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Sir Ernest Lemon is one of the unsung heroes of the British Second World War effort. His family has recently donated a collection of his letters and papers to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ archive which document the crucial role he played in equipping the RAF for war.
Lemon was born in 1884 into the family of a labourer in rural Dorset. At the age of 14 he began an apprenticeship with the Hyde Park Locomotive Works, later part of the North British Locomotive Company. During his apprenticeship and early career he received private tuition from Professor Malcolm Laurie, a family friend, and took classes at the Royal Technical College, Glasgow, and Heriot-Watt College, Edinburgh.
In 1911 he began working for the Midland Railway as chief wagon inspector. After six years he become works manager in the carriage and wagon department at Derby, and was awarded the OBE in 1918 for his work there during the First World War. After the war, labour shortages meant that many pre-war industrial processes were unsustainable. The Midland’s deputy chief mechanical engineer, J E Anderson, and Bob Reid, the carriage and wagon superintendent, made a research trip to the US in 1919, where they encountered the concepts of scientific management. They found that skilled labour was in short supply, and was focused on making machines which were then used by unskilled workers to carry out tasks considered to be skilled work in the UK.
Following their trip, Lemon was charged with implementing a complete reorganisation of the Derby works, reducing the build time of a carriage from six weeks to six days. The concepts he was exposed to at this time had a hugely significant impact on his later career.
In 1923, the railway operators were grouped into four large companies and Lemon was made divisional carriage and wagon superintendent of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway at Derby. He was swiftly promoted up the ranks and in 1931 he was appointed chief mechanical engineer. During the 10 months that he was in the position, he reorganised the use, maintenance and repair of locomotives. In November he was made a vice-president.
One of the items in the Lemon archive is a record of his achievements at the LMS, compiled by his faithful secretary, Herbert G Smith. It contains evidence of several of Lemon’s initiatives, including modernisation of goods terminals, parcel handling and shunting, introduction of high-speed passenger trains, elimination of wasted time, and the establishment of the School of Transport at Derby.
During the early months of 1938 it become apparent that inefficiency at the Air Ministry was severely delaying the process of rearmament of the RAF. The Spitfire and Hurricane, which had been publicly announced two years previously, existed only as prototypes or a handful of machines. Aircraft production was far behind schedule. When Hitler annexed Austria in March 1938, many in government realised that war was inevitable, and that production must be speeded up accordingly.
That summer, Lemon was seconded to the Air Ministry as the new director-general of production. He began to implement Scheme L, which put production on a war footing. It was no longer constrained by financial considerations, but there were many other challenges and restrictions which he had to overcome.
The reforms and initiatives he introduced meant that the programme was completed ahead of schedule, and that the RAF had sufficient aircraft to defend the country during the Battle of Britain. In recognition of his contributions to the war effort, he was knighted in the new year’s honours list of 1941. Lemon returned to the LMS in 1940, but retired owing to ill health just three years later. He died in 1954.
A biography of Lemon by Terry Jenkins, detailing his career at the LMS and Air Ministry, as well as his private life, has been published by the Railway & Canal Historical Society.
- Terry Jenkins’ biography of Lemon is available at www.rchs.org.uk. The Lemon papers that have been donated to the IMechE archives can be seen by appointment. Please email archive@imeche.org for more details.