The Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry
The following is extracted from the brochure above, which was produced for the first opening of the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in 1960. The photos are of Sir Alfred and Lady Herbert, our grandmother . Alfred Herbert was born on 5th September 1866, the son of a Leicestershire farmer. After attending Stoneygate School in Leicester, he was apprenticed to Jessop and Sons after which he came to Coventry to take up the position of works manager in a firm of jobbing and general engineers, Coles & Matthews, in The Butts. A year later the partnership was dissolved and the business was offered to Alfred, who was 22 years of age at the time. He went into partnership with an old school-friend, WS Hubbard and with their fathers' supplying the necessary capital, formed the firm of Herbert and Hubbard. Hubbard was a clever mechanic with considerable inventive genius, so they decided to make machine tools, the first of which was a very ingenious machine for picking, sorting and storing pi...