Westwood Works 1903-2003

Lithographs

This section includes some of the lithographs produced by Rudolph Ihlee in 1918.

Scenes at Westwood Works


Girl assembling petrol engines for tanks, type 100hp "Ricardo"	Petrol engines for tanks being tested, type 300hp "Ricardo"	Power house	Water tower, seen from railway sidings	Electrically operated crane lifting mould for casting in the foundry	Crane in the machine shop, seen from crane in adjoining bay of machine shop	Petrol engine test beds

Plateworking shop: howitzer carriages and travelling field ovens	Howitzer trail being machined in horizontal boring machine	Complete 6" howitzer in erecting shop being removed for despatch	Petrol engine flywheels being machined in Duplex vertical boring machine	Crankcase of 300hp petrol engine for tanks being machined under radial arm drilling machine

Baker Perkins Machinery at Work

It is likely that all of these lithographs were made in 1920 as they appear to show Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd equipment. This was at the time of the merger between Perkins Engineers Ltd and Joseph Baker & Sons.


1920: Biscuit Cutting Machine	The Refiner	At the Refiner	The Melangeur	At the Melangeur

These lithographs were produced by Mr. Rudolph Ihlee when working in the Westwood drawing office during the First World War. Born in London, the brother of Mr. F.C. Ihlee, Chairman of the Board of Management of Baker Perkins, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Arts in 1906-10, winning a number of prizes. After two solo exhibitions at the Carfax Gallery in 1914, he became a member of the NEAC, exhibiting at the Leicester Galleries in 1921 with great success. He lived in Collioure in the south of France for many years, marrying a French girl, Isabelle, and just managed to escape back to England when France came under German and Vichy government. They settled in West Deeping, near Peterborough, where Rudolph continued to paint for the rest of his life but was uninterested in selling his work - it simply accumulated at his house. He died in 1968, after which a niece and her husband sold them off through a London gallery. His widow moved to Stamford where she died aged 90.

Rudolph was said to have had a very practical mind - "typical of that family; as good at practicalities as at intellect and with the same rather severe intolerance of inefficiency that F.C. Ihlee is said to have had". (See also History of Werner Pfleiderer & Perkins - F.C. Ihlee).