Crossley Motors
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Crossley Motors, based in Manchester, England, produced approximately 19,000 high quality cars from 1904 until 1938, 5,500 buses from 1926 until 1958 and 21,000 goods and military vehicles from 1914 to 1945.
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[edit] History
[edit] Crossley Brothers
Crossley Brothers was set up in 1867 by Francis (1839 - 1897) and William (Sir William from 1909) (1844 - 1911). Francis, with help from his uncle, bought the engineering business of John M Dunlop at Great Marlborough Street in Manchester city centre, including manufacturing pumps, presses, and small steam engines. William joined his brother shortly after the purchase. The company name was initially changed to Crossley Brothers and Dunlop. Each of the brothers had served engineering apprenticeships: Francis, known as Frank, at Robert Stephenson; and William at W G Armstrongs, both in Newcastle upon Tyne. William concentrated on the business side, Frank provided the engineering expertise.
The brothers were committed Christians and strictly teetotal, refusing to supply their products to companies such as breweries, whom they did not approve of. They adopted the early Christian symbol of the Coptic Cross (Coptic Christianity) as the emblem to use on their road vehicles.
In 1869 they had the foresight to acquire the UK and world (except German) rights to the patents of Otto and Langden of Cologne for the new gas fuelled atmospheric internal combustion engine and in 1876 these rights were extended to the famous Otto four-stroke cycle engine. The change over to four stroke engines was remarkably rapid with the last atmospheric engines being made in 1877.
The business flourished. In 1881, Crossley Brothers became a private limited company, and then, in 1882, it moved to larger premises in Pottery Lane, Openshaw, in east Manchester.
Further technical improvements also followed, including the introduction of poppet valves and the hot-tube ignitor in 1888 and the introduction of the carburetor, allowing volatile liquid fuels to be used.
By adopting the heavier fuelled "Oil" engine, the first one being demonstrated in 1891, the companies future was assured. Then in 1896, they obtained rights to the Diesel system, which used the heat of compression alone to ignite the fuel. Their first diesel was built in 1898.
By the turn of the century, there was also some production of petrol engines, and from 1901 these engines were finding their way into road vehicles, including, in 1905, Leyland buses.
A major contribution to manufacturing was the introduction of the assembly line. The Crossley system even influenced Henry Ford, who visited Pottery Lane at the turn of the century.
[edit] Crossley Motors
Crossley Motors Ltd was first registered on the 11th April 1906 (and re-registered with a different company number in 1910) as the vehicle manufacturing arm of Crossley Brothers. The first car was actually built in 1904, but clearly the parent company saw a future for these new machines and decided a separate company was required. Originally based in the main factory in 1907 they moved to a nearby site they owned in Napier Street, Gorton, Manchester. (Napier Street was later changed to Crossley Street).
With the steady increase in vehicle production, the limits of the Gorton site were again soon reached, and in 1914 a further 48 acre (194,000 m²) site was bought in Heaton Chapel, Stockport which became the Errwood Park Works. Construction of the new factory started in 1915, and although intended to relieve congestion on the old site, it was rapidly given over to war work. The western half the site, built in 1917, but only managed by the Crossley Motors, became National Aircraft Factory No 2. In 1919, this factory was bought from the government and became the Willys Overland Crossley plant, but was eventually sold to Fairey Aviation in 1934. In 1938, the eastern side became another aircraft factory, this time managed by Fairey, and after the second world war, became the final home of Crossley Motors. Re-armament work caused the search for more space and in 1938 a factory was opened in Greencroft Mill,Hyde about 3 miles east of Errwood Park.
In 1920 Crossley Motors bought the nearby A V Roe and Company better known as Avro. They had to sell the company to Armstrong Siddeley in 1928 to pay for the losses incurred in Willys-Overland-Crossley.
As the market for hand made cars began to disappear in the late 1920s the company moved into the bus market and launched its first model, the Eagle in 1928. The last cars were made in 1937 but by then in addition to buses there was large production of military vehicles as part of the re-armament process.
After World War 2 there was a boom in the bus industry as war time losses needed to be replaced. Crossley won what was then the largest ever British export order for buses with a contract with the Dutch government. By the late 1940s bus orders were decreasing and it became clear that the company was too small to continue as an independent manufacturer and in 1948 they were sold to AEC. The last chassis was made in 1951 but body production continued at Erwood Park until 1958.
Although not trading the company was never formally wound up and in 1969 AEC's new owner, British Leyland, restarted the company with a new name, Leyland National, and production of single decker buses recommenced.
[edit] Crossley Premier
In 1919 Crossley Brothers bought Premier Gas Engines of Sandiacre, Nottingham, who built very large engines, and in 1935 changed their name to Crossley Premier Engines Ltd. The Nottingham factory was expanded, and production continued there until 1966.
By the 1960s, although sales remained reasonable, the company had moved into the red. The design of the engines then being made was essentially 40 years old, so in 1962 agreement was reached to use the French Pielstick design. Production of these engines, intended for ships, railway locomotives and electricity generation, was initially carried out at Nottingham. But, before the engines could become established, the money ran out and the company had to call in the receivers. A purchaser was found in Bellis, and Morcom Ltd. but the name Crossley-Premier was kept.
The market for engines was continuing to shrink, and in 1968 the new company joined the Amalgamated Power Engineering (APE) group and the name became APE-Crossley Ltd. For the first time the new company used the Coptic Cross (Coptic Christianity) logo on the engines. Previously,it only appeared on Crossley Motors products - the rights to use it had to be bought from British Leyland. APE, in its turn, became part of Northern Engineering Industries (NEI), and the company name became the unwieldy NEI-Allen Limited - Crossley Engines.
[edit] Rolls-Royce Power Engineering
NEI themselves, in 1988, were taken over by Rolls Royce plc, and the company became part of the Allen Power Engineering - Crossley Engines division of the Rolls-Royce Industrial Power Group. This, in turn, became Crossley Engines division of Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, continuing to produce the Crossley-Pielstick range until 1995.
Today, engines are still being made (assembled from parts made elsewhere in the group) at the Pottery Lane factory, now known as Crossley Works. Crossley employs 80 people for assembly. Rolls-Royce still markets the Crossley-Pielstick range.
Over the years, more than 100,000 Crossley oil and gas engines have been built; and, as a testament to their quality, many are still in use today.
[edit] Vehicle Production
[edit] Cars
- 22 hp 1904-1908
- 40 hp 1905-1910
- 15 hp 1909-1915
- Shelsley sports 1909-1915
- 20/25 1909-1919
- 25/30 1918-1925
- 19.6 hp 1921-1926
- 14 hp and 15/30 1922-1927
- Crossley-Bugatti 1923-1925
- 20/70 sports 1922-1926
- 18/50 1925-1927
- 20.9 hp 1927-1931
- 15.7 hp 1928-1931
- Golden 1930-1935
- Silver 1930-1934
- Ten 1931-1934
- Streamline 1933
- Sports Saloon 1934-1937
- Regis 1935-1937
[edit] Buses
- Eagle 1928-1930
- Hawk 1929
- Six/Alpha 1930-1931
- Condor 1930-1934
- Mancunian 1933-1940
- TDD4 (Trolleybus) 1935-1942
- TDD6 (Trolleybus) 1935-1942
- DD42 1942-1953
- SD42 1946-1952
- PT42 1946-1949
- TDD42 Empire (Trolleybus) 1948-1951
- TDD64 Dominion (Trolleybus) 1948-1951
[edit] Military Vehicles
- 20/25 1912-1920
- BGT 1923
- IGL 4 wheel 1923-1926
- IGL 6 wheel 1927-1931
- BGV 1927-1929
- IGA Armoured car 1928-1929
- FWD 1940-1945
[edit] Commercial Vehicles
- 15cwt van 1913
- 14 hp van 1925
- 15cwt 1927
- Atlas 1931
- Beta 1933
- Delta 1931-1937
[edit] Trivia
- Two Crossley BGT1 trucks were in 1924 to 1926 the first vehicles to be driven from Cape Town to Cairo by the Court-Treatt expedition.
- Crossley were the first British Car Company to offer a factory fitted car radio (to the 1933 10 hp).
- Crossley supplied the first vehicles to London's Metropolitan Police Flying Squad in 1920.
[edit] References
- 'Crossley' Authors - Michael Eyre, Chris Heaps and Alan Townsin (ISBN 0-86093-574-4) OPC 2002
