The Stanley Cycle Show or Stanley Show was an exhibition of bicycles and tricycles first mounted by the Stanley Cycling Club in 1878 at The Athenaeum in London's Camden Road. Britain's first series production cars were displayed at this show in November 1896. The 34th and last exhibition was held in the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington in November 1910. It was supplanted by the 1911 Olympia Motor Cycle Show and, a few weeks before that, Olympia's International Motor Exhibition.
Camden Road is a main road in London running from the junction of Camden High Street and Camden Town Underground station up to Holloway Road. It is part of the A503 which continues east as Tollington Road.
The Business Design Centre is a Grade II listed building, which was originally opened as the Royal Agricultural Hall in 1862 in the district of Islington in London, England, for holding agricultural shows. It was the home of the Royal Smithfield Club's Smithfield Show from 1862 to 1938. It hosted the Royal Tournament from its inauguration in 1880 until the event became too large for the venue and moved to Olympia in the early years of the 20th century. It hosted the first Crufts dog show in 1891.
Islington is a district in Greater London, England, and part of the London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy High Street, Upper Street, Essex Road, and Southgate Road to the east.
In its first decade it was organised by the Stanley Cycling Club and held at the Royal Aquarium, Westminster specially for "the votaries of wheeling". From the 1886 exhibition it was arranged not by the Stanley Club but by a committee of manufacturers and Stanley Club members. This 1886 exhibition displayed a strong emphasis on dwarf or safety bicycles. There were signs that tandems were replacing the wider and more unwieldy sociables. [1]
1888's display included a prominent exhibit by Coventry Machinists Company, styled a Hansom Cab Coolie Cycle. Built for the Sultan of Morocco with a full-size cab body in front, where His Majesty would be able to sit in comfort and control the steering and braking, this machine was propelled by four cyclists at the back. There were other notable displays by: Hillman Herbert & Cooper of Premier Cycles, Rudge Cycles – a bicycle for military purposes, Marriott & Cooper – a tandem, Eureka racing bicycles by Bayliss Thomas & Co. and many others including an electric tricycle and "roadscullers" using a rowing motion for propulsion. [2]
The Stanley was always a winter show. In the summer of 1896 Harry Lawson ran a competing International Motor Exhibition at the Imperial Institute, Kensington. [3]
Henry John Lawson, also known as Harry Lawson, (1852–1925) was a British bicycle designer, racing cyclist, motor industry pioneer, and fraudster. As part of his attempt to create and control a British motor industry Lawson formed and floated The Daimler Motor Company Limited in London in 1896. It later began manufacture in Coventry. Lawson organised the 1896 Emancipation Day drive now commemorated annually by the London to Brighton car run on the same course.
The Stanley Show Committee's first automobile exhibition was held at Earls Court. Opened on 15 January 1905 in very cold weather Earls Court's unheated buildings drew the comment from newspapers that it was well-attended considering the weather conditions. A month later an automobile exhibition at Olympia (the third International Exhibition of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders under the auspices of the Automobile Association of Great Britain and Ireland) drew crowds that were "enormous and interested". [4] [5]
Earls Court Exhibition Centre was an internationally renowned exhibition and events venue in London, considered iconic by many visitors, that originally opened in 1887. A permanent structure in art moderne style was not built until 1935–37. Its heritage listing was refused after it was acquired by developers and demolition was completed, in 2017.
Olympia is an exhibition centre, event space and conference centre in West Kensington, London, England.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) is the trade association for the United Kingdom motor industry. Its role is to "promote the interests of the UK automotive industry at home and abroad."
The Stanley Committee's last show was in November 1910. [6]
The Olympia Motor Cycle Show held in November 1911 supplanted the old-established Stanley Cycle Show. The new Motorcycle Show pushed forward by two weeks to the beginning of November the great International Motor Show also to be held at Olympia that month. [7]
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.
Pashley Cycles is a British bicycle, tricycle and workbike manufacturer based in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The company was started in 1926 and still manufactures bikes in the UK.
Royal Enfield was a brand name under which The Enfield Cycle Company Limited of Redditch, Worcestershire sold motorcycles, bicycles, lawnmowers and stationary engines which they had manufactured. Enfield Cycle Company also used the brand name Enfield without Royal.
Singer Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturing business, originally a bicycle manufacturer founded as Singer & Co by George Singer, in 1874 in Coventry, England. Singer & Co's bicycle manufacture continued. From 1901 George Singer's Singer Motor Co made cars and commercial vehicles.
John Davenport Siddeley, 1st Baron Kenilworth, was a pioneer of the motor industry in the United Kingdom manufacturing aero engines and air frames as well as motor vehicles.
The British International Motor Show was held regularly between 1903 and 2008, initially in London at Crystal Palace, Olympia and then Earl's Court before moving to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham in 1978, where it stayed until May 2004.
Sheffield-Simplex was a British car and motorcycle manufacturer operating from 1907 to 1920 based in Sheffield, Yorkshire, and Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.
The Garrard & Blumfield or Blumfield & Garrard was an English electric car manufacturer from 1894 to 1896. The company is presumed to have been founded by C. R. Garrard and T. W. Blumfield.
Daniel Albone was an English inventor, manufacturer and cyclist. He invented the first successful light farm tractor, and the Ivel Safety bicycle.
Humber is an English brand of bicycle. Thomas Humber made himself a velocipede in 1868. From that time he built a substantial business in manufacturing tricycles and bicycles while continuously improving their design and construction. His products were so well-made and well-designed they were known as "the aristocrat among bicycles".
Edward Butler (1862–1940) was an English inventor who produced an early three-wheeled petrol automobile called the Butler Petrol Cycle, which is accepted by many as the first British car.
Quadrant was one of the earliest British motorcycle manufacturers, established in Birmingham in 1901. Famous for their big singles, Quadrant pioneered many innovations that proved important for motorcycle development but struggled after the First World War and the company was wound up in 1928.
The First International Tramways and Light Railways Exhibition was held in the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, London from 30 June 1900 - 11 July 1900
The Third International Electric Tramway and Railway Exhibition was held in the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, London from 3 July 1905 to 14 July 1905
The Austin 15 hp is a 2.8-litre motor car manufactured by the British manufacturer Austin and first displayed at the seventh exhibition of motor vehicles which opened at London's Olympia in November 1908. Its tax rating was 20 horsepower. It was sold between 1908 and 1915.
Percy George Reddick was Archdeacon of Bristol from 1950 to 1967.
The Dairy Show is an annual British agricultural show, organised by the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers. It was founded in 1876 and was first held at the Agricultural Hall in Islington, London; it was later held at Olympia, London, and then moved to the National Agricultural Exhibition Centre at Stoneleigh Park, in Warwickshire. It is now held as part of the annual Livestock Event at the National Exhibition Centre, in Birmingham in the Midlands.
The Bown Manufacturing Company was established in 1862 in Birmingham by local machinist, William Bown, making a variety of patented mechanical parts. The name Aeolus had been used as a trademark since 1877 and especially for cycle parts. A second-cousin took over the company when the founder died in 1900 and began making powered-cycles also under the Aeolus brand. Production was interrupted by the First World War, after which motorcycles were marketed under the Bown brand until 1924. The company was subsequently acquired by the Aberdale Cycle Company in the 1930s.