Percy Shaw Cats Eyes is a trading name of Reflecting Roadstuds Limited. Originally set up in 1935 it still remains in Boothtown, Halifax.
Once after a long day of road laying Percy was slaking his thirst at the Old Dolphin in Clayton Heights. Percy, like all other motorists at that time relied at night upon the reflections of their headlights from the tramlines to see them safely home. The demise of the tram led to the eventual removal of the tramlines thus depriving the motorist of the night-time aid they had so relied upon.
Shaw realised this night-time guide to traffic must somehow be re-instated. His encounter with a cat this densely foggy night proved his inspiration and catalyst. As he made his way home through the village of Queensbury to his home in Boothtown he had to descend down a twisting road. A sharp reflection in his headlights stirred his curiosity and caused him to bring his car to a standstill. On alighting from his vehicle he discovered that this reflection was the eyes of a cat but more importantly that he was traveling down the wrong side of the road, had he continued in a straight path he would have plummeted over the edge of this twisting road.
He applied his spare time to resolving this issue of a night-time guide and after many trials and failures he eventually took out patents on his invention and on 15th March 1935 the company of Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd was incorporated with Percy Shaw as Managing Director.
The development of the company and the “Catseye” reflecting Roadstud was to occupy the rest of Percy Shaw’s life. Initially it was extremely difficult to persuade the authorities to invest in his invention and it wasn’t until the black-out during the Second World War almost ten years later that his invention was widely adopted and used on UK roads.
By the 1950s he had established manufacturing independence having constructed a Foundry to produce the cast iron base, a rubber processing plant which dealt with the compounding and vulcanising of the rubber insert and a glass manipulation plant for the production and mirroring of the glass reflector.
The 1960s saw the company expand it’s markets overseas. In the Queen’s Birthday honours list of 1965 Percy received recognition for this by being awarded an O.B.E. for services to export. He was interviewed for television by Alan Whicker who revealed his spartan and reclusive lifestyle to the nation. Percy Shaw had an inventive and engineering mind, a dogged determination, unremitting Yorkshire grit and an impish sense of humour which enabled him to overcome every obstacle along an un-troddden path and illuminating it on the way. He died on the 1st September 1976 at the age of eighty-six.
A new pub the Percy Shaw was later named for him.
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