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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2006 THE NEW TANNER 19 Mixed blessing when Beardmore tannery was sold to Canada Packers Bill Nelles By Maggie Petrushevsky The changes in the tan- nerys operation under the Beardmore family and un- der Canada Packers Inc. were a mixed blessing, says Bill Nelles, the man who was once supervisor of plant services and pol- lution control systems at the tannery. Canada Packers updated the plant and implemented new technologies as they came along, he says. But if you needed something you had to go through 16 people to get authorization to get it. Before, you asked the colonel (Beardmore) and he said yes or no on the spot. Nelles remembers the Beardmore family do- ing a lot for the town. For instance, the tan- nery groundskeeper also maintained Actons lawn bowling greens. Canada Packers kept up a lot of the traditions but it wasnt the same. One of those kind-heart- ed gestures which may not be well known was how the company continued to care for its retirees in a time before Canada Pension. When you retired you got a job as a security guard, Nelles says. Two guys did the watch on 12 hours shifts. You did 12 hour shifts on the gates and the two night watchmen each walked 12 miles every night covering their half of the yard. The company also made a point of coordinating in- stallation of new equipment and technology with retire- ments so that only rarely was anyone put out of a job because of modernization, he says. Of course, theres also the matter of needing to keep things running until new equipment was de- livered, he says, so it worked to their advantage too. When Nelles joined the tannery workforce in 1949 it employed 750 people, including plenty of women. When it closed the work- force was down to 350. Beardmore was an essen- tial service during World War II and many women worked there including lots of mothers. They were allowed to come in at nine oclock when their children went to school and leave at four to be there when the young ones arrived home. They didnt ease them out when the men came home (from the war), Nelles says. They were kept on if they wanted to stay. In the beginning women may have been kept out of the heavier work but that changed in its later days, he says. If women were to be equal to men they had to do the same heavy work as their male co-workers. Nelles, a descendant of the family that built Ac- tons first tannery in the 1830s, agrees that Acton was certainly a company town in the 1800s. They even owned a gen- eral store downtown then, where you bought your groceries and supplies and they were deducted from your wages, he says. Even after the war the tannery still ruled the roost, only more subtly. The town had only a few manufactur- ing plants after the war, and they all worked together to control wage and benefit increases for their employ- ees. Naturally, as the largest employer, the tannerys role was significant. There had been a real division between labour and management under the Beardmore family. After Canada Packers took over, that began to change. Like many other busi- nesses, Beardmore suffered badly during the Great De- pression and when Canada Packers bought the tannery, the banks actually owned the business, not the fam- ily, Nelles says. Canada Packers upgraded all the facilities during and right after the war, Nelles says. Even though the old stone outer walls remained, ev- erywhere, things changed. For example, the tannery used to use one 55-ton boxcar of coal a day in the summer and two of them in the winter for heat, steam and power. There were steam engines powering machines all over the place as well as converting elec- tricity to usable power. Remember we had 25 cycle power in those days, Nelles says, and the ma- chines from Europe were designed for their 60 cycle system. So we had to con- vert it. During his time at the tannery they went from open drains, to closed drains, to filtration to a system where you could almost drink the water be- cause it was so pure when we were finished with it, he says. He points out that there was no technology for pollution control when the tannery first opened its doors in Acton. In the end, they were using a million gallons of water a day for their processing. He was still in school when the tannery dam went out allowing its waste wa- ter to flood down through neighbouring properties and contaminate the towns in-ground reservoir at a spring on a farm south of Acton. In 1946 the tannery built a dam for its filtration plant and filled its lagoon as soon as the dam was completed. But the earth had not settled enough when the pond was filled so it broke out. You can still see where it drowned all the trees, Nelles says. It just washed over the top and into the reservoir at the spring. He remembers town resi- dents coming to farmers for drinking water because the town had none. He cant recall how long it took to correct the situation. Former head says Ineptitude at hdqtrs. played part in Beardmore closing The former head of Actons Beardmore tannery, Peter Dunham kept his comments short when asked about the anniversary of the plants closing. I was very saddened when I learned of the closure of the Beardmore plant in Acton, he said, particularly so for the hundreds of good and faithful workers who laboured there. However they can take pride in the knowledge that their quality products were valued all over the world, not only in Canada and the USA but also in South America Honduras, Nicaragua and Gua- temala, in Europe and the UK, and as far afield as China and Australia. In retrospect I think of what could have been but for the ineptitude of staff at headquarters. I can only wish the very best to all the Beardmore family. Dunham first joined Beardmore in 1953 and worked on the sales desk. He ended his career with them as the tannerys president and general manager from 1972 until his retirement in 1985. Dunham was also president and a director of the Tan- ners Association of Canada and served as a member of the Canadian trade delegation to Poland, Russia and Czechoslovakia during the cold war. He has lived in Guelph since his retirement in 1985. Bill Nelles, a descendant of Abraham Nelles who built the first tannery in Acton sometime probably in teh 1830s, employed by Beardmore for 37 years. Hes a lifelong resident of Acton. Co l o n e l A l f r e d O . Beardmore, left, often at- tended Beardmore picnics at Prospect Park in Acton and other places along with hundreds of Beard- more employees. It was a great time had by all.