This photograph demonstrates the large proportion of female workers that were taken on during the war years, to cope with the increased demand.
Sankey’s most important role during the First World War, however, was that of producing steel helmets. When the war broke out in 1914, soldiers did not have any protective headgear, and were just issued with a cloth cap. Steel companies in Sheffield apparently insisted to the War Office that it would be impossible to produce a steel helment strong enough to withstand a revolver bullet at close range.
However, George Sankey, whose nephew Sydney was killed at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and whose eldest son Harold was in the trenches, refused to give up. Eventually the company managed to produce a strong manganese steel helmet. Sankey’s spent the rest of the war supplying 5 and a half million of these helmets, which was almost the whole requirement of the British Army.
Sankeys lost 69 employees during the First World War, including Director Sydney Sankey. Their details are on the Works War memorials, which are preserved at St Leonard’s Church, Bilston.