THE
Full cove ra ge of the Document Management ind ustry, in a ll its forms.
INCORPORATING THE MICROGRAPHICS MARKET PLACE AND THE MICROGRAPHICS NEWSLETTER SEPTEM B ER 2002
ISSN 1476-3842
ISSUE No. 9
Pioneer of microfilm celebrates 100 years. May will be celebrating her 101 st Birthday on 12th November Pioneer of the British microfilm industry May Trew was born November 12, 1901, in Bromley by Bow, London. May lost her father at the tender age of five, but never let this early set back in life affect her. Always a forthright and confident young woman May opened her own secretarial May, pictured here on her agency across from the 100th birthday Houses of Parliament when she was only 17, and became the secretary of choice for politicians just after the first world war. Studying herbalism in the 1920s, May married her husband of 44 years, Henry Trew, in 1923, and went on to have her first child, Grace, in 1925. Grace died of encephalitis lethargica early in 1926, but Henry and May battled through to have son Chris in 1928 and daughter Jill in 1934. She set up her typew riter company, Trew's of Croydon, in the early 1940s, but it was about a decade later that May became famous as the first person to introduce microfilm into Britain. During the second world war she kept both the BBC and the American Embassy's Office of War Information supplied with typewriters. It was following the war that May managed to persuade manufacturers to introduce coloured filing cabinets. The successful Trewtor Typing Trainer was developed in the early '50's and was accompanied by a booklet which illustrated the Trew System for learning the position of each letter. In 1953 May developed the first British-made high speed microfilming machine and the future of her company, that eventually became five inter-related companies in themselves, was set. The other four companies aside from her microfilm bureau were Trews Typewriters, Trews Secretarial, Trews Employment Bureau and Trews Industrial & Office Equipment.
May's son Chris took over the Trew Employment Bureau when he left his post with British Intelligence around 1950. This afforded him a comfortable living until he closed it down to become an airline pilot. ti
W h e n y o u fall d o w n , alw ays p ic k y o u rself up a n d lo o k a t life a s a n a d v e n tu re . 99 But the hardest test of May's life came in 1955 when she went to Arolsen, Germany, on behalf of the Israeli Government. Wishing to add documentary evidence to a planned memorial to the suffering of the Jewish people during the war, Israel asked May, and a staff of 20, to bring back the microfilmed records of 40 of Nazi Germany's concentration camps. May said: "When you fall down, always pick yourself up and look at life as an adventure." Her daughter Jill, 67, said of May: "She sees life through rosecoloured spectacles and she always sees the good in people." Her achievements have been many; In addition to being on the Council of the Microfilm Association and serving on an International Specification committee. May was also one of the first ladies to be accepted onto the Croydon Chamber of Commerce and, she believes, the first to serve on the National Chamber of Trade. This at a time when it really was a man's world. For a short time, while setting up a record system for Fisons, May had an office in Wigmore Street. Her neighbours, on another floor of the same building, were the Beatles, who had just started the Apple project. Paul McCartney must have been surprised, probably pleasantly, to meet someone who didn't know who he was! Since retiring in her early eighties May became, and remains to this day, an avid reader, still without the use of reading glasses. A ny o f May's friends that would like to correspond should do so to: 63 Featherstone, Blindley Heath, RH7 6JZ.
36 PAGES IN THIS ISSUE 36 PAGES IN THIS ISSUE 36 PAGES IN THIS ISSUE 36 PAGES IN THIS ISSUE 36 PAGES IN THIS ISSUE 36 PAGES IN THIS ISSUE