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Modernism in the bench arena is something we should
all embrace - one has to move with the times.
Alas, as in this tale, it takes someone with a greater
flair than a government/War Office sponsored designer
and a disgraced minister to move forward....
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| ©Benchaholic 2005 |
I
believe this recently rediscovered image (right) to
be one of a series of 'almost' benches that came out
of the MacMillan administration's attempt to 'get with
it' and further distance the nation from the post
war austerity of the previous 12 years.
Although MacMillan instigated the NBI (New Bench Initiative)
- one of the first things he set in motion following
Eden's resignation in January 1957 (he'd previously
tabled the scheme several times in Cabinet) - it took
a further three and a half years of NBI sub committee
discussions before the project finally got the green
light.
The eventual go-ahead for the project only came about
through the intervention of President Eisenhower+.
He negotiated, with Congress, an 18 month suspension
of the UK's repayments to the United States of the
WWII loans, or at least the interest on the initial
$586m* loaned in 1945. The money made available
through the suspension was ring-fenced for the NBI.
MacMillan wanted Dennis Vosper, Baron Runcorn (Minister
of State for Home Affairs) to handle the project but
Vosper declined on the grounds that his department
was over stretched with the social housing building
program, and the perceived connection between himself
and one of the companies vying for the contract to
develop and build the new benches.
By late 1959 the NBI was passed to John Profumo (Minister
of State for Foreign Affairs) with the idea of contacting
out the manufacturing to a British owned company with
a satellite operation in India.
By January 1960 Profumo was at the War Office. Strangely
he took the NBI with him. Within days of his arrival
at his new office he put the project out to tender.
Many of the armaments companies, hungry for a contract,
submitted tenders including; Vickers, Avro, Vosper,
Hawker Siddeley, Cammell Laird and Bristol.
The contract was awarded to Harland and Wolff, who
had just completed the SS Canberra and were set to
lay-off its work force as they had nothing substantial
on the order books. Profumo appointed a government
designer to oversee the project. Unfortunately, within
4 months H & W took on a massive contract and pulled
out of the NBI. The project was quickly moved to Vospers
(wartime builders of the Type II MTB (Motor Torpedo
Boat)).
Some two years later two identical prototypes were
presented for testing in the autumn of 1962. They were
of a welded box construction, some 25' long, in traditional
Naval gray, not dissimilar to a cross members from
a Type II MTB!
It received certification in early 1963. The project
returned to committee for final budget recommendations
in preparation of production - a mere formality prior
to rubber stamping by Profumo.
The papers were presented to the War Office for official
sanction on the 4th June 1963, unfortunately the following
day Profumo appeared in the house and tended his resignation
(following revelations in the press of his affair with
Christine Keeler, and her 'association' with the Russian
'diplomat' Yevgeny Ivanov - a situation that would
eventually bring down MacMillan).
Profumo's temporary replacement, James Ramsden, immediately
shut down the initiative in a cost cutting exercise
(it was rumoured he'd been against the project from
the beginning). The NBI was, along with the surviving
prototype, moth-balled.
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