Finances improved after the First World War, piecework was abolished and the working day was cut down to 7am to 6pm with a break for breakfast and dinner. To celebrate the end of the war, each worker and pensioner was given 10s and a concert with tea was laid on in the building.
A flag day held on 6th September 1919 raised over £700.The League of the Blind donated £147 6s for a performance by the band and nominated two workers for the positions of Life Governors of the Institution. Following this, Aberdeen Parish Council nominated one worker to be Governor of the Aberdeen Asylum for the Blind. James Balfour states that “after prolonged negotiations” each of these nominations were changed. The workers continued to petition for improved conditions and their request for a forty-four hour working week was refused.
In 1921 a dinner was held in honour of the then manager John Keir and his fifty years of service. Mr Keir had joined the school aged nine in 1871 and progressed through the workshops, becoming a basket shop foreman before eventually being appointed manager. He was also a prominent trade union member and chaired the Scottish Trade Union Congress when it was held in Aberdeen in 1898; his twenty-five year membership of the School Board culminated in six years as chairman and in 1913 he received an honorary degree from the Educational Institute of Scotland, in recognition of his services to education.
In 1923 electric lights were introduced into the building. In 1926 the workshops employed twenty-seven people undergoing training and fifty-three trained workers. Brush-making began as a new product line.
A Stainsby Wayne Braille shorthand machine was purchased and James Balfour points out that his fifty-page book on the history of the organisation was prepared on this machine by new registered blind employee, Miss Bruce.
Employee numbers swelled to 100 in 1929 and new departments were established for upholstery, wire mattresses and quilts. The premises were extended and a social and literary centre, with canteen, was opened.
In the early nineteen thirties the board finally agreed to a five day working week with no loss of wages. The buildings were extended further and a van was bought for collecting and delivering mattresses.
The start of the Second World War brought with it a rush of orders followed quickly by sighted staff being employed in home watch duties as part of the war effort. The gardens at the front of the building were requisitioned for public shelters. Supplies of wire with which to make mattress springs dried up.
In 1943 James Balfour looks back over the first 100 years and says that according to the official register, 472 people had received education, training or employment. The longest serving pupil and employee was George Grassie, who stayed eighty years, from being admitted in April 1854 until his death in August 1934.
In celebration of the centenary, King George VI agreed to a request from the Secretary of State for Scotland to rename the organisation The Royal Aberdeen Asylum or the Blind.
