Hi Charlotte, Agnes, and Maggie: Just re-read the posts on Vernon Uttley. One thing I noticed is that the 1930 census gives his occupation as Engineer Western Elec. Somehow the company go turned into General Electric in a later post. But this company is not General Electric. Western Electric was the manufacturing arm of ATT (American Telephone and Telegraph), which used to be the nationwide telephone company in the U.S.
Western Electric used to have a manufacturing facility (post WWII) in either Andover or North Andover, Massachusetts, neighboring towns that are about 20 miles northwest of Boston.
Maggie10 will say "aha" when I mention that the two towns lie next to Lawrence, Mass., one of whose families she has come to know in some detail through her search for John Taylor the Adventurer. Given the years, Vernon Uttley would not have worked for Western Electric in Massachusetts. He perhaps was being educated in or near Boston, which may have explained why the British govt. was paying his way?
In New Jersey, Vernon Uttley would probably have worked at Western Electric's facility in Kearny, which is not far from Newark. Don't know if this helps, but I thought I should clarify the situation to keep you from investigating dead ends.
The telephone industry has gone through so many changes that I'm not sure where to suggest that you look for Vernon's connection to Western Electric. Without going into much detail Western Electric became part of a company called Lucent Technologies after ATT was broken up in 1984. Lucent merged a year or two ago with the French company Alcatel, I think, but they still have facilities in New Jersey, or at leas did recently.
Regards,
John
