Posted: 20 October 2018 at 8:40am | IP Logged | 1
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The Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham (about 5+ miles south-east of our host's hometown of West Bromwich) is an area predominantly consisting of jewellery businesses. Birmingham was a major industrial centre for a long time.
I visited the Jewellery Quarter Museum earlier today. Didn't get many opportunities to take photos due to a flat battery - smartphones, eh? - but did take a few.
Here's the office area:
On the table under the ledgers/folders, that's a comptometer next to the typewriter. And on the left of the comptometer, that's a Gestetner, a manual photocopier.
We've come a long way since with computerised accounts, hi-tech photocopiers and whatever machines, if any, they use to add up now.
This is a dumbwaiter:
And all the cardboard boxes, which jewellery will be put into prior to being delivered:
It's interesting how things are now. I was told (it was a guided tour) that Britain imports a lot of jewellery from India now. Obviously, a modern office - and I used to work in an office - is much different, what with laptops, scanners, laminators, etc.
That office was part of Smith and Pepper, a jewellery manufacturing company that was in existence from 1899 to 1981. So that office, which looks decades old, is how things were when the company ceased trading in 1981.
If you're ever in Birmingham, folks, I'd recommend checking out the Jewellery Quarter. If you can't find it, then DO hail a cab. ;-)
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