• In 1893, the great-grandsons of Jacob Perkins, one of the founders of the company, merged the A.M. Perkins & Son Ltd business in London with Werner & Pfleiderer (London) Ltd to form Werner Pfleiderer & Perkins Ltd.
• Lacking room to expand the business in London, in 1903, Mr Frederick Charles Ihlee, the MD of WP&P, bought 10 acres of land in Westfield Road, Peterborough from the Church Commissioners for £3040.
• In 1904, the first WP&P factory was built on the site.
• In 1914, following escalating attacks on businesses and people with German sounding names in Peterborough, Westwood Works was formed as a separate company and changed its name to Perkins Engineers Ltd. The Pfleiderer family also changed their name to Pelmore.
• By 1918, final negotiations were in place for the merger with Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd. of Willesden – a company originated by the other co-founder of Baker Perkins, Joseph Baker.
• Land in Alma Road was purchased in 1919 to create a Sports Ground with a Club House being opened by Mr. F.C. Ihlee in 1938.
• On 2nd March 1922, a major fire occurred at Westwood Works.  Starting in the paint rooms, it soon spread to the wooden beams and the workshop roofs collapsed.Fortunately, the administration block, with the company's current records, was saved.
• In 1923, less than a year later, the factory was back in full production. The Works were rebuilt and additions made at a cost of £9,000 with a further £8,000 being invested in enlarging the office accommodation.
• In 1923, the name of the company was changed to ‘Baker Perkins Ltd’.
• In 1924, Baker Perkins entered the laundry machinery market with the purchase of Aublet Harry whose factory was also built in 1904 and was situated on the opposite side of Westfield Road.
• In 1932, F.C. Ihlee wrote to Peterborough Council seeking approval to the preliminary plans for the first Multi-Storey Office block. Construction was completed in 1933.
• In 1933, workers from the Joseph Baker & Sons Ltd Factory in Willesden were transferred to Peterborough. ‘Artisan’ houses were built for them in Willesden Avenue in Walton. Some of the managers were housed in a new development - Brackley Close in Westwood.
• The Westwood Works Fire Brigade was formed in 1937 and was equipped with uniforms and a Trailer Pump in 1938. The Works Fire Station was built in the following year.
• In 1938, A.I. (later Sir) Ivor Baker, set up a small Apprentice Bay on the ground floor of the first multi-storey office block.
• By 1950, the number of apprentices in training was 200 and rising rapidly, and in 1952 it was decided that a purpose-built Apprentice School was needed.  Despite the national shortage of building materials after the war, recognition of the importance of apprentice training led to a building licence being issued immediately.
•  In December 1952, the foundation stone was laid by Mrs Dumbleton and in a cavity beneath the stone the youngest pre-apprentice, Philip Brookbank, deposited a “time capsule” - a copper casket containing coins of the realm, newspapers, company reports, indentures and certificates of apprenticeship, together with a letter signed by Ivor Baker.
• On 19th January 1954, the Apprentice School on Westfield Road was officially opened by Harold Watkinson, the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Minister of Labour.
• By 1955, the original 10-acre site had grown to 40. The site now filled virtually the whole of Westfield Road in the south, to Freemans warehouse in the north and from the railway in the east to the line of Saville Road in the west.
• A second multi-storey office block was built in 1975.
• In 1987, Baker Perkins merged with APV of Crawley and the company took the name of APV Baker.
• In 1989, Rockwell bought the Westwood site and printing machinery business.
• In the summer of 1991, APV Baker’s food machinery business moved to a new 24-acre site in Paston, Peterborough, leaving only the printing machinery business at Westwood Works.
• The Apprentice School, now owned by Rockwell, was closed in June 1991.
• Printing  machinery production ended at Westwood Works in December 1992, when Rockwell moved its operation to its Preston headquarters.
• In April 2003, work began on demolishing the factory and offices - apart from the Holdings Company building and the Apprentice School building,– both of which are still standing in 2008.
• Work began on building the new prison – HMP Peterborough - as soon as the demolition of the buildings at the north end of the site began. It today occupies the northern-most end of the site with the outer security wall finishing approximately where the Pattern Shop used to be.
• On 4th September 2006, the Deputy Mayor of Peterborough named the landscaped area between the Prison and Westfield Road ‘Baker Park’.
• Earlier in 2006, on 1st April, the name of Baker Perkins had been revived when the APV Baker food machinery business at Paston, Peterborough, changed ownership.

Architecture:

• The Apprentice School building was designed by Owen Ward A.R.I.B.A of Golders Green, London, the contract for the building being awarded to John Cracknell, Peterborough. The façade of the building faced Westfield Road and the full name - Baker Perkins Limited Apprentice School - was carved into the stonework at the front of the building. The original estimate for the building and equipment (including tools, cranes etc) was £68,000 and the final figure on completion was £67,500.
• t the rear of the building was a model workshop – containing the latest machine tools together with fitting and assembly and sheet metal work and welding areas.
• Also included were an office, film projection room, stores, lecture room, toilet and shower facilities for the apprentices. Honours Boards lining the entrance hall of the building proudly displayed the academic achievements of the apprentices.
• The large lecture room doubled as a gymnasium and each first-year apprentice had two periods of physical training each week under an experienced instructor. An Apprentice Sports Ground, originally sited adjacent to the Apprentice School, was moved to the north end of the site in 1968
• The Apprentice School building is currently (2008) privately owned

Social History :

• The transfer of the Joseph Baker & Sons business from Willesden to Peterborough in 1933 brought over 160 skilled workers to the City.
• Approximately 3,000 dedicated engineers, craftsmen, designers, process technologists, administrative staff, computer operators and salespeople worked at Westwood Works to create the biggest and most prestigious supplier of such equipment in the world.
• Industrial equipment for the food, chemical and printing industries was designed, developed and manufactured at Westwood Works for nearly 100 years. During that time, it produced machinery that makes enough biscuits every year to encircle the world, bakery plant that produces the loaves, rolls and cakes bought by shoppers on every continent, equipment to make chocolate confectionery and sweets by the tens of thousands every hour, printing presses to print colour magazines and wrappers for the food on the supermarket shelf, and machines for the foundry and chemical industries around the world.
• There was an urgent need to produce skilled engineers at all levels after the Second World War to meet the loss of skilled men to HM Forces and to meet the challenge of a rapidly expanding UK and overseas market.
• A pre-apprenticeship scheme was introduced enabling school leavers to experience some basic engineering training in the main crafts, straight from school before they made a decision about their ultimate craft. School leavers were tested before acceptance in terms of English, arithmetic, general knowledge and manipulative skills. A condition of pre-apprenticeship was to have day release at the technical college.
• The new Apprentice School provided excellent first year off-the-job training for craft, technician, student and postgraduate apprentices.
• 6 months into the 1st year - i.e. after satisfactory completion of the pre-apprenticeship and allocation to a craft – the apprentice appeared in front of the apprenticeship committee for a progress interview. The apprentice, parents and the company signed a legally binding indenture. This required that the apprentice should not to be involved in any industrial dispute nor to be married within the duration of the apprenticeship.
• Working closely with Peterborough Technical College, appropriate City of Guilds courses for craft apprentices and National and Higher National Courses in Engineering for future technicians, supervisors and professional engineers were developed.  Many ex-student apprentices provided for many years the strong core of the senior staffing across most parts of the company.
• The Baker Perkins Apprenticeship Scheme set the standard for apprentice training in the UK and many of its methods and procedures were supported by the Engineering Industry Training Board and adopted by the industry as a whole.
• As the Baker Perkins Group expanded, apprentice schools and training schemes were developed at other Baker Perkins UK establishments including Leeds, Gainsborough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, Skegness, Stoke-on-Trent and Basingstoke.
• By the late 1970s, there were 300 apprentices at Westwood Works alone, and around 1,000 apprentices in total in the UK factories.

With thanks to: Dick Preston
For more information please see:

www.westwoodworks.net - The History of Westwood Works 1903 to 2003.
www.bphs.net - A History of the Development of the Baker Perkins Group.