Japanese academics research Spodden Valley asbestos site

Japanese academics have visited Manchester to discuss the former Turner and Newall (T&N) site in the Spodden Valley.

The Japanese government funded research is investigating the international history of asbestos industries, legislation and health effects.

The group consisted of Professor Gakuto Takamora and Shinjiro Minami of Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto and Shingo Nakamura of Osaka City University.

They met Dr Geoff Tweedale, business historian at Manchester Metropolitan University and Save Spodden Valley campaigner Jason Addy.

Dr Tweedale holds many archived T&N documents - almost a million pages on microfiche. His book “Magic Mineral, Killer Dust” tells the story of the how the Rochdale site created a multinational “asbestos giant”. The T&N documents referred to in his book reveal how the asbestos industry knew of the health dangers over 100 years ago.

Dr Tweedale’s published work has been critical of the asbestos industry and has presented archived T&N company documents to suggest a long running cover-up of the health dangers of asbestos.

The medical term “asbestosis” was first used to describe the death in 1924 of Rochdale T&N worker Nellie Kershaw. In 1955 Rochdale T&N workers were studied to identify a link between asbestos exposure and lung cancer.

Dr Tweedale’s 2007 published paper on the Rochdale Asbestos Cancer studies was also presented to the Japanese academics.

In 1931, the world’s first asbestos regulations were enacted based on visits made to the Spodden Valley factory. However the archives reveal a 1932 letter from T&N’s insurance company that was critical of the dusty working conditions in parts of the factory.

A 1957 T&N document marked “confidential” describes how the Rochdale factory recovered about 15,000lbs (approx 6500kg) of dust a week “all of which is dumped to waste”.

A 1961 letter from the Rochdale factory, when answering industry concerns about health, stated: “the only really safe number of fibres in the working atmosphere is nil”.

Archived T&N documents as late as the 1980s remained critical of some working conditions and attitudes to health and safety within the factory. It appears that many Rochdale T&N managers and workers never saw, or knew of the existence, of these documents.

A 1983 letter in the archives from Dr Tim Goffe, Company Medical Advisor is highly critical of T&N corporate ethos: I thought the bad old days of suppression of report, secrecy on health and safety matters, non-investigation of sensitive problems were long since over”.

Criticising the “withdrawal” of internal company reports, the letter suggests an ongoing impression of “fudge and cover up” There was an impassioned plea: “Isn’t it time there was a coherent company-wide health and safety policy, which allows full investigation of serious health hazards, unhindered by directorial whim, which allows decision making on health priorities, and which can authorise resources to tackle health problems?”

The importance of the T&N archives is shown by the recent interest from Japan. Academics continue detailed research to ensure that lessons are learnt for international occupational illness reporting, improved health measures and methods to identify and address industrial pollution.

Jason Addy reflects on the visit: “This visit demonstrates that the eyes of the world remain on Spodden Valley. It was the birthplace of the modern asbestos industry. Focus is now on its legacy of contamination. There is worldwide attention on the legal, medical, environmental and moral questions posed by this site”.

No decision has been made, or is due, for the controversial planning application, submitted in 2004, to build over 600 homes on the former asbestos factory site.