Report of meeting on Friday 8th September 2023

Our latest talk on Friday 8th September was given by Glenda Shaw, the great niece of Percy Shaw, the cat’s eyes inventor. Her talk is appropriately named Great Uncle Percy and his Reflective Road Studs. We were shown examples of his invention and given a very informative and entertaining account of his life and work. Percy Shaw, OBE (15 April 1890 – 1 September 1976) was an English inventor and businessman. He patented the reflective road stud, or cats eyes, in 1934, and set up a company to manufacture his invention in 1935. After visiting his favourite public house, the Old Dolphin, in Queensbury, travelling to his home in Boothtown could be a hazardous affair as road lighting was sparse so he used to follow the line of the tram tracks but, as the omnibus became more popular the trams ceased running and the tracks were removed in the 1930’s. Driving home became difficult until one evening driving down the difficult road from Queensbury he saw a cat on a fence along the edge of the road. It looked at the car and reflected his headlights back to him, allowing Percy to take corrective action and remain on the road. Percy, who had been inventive from an early age, realised the importance of the moment, and started to develop his famous cats eyes. In 1934, he patented his invention and a year later, Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd. was formed to manufacture the devices. Sales were initially slow, but approval from the Ministry of Transport and the blackout in the Second World War gave a huge boost to production and the firm grew in size making more than a million road studs a year, which were exported all over the world. He was employing over a hundred people at this time. A later patent added a rainwater reservoir to the rubber shoe, which could be used to wash the glass “eyes” when a car drove over the stud. When bigger premises were needed, Percy insisted on staying in the old workshop he had worked in with his father and so the workshop was expanded and built around Percy’s favourite tree which was left to grow through the factory roof. It is said that Reflecting Roadstuds have saved more lives around the world than any other invention. Such a success was the invention of the “cat’s eye” that he was rewarded with an OBE in 1965. Surprisingly, the award was not for his life saving invention but for services to exports. In 1968 Percy was interviewed for the BBC by Alan Whicker. In his autobiography Whicker states that “one of my more memorable interviews was with Percy Shaw” Anyone wishing to watch the interview can do so on YouTube, the programme is entitled The Road from Rose Linda’s- Rose Linda being the landlady of the Old Dolphin. In the 1990’s the Halifax Civic Trust awarded their first Blue Plaque to commemorate Percy Shaw, it is to be found on the wall of his home in Boothtown. In 2005 Percy appeared in the Bernard Ingham book Yorkshire Greats, The Counties 50 finest. In 2006 the Reflective Roadstud was voted one of Britain’s top 10 designs in the Great British Design Quest alongside Concorde, the Mini car and the World Wide Web. In 2013 J.D. Wetherspoons opened a branch in Halifax and named it The Percy Shaw. Glenda stated that a Uncle Percy would have been delighted to know that a public house had been named after him as he loved a pint! The pub is now up for sale and Glenda hopes that the future owners will retain the name. The factory is still in operation today but only employs a few people assembling parts manufactured elsewhere. Once the patent expired the manufacture of the Roadstuds could be done by anyone and they are now produced throughout the world.
Glenda was introduced by our President, Rodney Collinge who also gave the vote of thanks.