114 year old Bills of Quantities found in Glovers Oldham office

January 2010

Whilst sorting through some of his old papers prior to retiring at Christmas, Frank Whittaker - who ran Glovers Oldham office - discovered a number of Bills of Quantities, Specifications and construction documents dating back as far as 1886. The Bills offer a fascinating insight into surveying practices of old on projects such as Royton Co-op (1907), St Margaret's Church in Hollinwood (1905) and the 1896 extension to the Ivy Soap Works in Salford.

The Ivy Soap Works was built for Salford businessman Charles Goodwin in 1874. Goodwin was renowned in the area and at the turn of the twentieth century he became the proud owner of the first ever motor car in the City of Salford. Colgate Palmolive-Peet bought Goodwin's Soap Works in 1938. The factory traded until closure in 2005 and the site is currently being redeveloped by Manchester-based property and investment company Nikal with their partner Abstract for owners Carlysle Group.

The 1896 Bill of Quantities and Specification for the Ivy Soap Works extension was produced by architects Edward Salomons and Alfred Steinthal. Salomons had opened his own Practice on King Street in Manchester in 1853 and immediately gained prominence by coming second to Edward Walters in the design competition for Manchester's Free Trade Hall in that year. Three years later, in 1856, he won the competition for the masonry shell of Manchester Art Treasues Exhibition Building of 1857. He was also responsible for the Manchester Jewish Museum (1875), the Manchester Reform Club and the Manchester Crematorium (1892). German architect Steinthal went into partnership with Salomons in 1888 and continued to run the firm after Salomons died in 1906.

Glovers gained an office in Oldham when they acquired Cameron Middleton & Lees (CML) of Oldham in 2007. CML was founded in 1924 and by the 1950s was the 5th largest QS firm in the world with offices in the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa, Iraq and Australia. Back in the 1950s the firm dealt with the first project management job in Australia: the building of a factory to produce ammunition for the Vietnam war, comprising nearly 600 separate buildings over a 40 square mile site. As Mr Middleton stated in a letter in 1994, "an American started the project but messed it up, and I was asked by the government to put it right".

Rumours that existing staff in our Oldham office priced these Bills of Quantities in 1896 are unfounded..... allegedly.

You can read more about the story on the Oldham Advertiser website.