The total percentage dividend payable on ordinary share capital (as compiled in Table 2 of Peter Jackson’s book [4, p. 245]) is plotted in blue for each financial year. No dividend was paid in 1903 and 1904 to allow profits to be re-invested in new plant, which repaid handsomely over the next few years. In contrast, after 1920 profits dwindled and there are no records of dividend payments after 1925.
Frank’s increasing involvement with establishing the University College of Swansea is indicated below the time axis from 1916 onwards, with his two periods as President after the Foundation on 19th July 1920 shown by the solid red line.
Peter Thonemann (on the left), at Culham in the late 1950s with the Leader of the Labour Party, Hugh Gaitskell, and the (probably at the time) Shadow Foreign Secretary, Aneurin Bevan (second and third from the right, respectively). The identity of the fourth person in the photograph is not known [44].
Table 1. Abridged list of Physics Department material held in the Richard Burton Archive. Sadly, there are few entries in the 1922 laboratory log book.
Business conditions worsened after 1920 as the post-war mini-boom ended. The trade press responded with promotional material and Frank contributed an upbeat article heralding modern developments and the promise of higher education [21]. W. Gilbertson & Co. Ltd. advertised their full range of products, including some long-established brands which had been manufactured for decades.
