A new system of optical inspection was developed in 1936 by A. J. Simpson, later the chief inspector, for measuring small machined parts in large quantities. comparatively cheap and reliable type of projector was developed, and a number are now used in the works, showing up defects that would go undetected by normal checking methods and saving time by enabling many elements of a component to be checked simultaneously.

The trade slump, as we have seen, forced the Company to reduce the number of Effects of its workpeople considerably—from 11,000 to 7400 between 1931 and 1933. The the slump— inevitable distress was relieved from a special fund, set up in 1933 in response to an appeal by G. E. Bailey and financed by voluntary contributions and a grant from the Company.

Many will remember the wide open spaces in B aisle, where six-hour shifts were worked for some time in an endeavour to provide employment. In the instrument and meter shops some additional work was found by the manufacture of two new products—a line of miniature instruments inherited from the Park Royal Engineering Company which had been acquired by A.E.I., and a new type of vacuum switch, the sales of which were handled by Sunvic Controls Limited, an associated company formed in 1933. At the Sheffield works, the last portions of which had just been taken over, the worst gaps were filled by the manufacture of a variety of new products ranging from domestic boilers to battery vehicle chassis; there was also a promising newcomer, the 'metadyne'.

By 1935 however the position was radically changed, and the works had to be considerably enlarged to deal with the increasing amount and scope of the Company's business. In the following year work began on the first of a series of extensions devoted to making equipment for the Government, culminating in the laying down of an aircraft factory on a site hitherto unoccupied in Mosley Road.

Additional office accommodation had been provided in 1930 by the erection of a two-storey west office block, chiefly for drawing offices. While its foundations were being prepared the pile-driver collapsed suddenly, and those working in the adjacent 'Y.M.C.A. huts' had an anxious moment before deciding that it was only a very near miss.

Women continued to be engaged in large numbers. The Company had ceased to school employ married women in 1924, and instead it began to recruit from the younger girls, who could be taught M-V methods and later promoted to more responsible jobs. Training facilities were developed by evening classes for the staff and by a