![Thinktank Birmingham - Crossley](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Thinktank_Birmingham_-_Crossley.jpg)
Crossley, based in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, was a pioneering company in the production of
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal c ...
s. Since 1988 it has been part of the
Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to:
* Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct
Automobiles
* Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
Power Engineering group.
More than 100,000 Crossley oil and gas engines have been built.
History
Crossley Brothers
![Crossley_engine](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Crossley_engine.jpg)
Crossley Brothers was set up in 1867 by brothers Francis (1839–97) and
William J.(1844–1911). Francis, with help from his uncle, bought the engineering business of John M Dunlop at Great Marlborough Street in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
city centre, including manufacturing pumps, presses, and small steam engines. William (''Sir'' William from 1910 – Baronet) 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 apprentice An engineering apprenticeship in the United Kingdom is an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering or aeronautical engineering to train craftsmen, technicians, senior technicians, Incorporated Engineers and Chartered Engin ...
ships: Francis, known as Frank, at
Robert Stephenson and Company
Robert Stephenson and Company was a locomotive manufacturing company founded in 1823 in Forth Street, Newcastle upon Tyne in England. It was the first company in the world created specifically to build railway engines.
Famous early locomoti ...
; and William at
W.G. Armstrong
William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong, (26 November 1810 – 27 December 1900) was an English engineer and industrialist who founded the Armstrong Whitworth manufacturing concern on Tyneside. He was also an eminent scientist, inventor ...
, both in
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
. William concentrated on the business side, Frank provided the engineering expertise.
The brothers were committed
Christians
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
and strictly
teetotal
Teetotalism is the practice or promotion of total personal abstinence from the psychoactive drug alcohol, specifically in alcoholic drinks. A person who practices (and possibly advocates) teetotalism is called a teetotaler or teetotaller, or is ...
, 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 as the emblem to use on their road vehicles.
In 1869 they had the foresight to acquire the UK and world (except
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
) rights to the patents of
Otto and Langden
Carl Eugen Langen (9 October 1833 in Cologne – 2 October 1895 in Elsdorf) was a German entrepreneur, engineer and inventor, involved in the development of the petrol engine and the Wuppertal Suspension Railway. In 1857 he worked in his father' ...
of
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
for the new gas fueled atmospheric internal combustion engine and in 1876 these rights were extended to the famous
Otto
Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".
The name is recorded f ...
four-stroke cycle
A four-stroke (also four-cycle) engine is an internal combustion (IC) engine in which the piston completes four separate strokes while turning the crankshaft. A stroke refers to the full travel of the piston along the cylinder, in either directi ...
engine. The changeover 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 (''i.e.'' Crossley Brothers Ltd.), and then in 1882 it moved to larger premises in Pottery Lane,
Openshaw, in eastern Manchester.
Further technical improvements also followed, including the introduction of
poppet valve
A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine.
It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usua ...
s and the
hot-tube ignitor
A hot-tube ignitor was an early device that fit onto the cylinder head of an internal-combustion engine, used to ignite the compressed fuel/air mixture by means of a flame heating part of the tube red-hot. A hot-tube ignitor consisted of a metal o ...
in 1888 and the introduction of the
carburettor, allowing volatile liquid fuels to be used.
By adopting the heavier fuelled "oil" engine, the first one being demonstrated in 1891, the company's future was assured. Among other applications, these "oil" engines were used with
Gwynnes Centrifugal Pumps for irrigation. 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
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic c ...
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
An assembly line is a manufacturing process (often called a ''progressive assembly'') in which parts (usually interchangeable parts) are added as the semi-finished assembly moves from workstation to workstation where the parts are added in se ...
. The Crossley system even influenced
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...
, who visited Pottery Lane at the turn of the century.
Crossley Motors
In 1904 the company started production of motor cars and a separate company, Crossley Motors Ltd. was registered on 11 April 1906.
This company was sold to
Associated Equipment Company
Associated Equipment Company (AEC) was a British vehicle manufacturer that built buses, motorcoaches and trucks from 1912 until 1979. The name Associated Equipment Company was hardly ever used; instead it traded under the AEC and ACLO brands. ...
(AEC) in 1948, and vehicle production continued until 1958.
File:Crossley 1909.JPG, 1909 Crossley 40 hp designed by J. S. Critchley
File:Crossley Regent.jpg, An AEC Regent V
The AEC Regent V was a front-engined double-decker bus built by the Associated Equipment Company between 1954 and 1969. It was the last AEC Regent series double-decker model, and was the successor to the AEC Regent III (not to be confused with ...
badge-engineered into a Crossley Regent bus after AEC absorbed Crossley Motors
Crossley Premier
In 1919 Crossley Brothers bought Premier Gas Engines of
Sandiacre
Sandiacre is a town and civil parish in the borough of Erewash in Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England adjoining the border with Nottinghamshire. The population of the town was 8,889 at the 2011 Census.
The name Sandiacre is usua ...
,
Nottingham
Nottingham ( , locally ) is a city and unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east of Sheffield and north-east of Birmingham. Nottingham has links to the legend of Robi ...
, 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.
The engines were large horizontal
heavy oil engines, typically used as
generating plants or to power industrial plant such as air compressors, water pumps or mills. They were produced in a range of sizes, based on a standard cylinder unit, as either in-line or horizontally-opposed cylinder engines.
They had
clerestory combustion chambers with single inlet and exhaust valves above and below the chamber. Other manufacturers at the time, notably
Brush, produced very similar engines as modular, opposed cylinder units. Crossley's were distinctive for using a
monobloc head
A ''monobloc'' or ''en bloc'' engine is an internal-combustion piston engine some of whose major components (such as cylinder head, cylinder block, or crankcase) are formed, usually by casting, as a single integral unit, rather than being assembled ...
on each cylinder, although this was in the form of a self-supporting
wet liner and the water jacket around the whole
cylinder bank
The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized.
Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...
was a separate casting. The engines were also unusual for being one of the few practical applications of an
electrically driven supercharger.
This gave a relatively low boost pressure and was more of a scavenge blower, but it could increase output power by up to 50%.
A pair of 16 cylinder opposed engines of 3,500 bhp, built for electrical generation in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
in the 1930s, were at the time the largest oil engines in the world.
Like the earlier
Ferranti steam generating plants, these placed half of the engine each side of a centrally-mounted alternator, thus reducing the maximum load on the crankshaft. A similar engine in a bombproof underground shelter was used to power the wartime
''Aspidistra'' transmitter.
By the 1960s, although sales remained reasonable, the company had become unprofitable. The design of the engines then being made was essentially 40 years old, so in 1962 agreement was reached to use the French
Pielstick
SEMT Pielstick was a French company that designed and built large diesel engines. Its full name was (Company of Thermal Machines Studies).
Founded in 1948, SEMT was bought by MAN Diesel in 2006
During its existence as an independent compa ...
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
Belliss 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 logo on the engines. Previously, this had only appeared on Crossley Motors products — the rights to use it had to be bought from
British Leyland
British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partl ...
. APE, in its turn, became part of
Northern Engineering Industries (NEI) in 1981, and the company name became NEI-Allen Limited – Crossley Engines.
Rolls-Royce Power Engineering
NEI themselves, in 1988, were taken over by
Rolls-Royce plc
Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is a British multinational aerospace and defence company incorporated in February 2011. The company owns Rolls-Royce, a business established in 1904 which today designs, manufactures and distributes power systems for ...
, 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.
The Crossley Works on Pottery Lane was closed on 27 February 2009, with what remains of the business being relocated to a Rolls-Royce factory in
Dunfermline. Demolition of the works began in December 2009.
Diesel engines
Crossley Brothers built
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...
s for stationary, marine and locomotive use. There was a wide range of engines from six to 3200
horsepower
Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...
(Crossley) and up to 9000 horsepower (Crossley-Pielstick).
Their marine engines had a reputation for durability and reliability. However, their rush to be a part of the emerging railway traction market was an unmitigated disaster.
Crossley apparently took one of its successful World War II Patrol Boat motors and re-engineered it for railway service. This resulted in the construction of;
* the HSTVee-8, used in the
British Rail Class 28
The British Rail Class 28 ( Metro-Vick Type 2) diesel-electric locomotives, known variously as 'Metrovicks', 'Crossleys' or 'Co-Bos', were built under the Pilot Scheme for diesel locomotives as part of the British Railways 1955 Modernisation P ...
, the
CIE 001 Class
The Córas Iompair Éireann 001 Class locomotive was manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers at their Dukinfield Works in Manchester. The 001 Class locomotive was the backbone of mainline passenger and freight train services on the Irish railway ...
and the
WAGR X class
The X Class were a class of diesel locomotive built by Beyer, Peacock & Company and Metropolitan-Vickers, Bowesfield Works, Stockton-on-Tees for the Western Australian Government Railways between 1954 and 1956.
Construction
In the early 195 ...
* the KLCKee-25 used in the
KLC 123 Class
Craig Stephen Lawson (born July 15, 1969), known professionally as KLC, is an American record producer, DJ, and drummer. He found fame as a member of No Limit Records' in-house production team Beats by the Pound. Since leaving the label, he has ...
* the ESTVee-8 used in the
CIE 201 Class
The Córas Iompair Éireann 201 Class was a class of 34 diesel electric locomotives manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers at their Dukinfield Works in Manchester. They were a smaller, lighter and less powerful version of the 001 Class and were ...
* the ESNT6 used in
British Rail Class D3/3 shunting locomotives
All were
two stroke engine
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of t ...
s equipped with Crossley's system of
exhaust pulse pressure charging Exhaust pulse pressure charging (EPPC) is a system for supercharging two-stroke diesel engines of the loop-scavenge type. Loop-scavenge engines cannot be pressure-charged in the same way as uniflow engines or four-stroke engines because the inlet ...
whereby surplus air in the exhaust manifold was forced back into the cylinder by the exhaust pulse from a neighbouring cylinder.
Crossley's foray into rail motive power construction was disastrous, with all but those installed in the WAGR X class having a very short working life. Motor failures occurred within months of the various classes being introduced. The WAGR Crossleys underwent over 600 modifications in their service life. The
CIE 001 Class
The Córas Iompair Éireann 001 Class locomotive was manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers at their Dukinfield Works in Manchester. The 001 Class locomotive was the backbone of mainline passenger and freight train services on the Irish railway ...
were re-motored with
EMD engines between 1968 and 1971 and the
CIE 201 Class
The Córas Iompair Éireann 201 Class was a class of 34 diesel electric locomotives manufactured by Metropolitan-Vickers at their Dukinfield Works in Manchester. They were a smaller, lighter and less powerful version of the 001 Class and were ...
between 1969 and 1972.
Patents
Crossley Brothers obtained numerous patents for improvements to internal combustion engines. One example is a
waste heat recovery unit
A waste heat recovery unit (WHRU) is an energy recovery heat exchanger that transfers heat from process outputs at high temperature to another part of the process for some purpose, usually increased efficiency. The WHRU is a tool involved in cogen ...
, British patent no. 305 of 1915.
See also
*
Crossley Motors
Crossley Motors was an English motor vehicle manufacturer based in Manchester, England. It produced approximately 19,000 cars from 1904 until 1938, 5,500 buses from 1926 until 1958, and 21,000 goods and military vehicles from 1914 to ...
*
Gas engine
*
Diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...
References
* Eyre, Michael; Heaps, Chris; and Townsin, Alan: Crossley; OPC 2002;
Notes
External links
Crossley BrothersCrossley Motors website* {{PM20, FID=co/065617, TEXT=Clippings about, NAME=
Diesel engine manufacturers
Marine engine manufacturers
Rolls-Royce
Defunct companies based in Manchester
Manufacturing companies based in Manchester
Former defence companies of the United Kingdom
Engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom