Employees at Robey's Works, Lincoln (1900)

Hoards of workers funnel through the great arched entrance to Robey's works in Lincoln.

The sea of male faces fleeing these Lincoln engineering works reminds us that, unlike the textile industries which relied on female and child labour, engineering remained a male domain. The group of girls in the foreground are probably meeting their fathers or brothers at dinner time. Robey's, established 1854, produced winding gear for coal mines, as well as industrial and agricultural machines.