Talk:Dean, Smith & Grace

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Untitled[edit]

This has not been copied directly from the website concerned. In any case, this information is well in the public domain and the website has been cited.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Weiterbewegung (talk • contribs) 17:52, 14 December 2010

Deletion of graphics[edit]

The article on Dean, Smith and Grace still has no substance and it is very unlikely that it will attract sufficient interest from historians capable of expanding it in any meaningful way. This is especially true now that the article’s solitary graphic has been removed by the Wikipedia deletion squad.Weiterbewegung (talk) 16:22, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the photo was helpful to the article. Can you find and upload a version that is clearly free of copyright problems? Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 16:56, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What? Put up another clay pigeon? Do me once, shame on you; do me twice, shame on me.Weiterbewegung (talk) 18:21, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As long as the copyright status of the image is clear and permissible, there will be no problem. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 18:29, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How many Herberts?[edit]

Following text moved from article to here for discussion:-

Perhaps there were two Herbert Smiths. According to Wing Commander Norman Macmillan OBE, MC, AFC, DL, Herbert Smith was a draughtsman when he joined Sopwith in 1914, taking over responsibility for design shortly thereafter. Macmillan makes no mention of Herbert Smith working for Dean, Smith and Grace, and nor does he mention him in the context of the designer of the Pup. See, Flight, 30th December 1960, ‘Who Designed the Famous Sopwith Types?’ a Mystery Solved by Wing Commander Norman Macmillan. Originally added by User:Weiterbewegung
I think the confirmation that there is just one Herbert is in the fascinating article from Flight linked above. It contains these words: Herbert Smith took a Diploma in Engineering at the Bradford Technical College, then spent three years in a workshop and one year in a drawing office before joining the Bristol Aeroplane Company as a draughtsman. He transferred to the Sopwith Company in March 1914, also as a draughtsman, and was there until their liquidation in October 1920.
This exactly matches the text from the source at the Air Pictorial journal. This says: ....joining Dean, Smith & Grace of Keighley, a firm making machine tools who are still very much in business today. From there he sought design and drawing office experiencewith Smith, Major & Stephens who manufactured lifts in Northampton. Having acquired a sound basic training in various aspects of mechanical engineering, Herbert then became involved in the world of aircraft manufacture.
So I think we can be safe in the knowledge that there is only one Herbert, and this is he! Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 19:06, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Free lessons in historical research are not something I offer. You are unable to produce the full sentence, let alone the full citation, and the source you offer is a non-scholarly journal article written in over sixty years after the event. This is by no means a primary source and it is highly unlikely to be a reasonably accurate secondary source. To attempt the assertion that ‘This exactly matches the text from the (1960) source’ shows the depth of your naiveté and demonstrates the (low) level of historical narrative the Wikipedia are prepared to tolerate. If you do indeed ‘think we can be safe in the knowledge that there is only one Herbert, and this is he’, do not include me among the ‘we’.Weiterbewegung (talk) 19:32, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. My PhD is not in history, and I would not presume to that level of historical expertise in sourcing and citing material. However I am an experienced Wikipedia editor and I know what WP requires as a reliable source. This does not have to be a scholarly journal. WP is not a PhD thesis, just an encyclopaedia. If you don't want to contribute to the latter you are not compelled to. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 19:38, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Even an undergraduate knows about reliable sources and triangulation. Even a science undergraduate knows about reliable and un-reliable data. Any reasonably intelligent O-level student knows that one cannot believe things simply because they are printed in newspapers and magazines. In any case, the Herbert Smith thing is obviously a straw-clutching exercise. Even if it’s true, does it make the article any more substantial? Weiterbewegung (talk) 19:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion the two sources triangulate very well. And yes, I believe that Smith's time at DSG does make the article a little more substantial. Why are you so dead set against an article that you yourself started? Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 20:04, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you should both (or are there now three of you), have a look at Assume good faith? Firstly. the reason why citing a document requires its location: if its online that means its ful url, and if its not on line, the address of the building, the room , the shelf, the box is simple. If it's not available to provide verification, its probably bogus. Otherwise knowledge would be merely heresay, anacdote and allegory. Anyone can just make stuff up. Clear NOW? As I wrote before, the DSG article is without substance. Your two sources cannot triangulate (think about it). Moreover, the reliable source is clear that sources should be as scholarly as possible. A partial sentence in a magazine may, perhaps, support something more solid, but it can't be seized upon on its own simply because it’s what you wanted to find. Unfortunately, you persist in your fallacious assertions that are clearly based only upon ‘what you believe to be’, and not what is the nearest to the truth that we can get. Here endeth this complete waste of time. Weiterbewegung (talk) 20:33, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I always assume good faith until events prove me wrong. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 20:44, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Material moved here for verification[edit]

Macmillan mentions Herbert Smith's experience of working in the Yorkshire engineering firm working for Dean, Smith and Grace, following which he moved to a draughtsman's position before joining Sopwith. The Macmillan article makes no mention of Dean Smith and Grace. {{failed verification}} Weiterbewegung (talk) 21:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Macmillan article is here: http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1960/1960%20-%203097.html it makes no mention of Dean Smith and Grace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weiterbewegung (talk • contribs) 21:23, 28 December 2010 (UTC) Weiterbewegung (talk) 21:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The article that mentions Dean Smith and Grace is clearly a fragment: http://books.google.com/books?id=EUopAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Dean,+Smith+%26+Grace%22&dq=%22Dean,+Smith+%26+Grace%22&hl=en&ei=qjMaTdb2LsKxhQewwLG4Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=71&ved=0CLUCEOgBMEY it is not clear what this document is.{{failed verification}} Weiterbewegung (talk) 21:27, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The Air Pictorial article is clearly and fully cited, and specifically mentions DSG by name. (Same sequence of engineering firm, draughtsman's position, Sopwith in both. Same man - named in both aThis confirms that the unnamed engineering firm cited in Macmillan was in fact DSG.s Herbert Smith.) Air Pictorial gives the names of the firms, Macmillan doesn't but confirms all other details. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 21:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You may not assert that 'the unnamed engineering firm cited in Macmillan was in fact DSG'. Macmillan does not mention Dean Smith and Grace. The other source, which you emerely assume is an Air Pictorial article, is anonymous. You do not know with any certainly what it is. I disagree entirely and I am reversing your changes again.Weiterbewegung (talk) 21:48, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As we disagree so fundamentally on the trustworthiness of the sources, may we take this for arbitration? I don't propose that we should do so until the AfD for this article is resolved, but thereafter I will suggest this. I won't re-insert the material again as I don't want to get into a pointless edit war. Do you think there is anything in either source that would positively contribute to the article you started? If so maybe we can compromise on a wording we both agree on. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 21:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Without taking sides in this, the Air Pictorial article was written by Squadron Leader John Crampton DFC AFC & Bar MRAeS, a former senior manager with Hawkers who among other things presented a history of the company from Sopwith to Hawker Siddeley to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. So on one side you have someone with a close connection to the company and a friendship with Sir Thomas Sopwith such that he wrote a paper for the IME on the company and, on the other side, you have an article in Flight written from personal conversation with Herbert Smith. Neither journal is a peer reviewed academic journal so you can draw whatever conclusions you want about their veracity or reliability. NtheP (talk) 14:22, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Nthep, it's helpful to have an uninvolved eye on this. I wonder, do you think we could use either or both sources noted above to add something to this article? I thought that the information that a notable person had worked for the company added a small, interesting fact to the article and that the two sources sufficiently supported the assertion. I don't want to overplay the fact, or extrapolate unjustifiably from the (admittedly brief) sources we have. I'd be willing to draft something to see if Weiterbewegung would agree to it, but a first draft might look better from an uninvolved editor. However I will understand if you don't want to step too far into this one! Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 14:36, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Thanks NtheP for this clearly unbiased contribution. I didn’t realise that ‘the Air Pictorial article was written by Squadron Leader John Crampton DFC AFC & Bar MRAeS, a former senior manager with Hawkers who among other things presented a history of the company from Sopwith to Hawker Siddeley to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers’ while the article written some fifteen years earlier was only ‘written from personal conversation with Herbert Smith’. After all, who was Wing Commander Norman Macmillan, OBE, MC and AFC? And what kind of a rag did he write for? One only needs to look at his CV to see what a nobody he was.Weiterbewegung (talk) 15:04, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry Weiterbewegung, I'm having trouble understanding what your contribution above means. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 15:19, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I am not wholly uninvolved as I have been endeavouring to help with copyright tags on images uploaded by Weiterbewegung but I would suggest that both sources are equally valid. Being only a science graduate <g> I will defer to a history PhD in what consitutes a reliable a source and how sources may or may not triangulate but to read the two sources together, we have (from Flight)

"Herbert Smith took a Diploma in Engineering at the Bradford Technical College, then spent three years in a workshop and one year in a drawing office before joining the Bristol Aeroplane Company as a draughtsman. He transferred to the Sopwith Company in March 1914, also as a draughtsman, and was there until their liquidation in October 1920."

From Air Pictorial we have

"Herbert Smith was born in the village of Bradley, near Skipton, on 1st May 1889, his father being the Chief Accounts Clerk with the railway at Bradford and his brother becoming a local bank manager. He attended the local primary school and later went onto the Keighley Grammar School. On leaving school his education took a more scientific turn when he enrolled at the Bradford Technical College to study Mechanical Engineering. In his class he was one of the three students who were able to qualify for their Diplomas. After his studies were completed Herbert took a job to gain practical experience joining Dean, Smith and Grace of Keighley, a firm making machine tools who are still very much in business today. From there he sought design and drawing office experience with Smith, Major and Stephens who manufactured lifts in Northampton. Having acquired a sound basic training in various aspects of mechanical engineering, Herbert then became involved in the world of aircraft manufacture. He secured a place as a draughtsman with the Bristol Aeroplane Co., at Bristol, working under Capt. Frank Barnwell and M. Henri Coanda, until 1914, when he moved across to Sopwith Aviation, at Kingston-upon-Thames, as leading draughtsman."

Both accounts are written well after the event but to my statistical background the degree of correlation between the two is pretty good. So unless there are two Herbert Smith's qualifying from Keighley Tech with diplomas at about the same time both of whom by 1914 were working as draughtsmen for Sopwith Aviation, having previously worked for Bristol Aeroplane then these articles are talking about the same person. As a methodical statistician I wouldn't discount this possibility but even without examining the records of Bradford Technical College (assuming the appropriate records still exist) I would suggest that the probability of this is very, very low. Therefore and perhaps it's more an edit for the article on Smith than DSG but something along the lines of

Herbert Smith, qualified with a diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Bradford Technical College <ref name="Flight">cite Flight</ref><ref name="Air Pictorial>cite Air Pictorial</ref> and following spells with Dean, Smith and Grace<ref name="Air Pictorial/> and Smith, Major and Stephens<ref name="Air Pictorial/> moved into the aircraft maufacturing business, firstly with the Bristol Aeroplane Company and then Sopwith Aviation.<ref name="Flight"/><ref name="Air Pictorial/>

Does this information add anything to the article on DSG? A moot point but perhaps, yes in that it was the first post-Diploma employer of someone who later became the designer of one or more exceptional aircraft of the First World War. NtheP (talk) 15:58, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Nthep, I agree with you that this material really has more to say about Herbert Smith than DSG, and perhaps deserves more emphasis on his page. But I do think that a notable former employee is a useful, minor addition to the article. For myself I'd be satisfied with the addition as you word it - thanks for taking the time and trouble!
Weiterbewegung, I realise you're being hounded on several fronts at the moment and I'm not trying to add to the melee. But what would you think to an addition as suggested by Nthep above> Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 16:05, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa, hangon. Jumping back before my last edit I'm not denigrating either source. Macmillan's article is based on oral history with the subject themselves and there is nothing wrong with that. Crampton's appears to be based on other sources (I didn't obtain a photocopy of the full article to see what references are used). That they both have a very close correlation about the information contained within them suggests that either they are both correct or both wrong. Flight is a renowned publication in the aviation business, it has to be or it wouldn't still be going and I'm certainly not suggesting that Macmillan is a "tabloid hack" but I would suggest there has to be some acceptance that Macmillan may have left out information which he thought would be of little or no interest to the audience, or that such information was edited out by a sub-editor for space reasons, or that Smith didn't volunteer the information because knowing he was being interviewed for Flight didn't think it would be interesting to the readership. NtheP (talk) 16:15, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

From Air Pictorial we have ........[edit]

Right, lets look at:' Herbert Smith was born in the village of Bradley, near Skipton, on 1st May 1889, his father being the Chief Accounts Clerk with the railway at Bradford and his brother becoming a local bank manager. He attended the local primary school and later went onto the Keighley Grammar School. On leaving school his education took a more scientific turn when he enrolled at the Bradford Technical College to study Mechanical Engineering. In his class he was one of the three students who were able to qualify for their Diplomas. After his studies were completed Herbert took a job to gain practical experience joining Dean, Smith and Grace of Keighley, a firm making machine tools who are still very much in business today. From there he sought design and drawing office experience with Smith, Major and Stephens who manufactured lifts in Northampton. Having acquired a sound basic training in various aspects of mechanical engineering, Herbert then became involved in the world of aircraft manufacture. He secured a place as a draughtsman with the Bristol Aeroplane Co., at Bristol, working under Capt. Frank Barnwell and M. Henri Coanda, until 1914, when he moved across to Sopwith Aviation, at Kingston-upon-Thames, as leading draughtsman.'

Question: Why is this the first time that this paragraph has been quoted in full?

When I follow the link: http://books.google.com/books?id=EUopAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Dean,+Smith+%26+Grace%22&dq=%22Dean,+Smith+%26+Grace%22&hl=en&ei=qjMaTdb2LsKxhQewwLG4Dg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=71&ved=0CLUCEOgBMEY all I get is a partial view of a page in a book - see for yourself. Whats going on? and whay has the external link on the DSG article page been removed?Weiterbewegung (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I presume NtheP has access to a fuller copy of the article than I could find. I can't see that any external link has been removed, which do you mean? Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 17:08, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Also: 'Macmillan's article is based on oral history with the subject themselves ...? Where I come from that would be called an interview; 'oral history' is quite different both in concept and in method.Weiterbewegung (talk) 17:12, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If, as seems to be the case, NtheP has access to a fuller copy of the article, then why does he not give us the details? The missing link? I suggest you look and try.17:17, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok - I bow to the greater definition of interview over oral history, I told you I am only a science graduate. In answer to the second work took me to Wetherby today so in my break I went over to the British Library reading room at Boston Spa and looked at the paper copy of Air Pictorial for June 1975. From that I got a copy of the first page including the part I quoted above. NtheP (talk) 17:21, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The only external link that I can see the article ever having is the one to Dean Smith and Grace website. As far as I can see it is still there, still working and has never been deleted. Am I missing something? Weiterbewegung, I am trying as hard as I can to be civil, co-operative and communicative. I don't think I've ever done or written anything combative or impolite to you - if I have inadvertently caused offence, I apologise. Please could we see if we can work together for the benefit of the article and the encyclopaedia as a whole? Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 17:24, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the google books link to Air Pictorial has ever been in the article. I didn't insert it because I think that the snippet views are unhelpful. As you say, Weiterbewegung, they aren't specific enough to enable sensible conclusions to be reached and can easily allow the reader to draw the conclusions they want to draw. If, however, you think that the link ought to be in, I've no objection to it being added. NtheP (talk) 17:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is truly outrageous behaviour and I both deplore and resent it. The original link to Journal of the Air League of the British Empire 37: 228 is no longer there. It now points to a Wikipedia article. I applaud your dedication in actually finding the full article, but what is your motive for not revealing this earlier? Is this what you call ‘co-operative and communicative’? Weiterbewegung (talk) 17:42, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I got the wrong end of the stick, you didn't specify which external link you were meaning. As everything I contribute at the moment seems to be having the reverse of my intended effect (attempts at reconciliation causing outrage!) I'll cease and desist here for a while. I do see that you feel besieged on all fronts and I don't want to add unnecessarily to the ranks of the besiegers. However you might want to consider why every man's hand seems to be against you. Do you think it could possibly be even partly because of the way you interact with others here? Anyway, I'll say no more here and keep a watching brief for a while. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 17:53, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but I am walking away from this as well for the time being. I've looked through every revision of this article since Air Pictorial was first mentioned in this diff and I can't see that the url to the google books result has ever been included. Please check for yourself from the article history page. As to the relevant material from Flight and Air Pictorial, you now have both the sections and where they come from. I leave it to you, as the qualified historian, to give us your opinion as to whether either or both is a reliable source and whether the information triangulates or not. I really would be interested to understand the reasons in the hope that it might enable me to be a better editor. NtheP (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Remember this? The source is here. But I think this discussion is for the article talk page, not an AfD. Have written more fully there. Kim Dent-Brown (Talk) 19:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)Weiterbewegung (talk) 21:18, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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