Westwood Works 1903-2003

Apprentice Intakes

Student and Craft Apprentice Intakes

	A Baker Perkins "Register of Indentured Apprentices" was discovered in a farmer's barn in Crowland (near Peterborough) in 2011. This begins with the first Baker Perkins, Peterborough indenture signed by Neville Arbon in 1949 and ends with P.A. Ginty who signed Indenture No. 1646 in 1983.

Bearing in mind current discussions at Government level regarding the need to increase the number of apprenticeships available in this country, it is sobering to look back at the sheer scale of the apprentice intake into Baker Perkins from the early 1950s. In 1954 alone - the year that the new Apprentice School was opened – there were four intakes – in January, Easter, August and September – 75 apprentices.

Recruitment continued at a similar rate throughout the next years. Unfortunately, man-power records do not exist of the early days but it will be clear from what has gone before that in Baker Perkins, and its constituent companies – Joseph Baker & Sons and Perkins Engineers (Werner Pfleiderer & Perkins) – there had been a steady flow of apprentices into the business before WW1, between the Wars, during WW2 and afterwards. Information available suggests an average annual apprentice intake of all categories of close to 60 during the period from 1949 to 1966.

Thus, in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s Baker Perkins had more than 1,000 apprentices under training in its UK factories. Despite the yearly intake of Apprentices being very high, competition for places was keen. High quality craft training, coupled with day and sometimes block release to Technical College provided a springboard, not only into skilled craftsmanship, but drawing office and works technician apprenticeships. Some were taken on as student apprentices and joined the ranks of direct-entry sixth form students to follow sandwich degree courses in engineering at universities and polytechnics.

Between 1984 and 1986, Baker Perkins recruited an average of 16 Student Apprentices per year and between 10 and 18 Graduate Apprentices joined the Company each year between 1986 and 1990.

The first female Student Apprentice, Norma West, joined the company in 1967. Norma had started work at Westwood two years previously, but had been encouraged to start a two-year ‘O’ level GCE course at Peterborough Technical College, where she obtained passes in seven subjects. During the summer holidays, she worked at Westwood, passed aptitude tests with flying colours, impressed an all-male selection panel, and was accepted without hesitation for a student apprenticeship. The first female Craft Apprentice to finish her time, Kate Kingdom, received her Indentures and Apprenticeship Certificate in 1978.

Most of the 1954 to 1963 photographs include both Student and Craft Apprentices. Those for 1984 to 1990 are of Student Apprentices only.

Intakes 1947 - 1950

The discovery of the "Register of Indentured Apprenticeships" mentioned a above allows us to create a list of new apprentices who joined the company between 1949 and September 1953 - which is where our photographic record starts.

PLEASE NOTE: As will be seen from the photograph of the Baker Perkins "Register of Indentured Apprentices" at the beginning of this section, the following list of names was recorded in longhand. With all due respect to the person recording the information, it is possible that we have misinterpreted some of the details. If you find any mistakes, we would be very much obliged if you would get in touch.

Intakes 1950 - 1959


1953: September	1954: January	1954: Easter	1954: August	1954: September	1955: January	1955: April

1955: August	1956	1956: August	1956: September	1957: January	1957: Easter?	1957: August

1957: August	1957: August	1957: September	1958:January	1958: April	1958: September	1958: September

1958: Post September	1958: Post September	1959: January	1959: Easter	1959: September	1959: September

Intakes 1960 - 1969


1960: January	1960: Easter	1960: May	1960: September	1960: September	1961: January	1961: Easter

1961: September	1961: September	1962: January	1962: Easter	1962: August	1962: September	1962: September

1963: January	1966: April - Signing the 1,000th Indenture	1967: Norma West - the first female Student Apprentice

A number of negatives have been located at Peterborough Museum which show Apprentices recruited between 1962 and 1974. Unfortunately, it appears that during this period, no group photos were taken, only single "heads" for administration purposes. We calculate that there are some 250 negatives involved. Clearly, scanning these is too big a task for the Museum staff to contemplate at this time.

However, we have located a comprehensive list of Apprentices joining the Company during this period. We have divided this list into three sections: 1963-67, 1968-73 and 1974-79. We hope that this will serve as an adequate record and can only apologise to those ex-apprentices affected.


1978: Kate Kingdon, the only female Craft Apprentice, completes her "time"

Intakes 1980 - 1990


1982: 100,000th EITB Certificate of Engineering	1982: Teaching Company with Loughborough University launched	1984	1985	1986	1986: Graduate Trainee intake	1987

1988	1989	1990

Can you help to fill in any missing dates? If so, please see this page for instructions on how to contact us and we'll update the captions.

	This volume records completed Student Apprenticeships from L.C. Gibbs in April 1948 to R.J. Talbot September 1962. Records of Student Apprenticeships completed after this date have not yet surfaced.