When commissioning the cover of the book, apart from the Schäffer gauge which is, naturally, a central theme, other famous icons were used to show not only the depth and breadth of the business but also the different countries that used both the Schäffer and Bourdon gauges made by the company. (S&B were also producing Bourdon style gauges from 1875 when the original patent ran out.) The designer, David Mercer of Mercer Design Studios, Stockport, UK was given a selection of company paperwork and catalogues and then given a free rein to create a collection of styles, colours and fonts etc. This was narrowed down and after further discussions and designs, the final cover is as you see it.
The company supplied railways and locomotive builders from 1852 until the end of the steam era. The Budenberg Gauge Company still refurbish or replace gauges and equipment for steam enthusiasts today.
The Front Cover uses Black River font for the title which, while a modern product, is typical of the 1920’s and 30’s styling of some of the catalogues and advertising. There is a very nice modern gothic script, but it was decided that in the current age of finger pointing and ‘wokeness’, Black River was a safer option. Each era and locality had varied catalogue designs, which reflected the nationality and creativity of the office they were from. S&B moved with the times and the quality of many of their adverts was excellent. As they had their own printing presses at their factories for their catalogues, it gave them great flexibility when producing both those and also simple fly sheets and individual adverts for their products.
The Schäffer gauge is dominant and while accurate it is a graphic impression rather than a complete copy. For aficionados, they will notice that there are only two screws on the top rather than four. Due to the placing of the title which covers the pointer, it is not possible to see the counter-balanced end which like many of its era was crescent shaped. The buildings naturally represent those many steam driven factories to which the gauges and many other pieces of equipment were supplied. The viaduct represents much of how the industrial revolution changed the landscape of the steam era.
The train is a representation of The Flying Scotsman that was built in 1923 for the London & North Eastern Railway. Designed by Sir Nigel Gresley, as an A1 Class 4-6-2 configuration with the number 4472 on the plate, she cost £7,944. The Flying Scotsman is one of the most well-known steam trains in the world, and has the record for being the first locomotive to reach 100mph, and the world record for the longest non-stop run of 442 miles. Over the years she has had a number of owners and assorted alterations and restorations. The plate number was changed to 60103 when the railways were nationalised in 1948.
The Back Cover
Two options were considered for a ship, both Russian. The Aurora, which is still afloat and is a working ship museum on the River Neva in St. Petersburg, and full of Schäffer & Budenberg gauges which can be easily viewed, and the Potemkin. The Aurora fired the first (blank) shot in 1917 signalling what became the start of the Russian Revolution. The designer chose the Russian naval cruiser Potemkin which has an equally interesting, though much shorter, history.
The name Potemkin [Russian: Потёмкин, Potyomkin] is well known in the Western world due not only to the Mutiny but also to the silent film, Battleship Potemkin, that was made in 1925 by Eisenstein and is regarded as a masterpiece by international cinema goers. The film is about the mutiny that took place on board in 1905 and was part of the early, notable revolutionary events in the Russian Empire. She was built in Ukraine for the Imperial Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet and was a pre-dreadnought design. All steel battleships built before the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 are known as pre-dreadnoughts. It took eight years of planning, then building before she started sea trials in 1903. Like many pre-war naval ships in Europe, she was made of Krupp cemented armour (the British and German Naval ships used Krupp hulls of strengthened, case hardened, steel), and her twenty-two triple expansion marine boilers were designed by the Frenchman Julien Belleville, creating steam pressures for the engines of 220 psi (15 atm).
Naturally with that many boilers and engines there were many pressure gauges, valves and whistles on board. She had a crew of around 800 and was based in the Black Sea. She had a short but complex history with two name changes (the first one after the 1905 Mutiny to Panteleimon [St. Pantaleon]), two flag changes, and was controlled at different times by the Germans, the Allies of WWI, the Red and the White Russians. The British destroyed her engines in 1919 to stop the Bolsheviks from using her, and she went for scrap in 1923.
The second marine element is a submarine made for the Imperial German Navy. The German’s were making useful submarines from 1903, although earlier models had been built in the 1890s. They were not however, particularly functional or useable. This graphic is based on a WWI U31 class submarine, operational in 1914 which had 35 submariners on board, six torpedoes and two shaft diesel-electric motors. They were about 65 metres long, with a permanent gun on the top side forward of the bridge and conning tower. S&B were supplying gauges, valves and depth sounders from the beginning for the early successful operational submarines, which were built at Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel. U1 which became a training sub for WWI is on display at the Museum of Science and Technology in Munich. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz5iuTXWnuQ This link is to a short video, 1 min 56 secs long, of U1 at the museum, which is cut away to look inside. These early submarines had very limited space inside, and it took a special type of person to be able to live, work and fight from these ships. It still does.
The final element is the Supermarine Spitfire, a British, single-seat fighter aircraft whose original design by Reginald Mitchell was created in 1931. Mitchell who was from Butt Lane in Staffordshire, UK undertook his apprenticeship with Kerr Stuart & Co, a locomotive building company before joining Supermarine in Southampton in 1917. He designed many types of aeroplanes including sea planes, but it was his Spitfire Type 300 that the British Royal Air Force wanted. Mitchell was a brilliant designer and became Chief Engineer of Supermarine at the young age of 25. Sadly, he never lived to see his design in action as he died of cancer in 1937.
The Spitfire is an iconic aeroplane for the British, just as the Messerschmitt 109 and Focke Wulf are for the Germans. Famous for its dog fights over southern England, the English Channel and northern France in WWII, its profile from the ground is distinctive, and various design aspects such as sunken rivets and ultra-thin cross section gave the Spitfire great acrobatic ability and speed. The Budenberg Gauge Company supplied the RAF with triple air gauges for the braking systems of all service aircraft throughout the Second World War and was one of their main products as an essential war work company.
The logo for publishing the book under the author’s name is an exact graphic copy of a small (30 cm) steam whistle, of which S&B made many thousands, for a variety of uses. It was standard practice in all large factories (not just S&B) to use steam whistles to announce the beginning and ending of the working day, and they were produced in a variety of sizes – the largest being 4 feet tall (1.22m). Steamships and paddle steamers as well as locomotives all had high pressure steam whistles which allowed the sound to travel some distance to alert those in the vicinity in which they were travelling, or in some cases – to wake the employees before they started work in the morning.
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