WIDOW BUILDS ARSENAL

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 13772, 15 October 1942, Page 6

WIDOW BUILDS ARSENAL

“ROMANCE OF SPEED"

Amazin g A chievement

£4,000,000 of Government

War Work

A mother of four girls has built one of Britain’s great new war factories where 3,000 other women, out of 4,500 employees, are already turning out arms faster than the Government thought possible, states an “Overseas Daily Mail’’ reporter. She is Mrs M. A. Robson, of Sheffield, and the House of Commons heard about her—and the factory she built —from Mr Edward Dunn, M.P. for Rother Valley, Yorkshire.

Mrs Robson’s husband, a works contractor, died 12 years ago. She had been his business partner and learned the work from him.

Now she is probably Britain’s only woman works contractor. She employs 1,800 men, and Mr Dunn calls her “the most remarkable woman I know.’’

In peace days she built cinemas, public-houses, churches, and chapels. She planned and built the Lancashire County Mental Hospital, which cost £ 750,000.

Mr Dunn told me: “The factory I mentioned manufactures small arms, and Mrs Robson built it in twothirds the time allocated by the Government.

“It is now employing women who 12 months ago had neve been inside one—they are mostly miners’ wives —and it has passed its production target.

“In fact, it isn’t a factory. It’s a romance of speed, plus enterprise, plus women’s enthusiasm and women’s brains.

“The absentee figures are only 5.5, and voluntary absenteeism is as low' as 1.56.

“That’s only one of the things Mrs Robson has done. She is now building a hush-hush factory costing £ 500,000 in which secret products will be mass produced.

“She has built Army camps; she did wonderful reconstruction, work after the blitz in Sheffield.

“‘I should say she has done £ 4,000.000 of Government war work.” v

Mrs Robson starts her day before most people have breakfast, and she thinks nothing of working the clock round.

When her husband died, their youngest daughter was IS months. She told me about the theories she has formed on the sort of factories women like to work in. She said: “Women like ' space, light, good ventilation, a floor that is comfortable to stand on, warmth, and a feeling that they are touching shoulders with their neighbours. “They like the giant hall sort of place, not. the self-contained flat type.”