From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Letter from the Experimental Department discussing the factory's unsatisfactory apprenticeship schemes.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 127\3\ scan0155 | |
| Date | 11th December 1936 | |
| 1209 (Experimental Dept.) Rm{William Robotham - Chief Engineer}9/R.{Sir Henry Royce} 11th December, 1936. S.B. Wilks, Esq., The Rover Company, Ltd., COVENTRY. Dear Wilks, We have an Apprenticeship Scheme in the Factory which is not satisfactory. Premium apprentices pay £350 premium, and then spend 4 years wandering round the Factory. They have not a very good reputation for industry, and, in consequence, the foremen do not take a great deal of trouble over them. They are supposed to have two mornings a week on technical work, but as the majority of them come to Rolls-Royce because they are technically sterile and think engineering requires no brains, their studies frequently are not particularly profitable. The other alternative is the privileged apprentices, who are ordinary apprentices, and they are allowed two mornings a week at the Technical College. They do not pay a premium; in fact, they get an ordinary apprentice's pay. Their misfortune is that they do not circulate sufficiently in the Factory, and, therefore, get a somewhat narrow outlook after serving their time. We realise the difficulties of this arrangement, particularly in the Experimental Dept., from which we want to draw intelligent personnel for development work, and hope that we shall soon be able to make better arrangements. In the meantime, I can hardly recommend that your nephew should come to the Factory; if he is still attracted, I daresay I could fix him up somewhere in the Works. Yours sincerely, | ||