|
Jack Olding
Jack Olding of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England had a company (Jack Olding & Co. Ltd), which specialised in the import and modification of tanks and tractors during the Second World War (notably being the sole importer into the UK of Caterpillars). He had a factory on the A1 just to the north of Hatfield, at a site now known as Oldings Corner. After the war, partly because of government pressure caused by a shortage of dollars, he made an ultimately unsuccessful gamble by relinquishing the Caterpillar agency for what proved to be the less than successful Vickers Vigor tractor. Indeed, the company is recognized as the only Caterpillar dealer to voluntarily give up the franchise. They were also distributors for the Opperman Motocart. W. A. Robotham of Rolls-Royce recalls him as a ''"great sportsman, a charming host and an able administrator"'' with his main hobbies ''"racing"'' (he ran horses in the Grand National), ''"shooting and playing games of chance"''; but he was an unlu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hatfield, Hertfordshire
Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield. It had a population of 29,616 in 2001, and 39,201 at the 2011 Census. The settlement is of Saxon origin. Hatfield House, home of the Marquess of Salisbury, forms the nucleus of the old town. From the 1930s when de Havilland opened a factory until the 1990s when British Aerospace closed it, aircraft design and manufacture employed more people there than any other industry. Hatfield was one of the post-war New Towns built around London and has much modernist architecture from the period. The University of Hertfordshire is based there. Hatfield lies north of London beside the A1(M) motorway and has direct trains to London King's Cross railway station, Finsbury Park and Moorgate. There has been a strong increase in commuters who work in London moving into the area. In 2022, TV property expert Phil Spencer named Hatfield as the second best place to live for regular commuters to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For government statistical purposes, it forms part of the East of England region. Hertfordshire covers . It derives its name – via the name of the county town of Hertford – from a hart (stag) and a ford, as represented on the county's coat of arms and on the flag. Hertfordshire County Council is based in Hertford, once the main market town and the current county town. The largest settlement is Watford. Since 1903 Letchworth has served as the prototype garden city; Stevenage became the first town to expand under post-war Britain's New Towns Act of 1946. In 2013 Hertfordshire had a population of about 1,140,700, with Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford and St Albans (the county's only ''city'') each having between 50,000 and 10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caterpillar Inc
Caterpillar Inc. (stock symbol CAT) is an American ''Fortune'' 500 corporation and the world's largest construction-equipment manufacturer. In 2018, Caterpillar was ranked number 65 on the ''Fortune'' 500 list and number 238 on the Global ''Fortune'' 500 list. Caterpillar stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Caterpillar Inc. traces its origins to the 1925 merger of the Holt Manufacturing Company and the C. L. Best Tractor Company, creating a new entity, California-based Caterpillar Tractor Company. In 1986, the company reorganized itself as a Delaware corporation under the current name, Caterpillar Inc. It announced in January 2017 that over the course of that year, it would relocate its headquarters from Peoria, Illinois, to Deerfield, Illinois, scrapping plans from 2015 of building an $800 million new headquarters complex in downtown Peoria. Its headquarters are located in Irving, Texas, since 2022. The company also licenses and markets a line of clo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A1 Road (Great Britain)
The A1 is the longest numbered road in the UK, at . It connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. It passes through or near North London, Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage, Baldock, Letchworth Garden City, Biggleswade, St Neots, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Doncaster, York, Pontefract, Wetherby, Ripon, Darlington, Durham, Sunderland, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick and Berwick-upon-Tweed. It was designated by the Ministry of Transport in 1921, and for much of its route it followed various branches of the historic Great North Road, the main deviation being between Boroughbridge and Darlington. The course of the A1 has changed where towns or villages have been bypassed, and where new alignments have taken a slightly different route. Several sections of the route have been upgraded to motorway standard and designated A1(M). Between the M25 (near London) and the A72 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vickers VR180 Vigor
The Vickers VR180 Vigor was a British crawler tractor, built from 1951 to 1958 by Vickers-Armstrongs. Since the 1920s, the company gained substantial experience in the design and construction of tanks and continuous track vehicles. After the war they developed a civilian crawler tractor that could be sold for use in peacetime reconstruction work. It was notable for the unusual sophistication of its chassis. The Vigor was built at the Scotswood, Newcastle-upon-Tyne works. Design The tractor's most distinctive feature was its running gear: four full height roadwheels also acting as rear drive sprocket, front idler and track return rollers. This was the same layout as the Tetrarch light tank, which Vickers-Armstrongs had developed in the 1930s. In common with tanks of this period, but in contrast to crawler tractors, the suspension had considerable articulation and permitted high speeds. The Vigor was capable of nearly 10 mph, while the comparable Caterpillar D8 could onl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opperman Motocart
: ''There are also several persons called Opperman, listed at Opperman (other)'' S E Opperman was a tractor manufacturer in England. After he saw the Bond Minicar he decided to build his own four-wheel microcar at a factory in Elstree, Hertfordshire. Unicar T The first model was the Unicar T, designed by Lawrie Bond, and built between 1956 and 1959. It looked like a miniature two door saloon with 2+2 seating and was the cheapest car at the 1956 London Motor Show, but it was even cheaper if built as a kit when it could be had without engine for £170. A complete car cost £400. The body was made in fibreglass mounted on a steel tube chassis and had neither separate bonnet nor boot lid. The engine was placed in the middle of the rear seating area giving two small seats on either side of the engine. Since it had no differential for the rear wheels they were placed close together. The front suspension was independent using coil springs and struts and at the rear trailing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rolls-Royce Limited
Rolls-Royce was a British luxury car and later an aero-engine manufacturing business established in 1904 in Manchester by the partnership of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. Building on Royce's good reputation established with his cranes, they quickly developed a reputation for superior engineering by manufacturing the "best car in the world". The business was incorporated as Rolls-Royce Limited in 1906, and a new factory in Derby was opened in 1908. The First World War brought the company into manufacturing aero-engines. Joint development of jet engines began in 1940, and they entered production. Rolls-Royce has built an enduring reputation for development and manufacture of engines for defence and civil aircraft. In the late 1960s, Rolls-Royce was adversely affected by the mismanaged development of its advanced RB211 jet engine and consequent cost over-runs, though it ultimately proved a great success. In 1971, the owners were obliged to liquidate their business. The useful p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rolls-Royce C Range Engines
The Rolls-Royce ''C range'' was a series of in-line 4, 6 and 8 cylinder diesel engines used in small railway locomotives, construction vehicles, marine and similar applications. They were manufactured by the Rolls-Royce Oil Engine Division headed by W. A. Robotham to 1963, initially at Derby and later at Shrewsbury, from the 1950s through to 1970s. Although officially termed the ''C range'', they were best known for the most common C6SFL six-cylinder variant. Most had an output of around 200 bhp, with 233 bhp for the final models. Their construction was a conventional water-cooled vertical inline 6 four-stroke diesel engine of . Most were supercharged by a Roots blower, but there were also variants with a turbocharger or naturally aspirated. A later addition to the range was the SF65C model. This was a lower-rated version of the ''C'' range 6-cylinder engine and shared many of the advantages of the range's component rationalisation. It was available in naturally a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vickers-Armstrongs
Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, with the remainder being divested as Vickers plc in 1977. History Vickers merged with the Tyneside-based engineering company Armstrong Whitworth, founded by William Armstrong, to become Vickers-Armstrongs. Armstrong Whitworth and Vickers had developed along similar lines, expanding into various military sectors and produced a whole suite of military products. Armstrong Whitworth were notable for their artillery manufacture at Elswick and shipbuilding at a yard at High Walker on the River Tyne. 1929 saw the merger of the acquired railway business with those of Cammell Laird to form Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon (MCCW); Metro Cammell. In 1935, before rearmament began, Vickers-Armstrongs was the third-largest manufacturing emp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Arthur Robotham
William Arthur Robotham (26 November 1899 - 1980) was a Rolls-Royce executive involved in the development of Rolls-Royce cars, during World War II of tanks and tank engines, and post-war of Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars complete with bodies and then of industrial petrol and diesel engines. Early career William Arthur "Rm" Robotham was born at Shardlow, Derby, William Blews Robotham (1863-1943), his father, was a solicitor and twice Mayor of Derby. Robotham joined Rolls-Royce as a premium apprentice in 1919. In four years the apprentices went to every department of the factory; although they did not have to undertake any study at a technical college, Robotham went to night school two or three evenings a week studying mathematics and engineering drawing. They were paid 5 s per week. He had an "old and slow" Rover motorcycle, and in weekends played golf, tennis or went on Sunday motorcycle outings with other apprentices. Rolls-Royce cars In 1923 after finishing his apprentice ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Rolls-Royce Limited")
