|
Whilst I was at a boot fair in Abergavenny, a dealer in militaria showed me what he said was an ARP miner's lamp made by Hailwood & Ackroyd that had blue glass fitted. He said that these were manufactured during the war and placed on gas leaks during air raids. The blue glass stopped them being seen from altitude. "The Air Raids Precaution Department of the Home Office discovered in the tests carried out at Bedford that Aircraft flying at 2,000 feet cannot spot dime blue lights", Flyer Magazine. I checked this up online and indeed a couple of sites mentioned this information. The site said that over 100,000 such lamps were offered for sale during the war at 3/6d. Some had red glass. I was initially sceptical of this until I found more about them online. There is allegedly an advertisement for this lamp from the war and I would be most interested to see it.  ARP Hailwood & Ackroyd Miner's Lamp With Blue Glass
1 Comment
Phil
3/26/2019 21:37:32
All this is true! I was apprenticed to H&A in the 1970s and acquired one of these lamps (which I still have). One of the old guys in sales told me about the lamps being re-worked with blue glass during the war. It was a boost for the company because the original lamps were leased to the coal mines, not sold. Around the time of the war they were all coming back from lease because electric lighting was coming in and the blue glass versions were sold, thereby getting rid of unwanted stock. By the way, they cannot be lit without proper (fire safe) filling and lighting equipment - again leased, not sold! Leave a Reply. |
AuthorNews about interesting insignia, ARP related info and period photos that turn up. Archives
March 2020
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
Copyright Craig Smith © 2020