About Us
The following is an extract from "More Memories of Newcastle" published by True North Books:
"The firm of White Bros (Newcastle upon Tyne) Ltd was established in 1884; its founders were, not surprisingly, two brothers - George and Ernest White. A Third brother, Alan, born in 1900, later joined the firm and continued to work in the business right up until his death in 1972.
The company was originally established to provide the farming community in Northumberland and Durham with dairy equipment, plumbing and electrical installations. For many years White Bros produced a catalogue of their goods for distribution amongst the farming community; that document takes us back to the days before bulk mill tankers and industrial scale dairies! By the 1920s White Brothers were manufacturing their own products such as milk churns and separators whilst also making and selling such, now barely remembered, items as hand bells for milkmen to ring in the street and leather cash bags for them to hold their takings.
A copy of the company's 1923 catalogue lists many hardware items for the dairy, it also lists items such as pumps and hydraulic rams, portable farm engines and electric light installations, all of which point to a potentially more varied future. In the 1950s the company moved into producing stainless steel equipment for the ice-cream industry, which was becoming very popular at that time. It was however Thomas Lowther who joined the company in 1936 at the age of 20 as a cost clerk who further developed the company in the industrial sector, eventually completing the move away from farming and into sheet metal. Thomas Lowther was destined to eventually become Managing Director and finally owner of White Bros following Alan White's death.
Tom Lowther was still very active in the company until the age of 73. With the assistance of the company's current Chairman and owner Peter Harding, Tom eventually moved the company to its present premises at Gosforth Industrial Estate. The old premises had become unsatisfactory from almost every conceivable point of view as they were very dilapidated and operations had to be carried out on different floors and levels as the site sloped steeply. What limited space existed was fragmented so that flowline production was impossible and the effective manufacturing space was totally inadequate to accommodate the growing and increasingly diversified workload. To add to the firm's problems access both to the site, and within it, was extremely difficult.
Peter Harding's plans at that time involved inward investment in modern machinery and technology, investments which have resulted in the successful company we see today. White Bros have become the leading stainless steel sheet metal workers in the area.
The company now has state of the art computerized Radan CAD/CAM Amada CNC shear, pressbrakes, laser and punching machines. The company also takes pride in its ISO 9001 quality approval, health and safety and environmental policies. Recent improvements include a water treatment collection tank approved by the local water authority and used before waste chemicals are passed into the main drainage system.
The site was increased in size in 1994 and 1998 by the acquisition of adjacent premises to cope with the increasing demands of the business. A new polishing shop was created with dust extraction booths and a great deal of effort went into noise and vibration control. Investment continued more recently: a new polishing machine was introduced which combines speed of production coupled with health and safety improvements for the firm's employees.
Other innovations continued throughout the 1990s. In 1995 White Bros introduced its first standard product Liquisafe. As the name implies this is a safe method of transferring chemicals between containers rather than the conventional dip tube method.
In 1997 White Bros acquired Stellex Ltd with a factory and offices based at Hadston in Morpeth, Northumberland. Stellex is a catering equipment manufacturer in stainless steel and other materials. The business was an ideal addition giving White Bros a major product line of its own which fitted well with its computer aided modern machinery.
The business now specialises in stainless steel, highly finished, quality sheet metal fabrications, mainly for the food and pharmaceutical industries. Customers are now to be found all over the UK rather than just the local area. In fact some products are exported to Europe and America."
