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Concrete Industry
A brief commercial history of the first 50 years from 1913 to 1963
W
By Michael J. Arthur
hen the author It is difficult to pin down the for his own use and soon
entered the exact starting point of ready- recognized the opportunities for
ready-mixed mixed concrete production.A supplying other contractors. By
concrete business widely quoted date is 1913 but 1925 there were some 25 plants
of Trent Gravels Ltd of other sources suggest it could in production, and by 1929 over
Attenborough, Nottingham, have been even earlier, depending 100 concrete-mixing plants were
in 1960, the ready-mixed upon how the term is interpreted. in existence throughout the US.
concrete industry in the UK In 1913, when the first load of This is the standard story of
was still in its infancy. At that ready-mixed concrete is said to the development of ready-mixed
have been delivered by an concrete, which credits the
time there were people
American in Baltimore, concrete Americans with the invention of
around who had been in
was commonly mixed by hand, what has become the main source
‘ready-mix’ from the start
but in 1916 Stephan Stepanian of of the material for construction
and some of what follows is
Columbus, Ohio, filed a patent for work. In his paper entitled ‘The
based on their published a truckmixer.This was rejected, growth of the ready-mixed
comments, the remainder on however, and the ‘transit mixer’ concrete industry in Great
their private recollections took another Britain’, however, Peter Jackson
and the author’s own 10 years to materialize and to tells of a Mr Deacon, Liverpool’s
experience from the early deliver the first load of truck- Borough and Water Engineer, who
1960s.This article formed mixed concrete in 1926. In the in 1872 carried out tests to satisfy
the basis of a presentation to meantime (believed to be in 1922 himself that concrete compacted
the Midlands branch of The or 1923) a building materials 20–30min after mixing gave better
Institute of Quarrying in supplier from Danville,Virginia, results than when used
2003. bought a concrete mixing plant immediately. Over the next five
Loading wet Hauling with sides On site sides are Body is tipped With sides
concrete: body in V position swung to vertical, and restricted vertical, the track
sides in V position redistributing gate opened to can carry stone
grout give a limited or other bulk
mixing action material
years he went on to lay some no such development and at the is interesting to note that as late
100,000yd3 of concrete ‘after end of the 1920s there were no as 1945, D.C. Hay of Kuert
being mixed in and carried from central mixing plants in the UK. In Concrete Inc. was reporting that
the nearest available yard’. the March 1930 edition of his company used nothing but
Jackson’s paper also records Cement, Lime and Gravel, however, non-agitating tippers to deliver
that ‘ready-mixed concrete’ was the editor made the following 55,000yd3 of ready-mixed
used in the construction of the comment: ‘Our conservative concrete a year, over distances of
Admiralty Harbour at Dover in nation is famous for its care in up to 28 miles from the plant.
1898 and in one section of the accepting new ideas and this has J.L.Wellings quoted the capital
work there were two 1yd3 delayed the introduction of ready- outlay for a central mixing plant
mixers, each producing 100yd3 of mixed concrete here.’ But he installation and trucks in 1930 as
concrete a day. added: ‘It’s got to come’, and being £20,000 for a modest unit
So Peter Jackson’s article, indeed it did. Simon McPherson’s and up to £90,000 for a large one
published in the March 1957 comment accompanied an article incorporating a 3yd3 mixer.The
edition of the magazine Cement, entitled ‘Ready-mixed concrete truckmixer fleet would account
Lime and Gravel, puts a new and central mixing plants’ by J.L. for some 60% of this outlay, with
complexion on the history of Wellings of Millars Machinery Co. a 2yd3 machine costing some
ready-mixed concrete, although he Ltd, which was claimed to be the £2,000. He commented that one
does admit that the term is now first comprehensive article on the company had 86 trucks in use,
only applied to the situation where subject published in the UK. another 64, and observed that
the producer ‘sells’ concrete to a Wellings described the several large plants had this
user, and this is what is supposed situation in the US industry in the number handling their output!
to have happened first in Baltimore 1920s and distinguished between
in 1913. concrete from ‘central mixing Britain in the
plants’ and ‘truck- or transit- 1930s
The background to mixed concrete’.The former he The person credited with being
developments in classified as ‘stationary’ and ‘semi- first off the mark in the UK was
Britain portable’ for the production of Kjeld Ammentorp, a Dane, who
Although the industry ‘took off’ wet-mixed materials, and both of had witnessed the introduction of
Ammentorp’s 1930 in the US during the 1920s, post- them for mixing dry materials. ready-mixed concrete in
plant at Bedfont World War I Britain experienced The plants illustrated varied in Copenhagen in the mid-1920s. He
appearance, but each contained formed a company called Ready
the essential elements of Mixed Concrete Ltd in July 1930
aggregate and cement storage. and erected the UK’s first plant
Bulk cement handling through the on land owned by Hall & Co. at
use of an ‘air-conveying system’ Bedfont, near Staines in
was considered more satisfactory Middlesex. Peter Jackson refers to
than the use of bagged cement. him as the ‘father’ of the British
The vehicles used for delivering ready-mixed concrete industry,
low-slump wet-mixed concrete and indeed he was. Having
were either standard tippers or selected such an appropriate
those with specially built name for his business, he was to
V-shaped bodies, while tipping become a guiding light for several
‘agitators’ were employed for of the people running the
conveying higher-slump mixes. companies that were to follow.
Non-tipping, horizontal-drum The Bedfont plant included a
truckmixers, which incorporated 2yd3 mixer and was fed from four
a scroll of blades, were rotated in 100yd3 aggregate bins. Cement
one direction to mix the dry was initially handled in bags, as
batch, and in the other to bulk cement handling systems
discharge the mixed concrete. It were not readily available in