Six West Cumbrian engineers give their names to Lillyhall training rooms

A Workington training centre has named its classrooms and workshops after six engineers whose work shaped West Cumbria, from Whitehaven's undersea coal pits to Calder Hall, which opened 70 years ago this month.

Responsive Training Services, on Lillyhall Industrial Estate, trains NDT inspectors, welders and quality auditors, many of whom work at Sellafield and across its supply chain. Rooms that were Classroom 1, Classroom 2 and the NDT room now carry the names Bessemer, Spedding, Folly, Wilkinson, Dalton and Hinton.

Bessemer (Classroom 1) is named after Sir Henry Bessemer, whose steelmaking process ran for the last time in Britain at Workington's Moss Bay works in 1974.

Spedding (Classroom 2) honours Carlisle Spedding, the Lowther family's colliery engineer, who sank Saltom Pit at Whitehaven in 1729, the first undersea coal mine in Cumbria, and fought firedamp with engineering until an explosion killed him in 1755.

Folly (Classroom 3) takes its name from "Cockcroft's Folly", the filters Sir John Cockcroft insisted on adding to the top of the Windscale chimneys. They were dismissed as an expensive afterthought until the 1957 Windscale fire, when they are credited with trapping much of the radioactive release.

Wilkinson (the welding bays) is named after John "Iron-Mad" Wilkinson, born at Little Clifton, whose precision cylinder boring made James Watt's steam engine work.

Dalton (the NDT room) is named after John Dalton, born at Eaglesfield near Cockermouth, the father of atomic theory and the first person to describe colour blindness. NDT inspectors still have to pass a colour vision test to be certified.

Hinton (the second NDT room) honours Sir Christopher Hinton, the engineer who built Calder Hall, opened by the Queen on 17 October 1956 as the world's first nuclear power station to supply electricity on an industrial scale.

Lee Grears, Founder and Chief Executive of Test Inspect Group, said: "Classroom 1 says nothing. These names say a lot. Most of the people who train with us live and work in West Cumbria. They grew up around Moss Bay, the Whitehaven pits and Sellafield, and plenty of them have family who worked in all three. Every one of these six made industry stronger or safer by finding out what was really going on inside the material, the ground or the atom, and that is exactly what we teach."

Among those training in the renamed rooms is Joseph Dillon, a first-year NDT apprentice with the group, pictured. "He is exactly who the names are for," said Lee. "He will spend his career inspecting the kind of plant those engineers built, and the plant that replaces it."

Responsive Training Services runs NDT, inspection, welding and quality courses, including ISO 9001 auditor training, from Unit 3C, Hallwood Road, Lillyhall Industrial Estate, Workington. It is part of Test Inspect Group, alongside NDT and testing company Flawed Ltd next door at Unit 3a. Upcoming courses are listed at testinspect.com/book-a-course.

Photo: Joseph Dillon, first-year NDT apprentice, in front of the Charpy impact tester at Lillyhall (attached, free to use with this story).
Notes to editors: Responsive Training Services Ltd, Unit 3C, Hallwood Road, Lillyhall Industrial Estate, Workington CA14 4JR, part of Test Inspect Group. For interviews or more photos, contact lee.grears@testinspect.com