Foliated minutes and papers of T&N Ltd Board and Executive Committee meetings. Includes an inventory. Among subjects covered are reports on the Asbestosis Fund, information on employers’ liability insurance for asbestosis, asbestosis cases, research into asbestosis and mesothelioma cases and claims, deaths of asbestos workers, claims and payments, etc.
Correspondence and papers re testimony submitted to the HSC Advisory Committee on Asbestos (Simpson Committee), its conclusions, and T&N's reaction. Includes:
- typescript summary 'Advisory Committee on Asbestos' (n.d. and of unidentified provenance)
- photocopy of the final report of the committee, 'Asbestos: volume 1: final report of the advisory committee' (1979)
- correspondence about the activities and reports of the Simpson Committee, 1976-1979, and press reports 1976
Also contained in this aggregation was a photocopy of 'Selected written evidence submitted to the Advisory Committee on Asbestos 1976-77' (1977). This was disposed of as it contained no annotations. A copy of the original text can be consulted at http://atom.lib.strath.ac.uk/oeda-selected-written-evidence-submitted-to-the-advisory-committee-on-asbestos-1976-77
The Simpson Committee effectively reviewed the 1969 Asbestos Regulations. However, it had only the power to make recommendations, not to pass regulations or laws.
Correspondence and papers re more than a dozen asbestosis cases, including K J Spencer, George Smith, Charles Crewe, Frederick B Dowling, Arthur Robert Jones, Thomas Jones, Rebecca Pretoria James, Doris Haslan, J H Clegg, S Hillier, Stanley Tooby, and Stanley Wild. Further includes a report on the Asbestosis Fund, 1964.
Corporate correspondence and papers on asbestos and health, including information leaflets on the topic, and safety labelling for asbestos products. Predominantly 1972-1986.
Correspondence and papers re asbestos workers at the Havelock/Bulembu asbestos mine, Swaziland. The bulk of the file relates to an epidemiological study of workers at the mine, undertaken jointly by the Medical Research Council Pneumoconiosis Unit at Llandough Hospital, Penarth (Wales), T&N Ltd, Manchester, and the Havelock Mine, Swaziland.
Includes reports of visits to the mine, preliminary reports of the epidemiological study of chrysotile workers. The study was triggered by a report of Peter Elmes, at the time director of the MRC Pneumoconiosis Unit, Penarth, following a visit in 1978.
Photocopy of an account of Turner & Newall Ltd, issued by the directors of T&N "so that the shareholders of the company may be acquainted with the nature and scope of its operations". Appeared while the company was still chaired by Frederick Stirling Newall, who died 1930.
Photocopy of a brief history of Turner Brothers Asbestos Company Ltd, based on a paper delivered to the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society by Mr N A Morling, 19 February 1959 and published also in ‘Transaction of the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society’ 24 (1960): 49-64
Correspondence and papers, chiefly re a visit of H C Lewinsohn (Chief Medical Officer, TBA Industrial Products Ltd) to India, November 1975.
Includes
- memoranda on T&N occupational health and safety policy
- instructions to T&N companies overseas to take up dust sampling and medical examinations, etc., 1972 onwards
- photocopies of index cards relating to information about overseas companies
- a little material 1965-1967 relating to the Asbestos Research Council Subcommittee on Health Precautions in the Insulation Contracting Industry, whose membership was recruited from the asbestos industry (mainly Cape Asbestos and T&N)
Correspondence and papers re new research on the biological effects of asbestos; also re public perceptions of risks associated with asbestos.
Correspondence and papers re successive studies of mortality among former workers at J W Roberts Armley factory. One survey looked specifically at women and was undertaken by Dr Leo Kinlan, statistican to Dr Richard Doll, Oxford, during the 1970s. The second project was undertaken by Leeds City Council and looked more broadly at mesothelioma deaths in Leeds.
Correspondence documenting T&N’s efforts to counter the findings in a report by the University of Leeds re the health hazards of using asbestos in buildings.
Records (including legal opinions, court summons etc.) relating to legal actions regarding the site of the Dalmuir factory of Turner Asbestos Cement Co Ltd (TAC), later TAC Construction Materials Ltd.
Legal papers is re Monaville Estates Ltd v. TAC Construction Materials Ltd.
Closes with account of legal costs 1981-1986 for professional services rendered by Biggart Baillie & Gifford, W.S., Solicitors, in regard to "the first Action by Clydebank City Council against Monaville Estates Ltd [etc. and] regarding the second Action raised by Monaville Estates Ltd".
Correspondence re asbestosis litigation in the US.
Includes:
- company correspondence re lung cancer, 1923-1946, including statistics on occupational lung cancer mortality, lists of 'suspended employees' (= suspended on health grounds) and of employees whose cause of death (as stated by coroner or medical board) involved some degree of asbestosis; also correspondence re Dr Leroy U Gardner's asbestosis research at the Saranac Laboratory for the Study of Tuberculosis, New York
- correspondence and papers re medical research conducted by Drs T Belt and E J King on behalf of T&N, 1942-1952
- records relating to Drs R Doll and J Knox' study on mortality from lung cancer among asbestos workers, and T&N seeking to suppress the findings, 1953-1954
- records chiefly re epidemiological studies on lung cancer among asbestos workers, 1954-1959
- correspondence and papers re asbestos and health, 1959-1986, including lists of claims settled or still proceeding, list of deaths from lung cancer and mesothelioma, etc
Correspondence 1993-1998, re Michael O’Connor’s move to release copies of Turner & Newall records gathered in preparation of Chase Manhattan Bank v. T&N plc et al., United States District Court, Southern District of New York.
At the time O’Connor was Vice President and Senior Associate Counsel of Chase Manhattan Bank.
Includes
- set of Turner & Newall documents re insulation and shipbuilding, 1944-1950, with an overview
- SPAID documentation on Dr Kevin Browne
- set of Turner & Newall documents re asbestosis widows and press coverage of one of them, Molly Fisher
- press coverage on Chase Manhattan’s case turning to dust, and an inquiry from Nancy Tait with London colleagues, asking could they let her have “the index to Mike O’Connor’s papers”
Closes with Nancy Tait corresponding re O’Connor’s Freedom of Information Award in the UK, 1995, in recognition of “his remarkable efforts to supply British victims of asbestos diseases with documents needed for their compensation claims."