The potentially interesting Second World War War Effort Manufacturing Services New Years Honours 1946 Order of the British Empire and Great War London Field Company Officer’s group awarded to Lieutenant C. Higgins, Royal Enigneers, Territorial Force. Higgins was commissioned into the Territorial’s in February 1910, and having served with the 2nd London Field Company in the 1st London Divisional Engineers, then found himself out on the Western Front from December 1914 when with the 1st London Field Company. Later in life, at the time of the Second World War, he was working for the General Electric Company of England, and for his services during the war as the Joint Manager of this firm’s Shaw Factory at Shaw near to Oldham, Lancashire, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in January 1946. At the outbreak of the war his firm’s factory at Hammersmith in London had been recognised as being of strategic military importance to the war effort, as it was manufacturing electronic valves and cathode ray tubes. The Shaw Factory in Lancashire was set up as a shadow factory for the electronic valves and cathode ray tubes to be produced in case the existing factory was targeted by the enemy.
Group of 4: The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Officer, O.B.E., 2nd type, Civil Division, with original presentation pin, and housed in its Royal Mint fitted presentation case, together with the Instructions for Wearing Card; 1914-1915 Star; (LIEUT. C. HIGGINS. R.E.); British War Medal and Victory Medal; (LIEUT. C. HIGGINS.), last three all with original ribbons and housed in their individual named card boxes of issue.
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine, the card boxes for the last three now damaged in places.
Clifford Higgins was commissioned into the Territorial Force on 24th February 1910 as a 2nd Lieutenant with the Royal Engineers for service with the 2nd London Field Company, 1st London Divisional Engineers. Initially a Supernumerary, he was absorbed into the establishment on 16th August 1911, and was promoted to Lieutenant on 3rd August 1913.
Mobilised with the outbreak of the Great War, he was appointed as a Lieutenant into the 1st London Field Company on 23rd September 1914, and then posted out to the Western Front from 14th December 1914. Higgins was posted out of the 1st London Field Company whilst still a Lieutenant on 16th March 1916. Higgins claimed his campaign medals in June 1919, when shown as residing at Balderton Street off Oxford Street, London.
He subsequently went on to work for the General Electric Company of England, and for his services during the Second World War as the Joint Manager of this firm’s Shaw Factory at Shaw near to Oldham, Lancashire. It was for this work that he was appointed an Ordinary Member of the Civil Division of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the New Years Honours List as published in the London Gazette for 9th January 1946.
The Shaw factory of which he was the Joint Manager, was stablished during the Second World War by the Marconi-Osram Valve Company, a division of the General Electric Company of England, as a shadow factory for the electronic valves and cathode ray tubes being made at Hammersmith.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war, it was noted that the GEC's manufacturing of electronic valves and cathode ray tubes at Hammersmith was of strategic military importance to the war effort, and the risk could not be taken that this crucial facility might be bombed. It was therefore decided to establish a shadow factory in the relatively safe north-western part of the country, and suitable facilities were identified in the small town of Shaw. Sometime during the period 1939-45 the M-O Valve Company purchased two former mills from the Lancashire Cotton Corporation for the princely sum of £7000, and these were converted for the manufacture of electronic tubes.
The two sites were known by their former names, Cape Mill and Duke Mill, and production was initially set up in Cape. A plethora of different tubes then made the journey northwards, including such products as the GEC's famous KT66 Kinkless Tetrode, still today one of the most revered electronic valves among professional audiophiles.
