Lanchester Car Monument

Last updated

Lanchester Car Monument Lanchester car sculpture.jpg
Lanchester Car Monument
Detail of right hand side Lanchester car sculpture detail rhs.jpg
Detail of right hand side

The Lanchester Car Monument (grid reference SP087883 ) is an open-air galvanized steel sculpture of the Stanhope Phaeton, or Lanchester motor car. It is in Bloomsbury Village Green, a piece of reclaimed land in the Heartlands (Nechells) area of Birmingham, England. It was designed by Tim Tolkien to commemorate the work of Frederick William Lanchester.

Contents

At the age of twenty and with no formal qualifications, Lanchester so impressed the owner of the Forward Gas Engine Company of Birmingham that he was offered the position of assistant works manager at their factory near Bloomsbury Street where he made various improvements to the equipment produced by this company. Lanchester resigned from the company in 1893 and went on to produce the first all-British four-wheel petrol car. [1]

Related Research Articles

Birmingham Small Arms Company Major British industrial combine

The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) was a major British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process.

Daimler Company British motor vehicle manufacturer

The Daimler Company Limited, prior to 1910 The Daimler Motor Company Limited, was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H. J. Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The company bought the right to the use of the Daimler name simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft of Cannstatt, Germany. After early financial difficulty and a reorganisation of the company in 1904, the Daimler Motor Company was purchased by Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA) in 1910, which also made cars under its own name before the Second World War. In 1933, BSA bought the Lanchester Motor Company and made it a subsidiary of Daimler Company.

Frederick W. Lanchester

Frederick William Lanchester LLD, Hon FRAeS, FRS, was an English polymath and engineer who made important contributions to automotive engineering and to aerodynamics, and co-invented the topic of operations research.

Lanchester may refer to:

Longbridge plant

Longbridge plant is an industrial complex in Longbridge, Birmingham, England, currently leased by SAIC as a research and development facility for its MG Motor subsidiary. Vehicle assembly most recently stopped in 2016.

Benz Velo Motor vehicle

The Benz Velo was one of the first cars, introduced by Karl Benz in 1894 as the followup to the Patent Motorwagen. 67 Benz Velos were built in 1894 and 134 in 1895. The early Velo had a 1L 1.5-metric-horsepower engine, and later a 3-metric-horsepower engine. giving a top speed of 19 km/h (12 mph). The Velo was officially introduced by Karl Benz as the Velocipede, and became the world's first large-scale production car. The Velocipede remained in production between 1894 and 1902, with a final count of over 1,200 produced.

Balance shaft Weights used to balance otherwise unbalanced engine movement

Balance shafts are used in piston engines to reduce vibration by cancelling out unbalanced dynamic forces. The counter balance shafts have eccentric weights and rotate in opposite direction to each other, which generates a net vertical force.

The Lanchester Motor Company Limited was a car manufacturer located until early 1931 at Armourer Mills, Montgomery Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, and afterwards at Sandy Lane, Coventry England. The marque has been unused since the last Lanchester was produced in 1955. The Lanchester Motor Company Limited is still registered as an active company and accounts are filed each year, although as of 2014 it is marked as "non-trading".

Forward Gas Engine Company was an engineering company making stationary internal combustion gas engines in Nechells, Birmingham, England.

Nechells Human settlement in England

Nechells is a district ward in central Birmingham, England, whose population in 2011 was 33,957. It is also a ward within the formal district of Ladywood. Nechells local government ward includes areas, for example parts of Birmingham city centre, which are not part of the historic district of Nechells as such, now often referred to in policy documents as "North Nechells, Bloomsbury and Duddeston".

Old Square, Birmingham

Old Square is a public square and road junction in the Core area of Birmingham City Centre, England.

The M40 corridor is the area adjacent to the M40 motorway running through England. It is one of the main routes between London and Birmingham, the other being that followed by the M1 motorway.

HMS <i>Forward</i> (shore establishment 1984)

HMS Forward is a Royal Naval Reserve unit located in Birmingham, England, close to St. Andrews football stadium. It has a crew of nearly 100 naval and marine reservists, in addition to a handful of full-time staff. The Birmingham University Royal Naval Unit, the Defence Technical Undergraduate Scheme 'Taurus Squadron' and a detachment of the Royal Marine Reserves Merseyside are also located on the site. The ship is particularly unusual in that it is situated 80 miles from the sea.

St Georges Church, Edgbaston Church

St. George's Church, Edgbaston, is a parish church in the Church of England in Edgbaston, Birmingham.

George Herbert Lanchester, was an English engineer. He was one of three brothers who played a leading role in the early development of the UK auto-industry.

BSA cars

BSA cars were manufactured between 1907 and 1912 in Birmingham then until 1939 in Coventry as well as Birmingham, England. BSA had established a motor-car department in an unsuccessful effort to make use of the Sparkbrook Birmingham factory. An independent part of the same site was occupied by The Lanchester Motor Company Limited. Sales were handled by BSA Cycles Limited. After 1912, manufacture was carried out by group subsidiary Daimler in Coventry or BSA Cycles in Birmingham.

Lanchester Thirty-Eight Motor vehicle

The Lanchester Thirty-Eight was manufactured from 1910 to 1914 by the Lanchester Motor Company, located in Birmingham, England.

Lanchester petrol-electric car Motor vehicle

The Lanchester petrol-electric car is a prototype motor vehicle, designed in 1927 by Frederick W. Lanchester of the Lanchester Motor Company in his workshop in Birmingham, England. It is now on display in Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum.

Hillcrest School is a secondary school for girls located in the Bartley Green area of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England.

Henry Jones Lanchester (1834–1914) F.R.I.B.A was an English architect and surveyor. Most of his building work was carried out in Greenwich and Hove.

References

  1. Dictionary of National Biography, "Lanchester, Frederick William", http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34388

Sources

Coordinates: 52°29′35″N1°52′22″W / 52.4930°N 1.8729°W / 52.4930; -1.8729