Edward Turner (24 January 1901 – 15 August 1973) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

motorcycle designer. He was born in

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This ...

in the

London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council areas ...

, on the day King Edward VII was proclaimed King. In 1915, Turner had his first ride on a

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: Long-distance ...

, a Light Tourist

New Imperial New Imperial was a British motorcycle manufacturer founded by Norman Downes in Birmingham, between 1887 and 1901, and became New Imperial Motors Ltd in 1912, when serious production commenced. New Imperial made innovative motorcycles that emplo ...

Turner Special

On 16 April 1925 "The Motor Cycle" published drawings by Turner of an OHC single he had designed, using a series of vertically stacked gears to drive the overhead camshaft. A subsequent redesign used bevel gears to drive a vertical camshaft, operating the valves through rockers. The only shared aspects of the two designs were the bore and stroke, , with the barrel being sunk into the crankcases. The head could be removed from either design complete with undisturbed valve gear. Turner built his first bike in 1927, using his second design, a 350 cc OHC single. ''The Motor Cycle'' published a photograph of Turner's patented engine, mounted in his motorcycle called the Turner Special. The Special was registered for road use with the London County Council as YP 9286. It used Webb forks, and a three-speed Sturmey-Archer gearbox.

Ariel designer

By now, living at various addresses in

Peckham Peckham () is a district in southeast London, within the London Borough of Southwark. It is south-east of Charing Cross. At the 2001 Census the Peckham ward had a population of 14,720. History "Peckham" is a Saxon place name meaning the vil ...

and

East Dulwich East Dulwich is an area of South East London, England in the London Borough of Southwark. It forms the eastern part of Dulwich, with Peckham to the east and Camberwell to the north. This South London suburb was first developed in the nineteent ...

, in the London Borough of Southwark and running Chepstow Motors, a Peckham Road motorcycle shop with a Velocette agency, Turner conceived the Square Four engine in 1928. At this time he was looking for work, showing drawings of his engine design to motorcycle manufacturers. The engine was essentially a pair of 'across frame' OHC parallel twins joined by their geared central

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, as ...

s, with a one-piece four-

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an ...

block (or Monobloc) and single head. The idea for the engine was rejected by BSA, but adopted by Ariel. Thus it became the

Ariel Square Four The Square Four is a motorcycle produced by Ariel between 1931 and 1959, designed by Edward Turner, who devised the Square Four engine in 1928. At this time he was looking for work, showing drawings of his engine design to motorcycle manufactu ...

, and not the BSA Square Four. Turner was then invited by

Jack Sangster John Young Sangster (29 May 1896 – 26 March 1977) was a British industrialist and philanthropist. He was an important figure in the British motorcycle industry, where he was involved with Ariel, BSA and Triumph. Early life Sangster was born ...

to join Ariel. By 1929, at Ariel, Jack Sangster had Edward Turner and

Bert Hopwood Herbert Hopwood (1908 – 17 October 1996) was a British motorcycle designer. He was, at least, partly responsible for some of the most influential designs for the British motorcycle industry and worked for Ariel, Norton, BSA and Triumph. ...

working under

Val Page Valentine Page (1891–1978) Turner, now 28, married Edith Webley.

Ariel Square Four

The first Ariel Square Four 4F was shown at the Olympia Motorcycle Show in 1930 in chain-driven overhead camshaft 500 cc form. This was heavier and slower than Turner's original prototype due to production changes made necessary by the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. To make up for the extra weight, Turner increased the engine capacity to 601 cc for the 1932 Model 4F6. Ariel went bankrupt in September 1932, but was bought by Sangster, who promoted Turner to chief designer. In 1936

Triumph The Roman triumph (Latin triumphus) was a celebration for a victorious military commander in ancient Rome. For later imitations, in life or in art, see Trionfo. Numerous later uses of the term, up to the present, are derived directly or indirectl ...

decided to create separate motorcycle and car companies, and sell the motorcycle company. Ariel owner Jack Sangster bought it and changed the name to '' Triumph Engineering Company''. The Ariel Square Four changed from the 4F 600 cc OHC version to the 4G

OHV An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

995 cc version that year.

Triumph general manager and chief designer

Sangster made Turner, now 35, General Manager and Chief Designer. (In this new position Turner received a 5% commission on the company's net profits, and became a shareholder with 4.9% of the equity). The first thing he did was clear space on the production floor for an office and an adjoining drawing office. Val Page had left Triumph four months before and joined BSA. Bert Hopwood came to Triumph as Turner's Design Assistant. Ted Crabtree, who was also at Ariel before, became Chief Buyer, and Freddie Clarke was made Chief Development Engineer: both were motorcycle racers. Turner examined the line of 250, 350 (3H) and 500 cc Mk 5 singles, and rationalised them into three sports roadsters: the Tigers 70, 80, and 90. He added single-tube frames, enclosed valve gear, upswept exhausts, polished cases, new paint designs, and chrome petrol tanks.

Triumph Speed Twin

In July 1937, Turner introduced the 500 cc Speed Twin, selling at £75. It was smaller and weighed five pounds less than the £70 Tiger 90,''The History of British Motoring'' (2007), Abbeydale Press. . pp. 90–91. and proved very successful. The 5T Speed Twin (some say based on the engine design of Turner's Riley Nine car) became the standard by which other twins were judged, and its descendants continued in production until the 1980s. The original 27 bhp parallel-twin was capable of exceeding 90 mph (145 km/h) and weighed 361 lb (166 kg). Turner's wife Edith died in a car crash near Coventry on 8 July 1939; the same crash which killed

Gillian Lynne Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne (née Pyrke; 20 February 1926 – 1 July 2018) was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-runnin ...

's mother and two other friends. Turner kept in contact with Gillian Lynne thereafter. Turner's " sprung hub" was supposed to go into production in 1941, adding 17 lb to the weight of a bike. But the war delayed its introduction until 1948. In 1942, Turner designed a generator, using an all-alloy Triumph vertical twin engine, for the Air Ministry. After a heated disagreement with Jack Sangster, Turner quit his position at Triumph and promptly became chief designer at BSA, where he worked on a side-valve vertical twin for the War. Bert Hopwood was made Triumph's new designer and Sangster put him to work on a 500 cc side-valve twin competing for the same contract. By 1943 Bert Hopwood completed the design, but it was never produced. Triumph's prototypes were released in February, before BSA's planned launch. The design later became the post-war TRW model. In late October, Turner went back to Triumph. Hopwood had been working on a design for a 700 cc inline four-cylinder engine that could produce 50 bhp, but Turner's return to Triumph put an end to that plan. Turner was Managing Director once again by 1944. The Speed Twin, Tiger 100 and 350 cc 3T models emerged in 1945. They now had telescopic forks, originally designed by Turner, but modified by Freddie Clarke after it was found that fork oil would spew out on bottoming.

Triumph T100 GP

Ernie Lyons won the first

Manx Grand Prix The Manx Grand Prix motorcycle races are held on the Isle of Man TT Course (or ' Mountain Circuit') every year for a two-week period, usually spanning the end of August and early September. New for 2022 is a period reduction from 14 to 9 days ...

on a Tiger 100 built by Freddie Clarke using an alloy wartime generator engine and the unreleased sprung hub in 1946. Turner, away in America, and anti-racing, was furious when he heard, but threw Lyons a victory dinner anyway, and a small batch of replica T100 were made for sale. Clarke resigned and joined AMC as Chief Development Engineer. Bert Hopwood had an argument with Turner over racing, left Triumph, and stayed away for 14 years. The Mark I sprung rear hub was introduced in late 1947. In 1948, Turner was persuaded to allow the entry of three 500 cc twins in the Senior TT, but none of them finished, so the experience only added to Turner's opposition to factory racing.

Triumph Thunderbird

The 6T 650 cc

Thunderbird Thunderbird, thunder bird or thunderbirds may refer to: * Thunderbird (mythology), a legendary creature in certain North American indigenous peoples' history and culture * Ford Thunderbird, a car Birds * Dromornithidae, extinct flightless birds ...

, as designed by Turner, and further developed by Jack Wickes, was launched on 20 September 1949, when three models covered 500 miles at 90 mph (800 km at 145 km/h) in a demonstration at Montlhery. Essentially an enlarged tourer version of the Speed Twin, the 6T was designed to satisfy the substantial American export market, and was advertised as capable of a genuine 100 mph (161 km/h). The Thunderbird became a favourite of police forces worldwide. For 1950, Turner went for a "low-chrome" policy, and banned the use of chrome fuel tanks. A chrome tank did not reappear till the 1981 Bonneville T140LE Royal Wedding edition. Once in production, the first performance improvements came midway through the first year when the

carburettor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor) is a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the venturi tube in the main meterin ...

size was increased. This was the year Turner expressed the belief that 650 cc was the practical limit for the traditional British 360° vertical twin. It was the last year for the T100 GP model, although the T100C carried on, and the Mark 2 sprung hub was released. Turner became involved in the establishment of the US-based Triumph Corp. in Maryland, a distribution company created to serve East Coast US markets. After 1950, America became Triumph's biggest customer. In 1951 Sangster sold Triumph to BSA for £2.5 million, having previously sold Ariel to BSA in 1939. As part of the sale agreement, he joined the BSA Group as a member of the board. Turner's holdings in Triumph gave him 10% of the sale. A race kit for the Tiger 100 was introduced, bikes were restyled with new paint and the first dual seat appeared. The Tiger 100 race kit was dropped, and the T100C came with the kit already installed. The T100C had twin-carburettors for this year only.

Triumph Terrier and Tiger Cub unit construction singles

1955 Triumph T15 Terrier Coventry Transport Museum

The first lightweight for Triumph since 1933, a 150 cc OHV Terrier T15, four-speed unit construction single with a sloping engine, was introduced in 1953. As a result, Triumph directors Turner, Bob Fearon and Alex Masters rode from Land's End to John O'Groat's for a 1,000-mile Terrier demonstration and publicity stunt – the "Gaffers' Gallop.". . By 1954 the sportier 200 cc version was available, and called the

Tiger Cub The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...

. In 1952, Turner married Shirley Watts. They had two daughters and a son.

Triumph T110 Tiger

The production 650 cc Thunderbird was a low-compression tourer, and the 500 cc Tiger 100 was the performance bike. That changed in 1954, along with the change to swing arm frames and the release of the 650 cc Tiger 110, eclipsing the 500 cc Tiger 100 as the performance model.

Chief Executive of BSA Group (BSA, Ariel, Triumph, Daimler, and Carbodies)

In 1956, after a boardroom struggle over power and control,

became Chairman of BSA Group, succeeding Sir Bernard Docker. He appointed Turner Chief Executive of the Automotive Division (comprising BSA, Ariel,

, Daimler and

Carbodies The London Taxi Company was a taxi design and manufacturing company based in Coventry, England. It formerly traded as London Taxis International and Carbodies. It operated a coachbuilding business on Holyhead Road, Coventry. After half a ...

– makers of London taxicabs).

Triumph 3TA unit construction twin

The first

unit construction : ''For the vehicle design where the vehicle's skin is used as a load-bearing element, see Monocoque.'' Unit construction is the design of larger motorcycles where the engine and gearbox components share a single casing. This sometimes includes ...

twin-cylinder motorcycle made by Triumph, the 350 cc (21 ci) 'Twenty One' 3TA, designed by Turner and Wickes, was introduced for the 21st Anniversary of Triumph Engineering Co. Ltd in 1957. Unfortunately it also had the first "

bathtub A bathtub, also known simply as a bath or tub, is a container for holding water in which a person or animal may bathe. Most modern bathtubs are made of thermoformed acrylic, porcelain-enameled steel or cast iron, or fiberglass-reinforced pol ...

" rear enclosure, which proved to be a major styling mistake, with dealers reputedly having to remove enclosures to sell bikes. Turner's new unit

Triumph Speed Twin The Speed Twin 5T is a standard motorcycle that was made by Triumph at their Coventry, and later Meriden factories. Edward Turner, Triumph’s Chief Designer and Managing Director, launched the Triumph Speed Twin at the 1937 National Motorcyc ...

, the 5TA, introduced in 1959 was a 500 cc version of this engine and was similarly styled. The 6T Thunderbird and T110 models also acquired the bathtub rear fairing. Although quickly mimicked by competitors, eventually Turner relented on this unpopular feature, the 'bathtub' becoming more and more abbreviated until disappearing altogether on the final 1966 versions. Sportier versions of both the 5TA (the Tiger 100) and 3TA (the Tiger 90)were produced from 1960 to 1974 and 1963–1969, respectively.

Triumph T120 Bonneville

In 1958 a twin-carburettor version of the 650 engine emerged. Triumph test rider

Percy Tait Percy Tait (9 October 1929 – 17 November 2019) was an English professional motorcycle road racer and senior road tester for Triumph motorcycles, where he was estimated to have covered over a million miles of road testing. He later became a ...

hit 128 mph on a prototype Bonneville T120 at the Motor Industry Research Association (

MIRA Mira (), designation Omicron Ceti (ο Ceti, abbreviated Omicron Cet, ο Cet), is a red-giant star estimated to be 200–400 light-years from the Sun in the constellation Cetus. ο Ceti is a binary stellar system, consisting of a vari ...

) test track. The "Bonnie" was a show stopper at the 1958

Earl's Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

Motorcycle Show. Turner, wary of racing and high-performance options, thought the Bonnie was a bad design and reputedly said to Frank Baker, Triumph's experimental department manager, "This, my boy, will lead us straight into Carey Street (where the bankruptcy courts were)."

Daimler V8 engines

For 1959 Turner designed the hemi-head Daimler 2.5 & 4.5-litre

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...

s used in the

Daimler SP250 The Daimler SP250 is a sports car built by the Daimler Company, a British manufacturer in Coventry, from 1959 to 1964. It was the last car to be launched by Daimler before its parent company, the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA), sold it to J ...

sports car and Daimler Majestic Major respectively. The valve gear was more similar to the Chrysler Hemi than the Triumph motorcycle, itself based on Riley. In 1960 Turner went for a tour of the Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha plants in Japan and was shaken by the scale of production. By 1961 Turner was under pressure to retire.

resigned from AMC, and accepted Turner's offer to work for Triumph as Director and General Manager. It was at this time that Hopwood conceived the idea of a three-cylinder bike and engineer

Doug Hele Douglas Lionel Hele (13 July 19193 November 2001) was a pioneering British motorcycle engineer with Triumph and other firms: BSA, Douglas and Norton. He was born in Birmingham in 1919 and died in Hagley, Worcestershire on 2 November 2001. C ...

completed the drawings. Daimler was sold to Jaguar, and Edward Turner's V-8 was put into a

Jaguar Mark 2 The Jaguar Mark 2 is a mid-sized luxury sports saloon built from late 1959 to 1967 by Jaguar in Coventry, England. The previous Jaguar 2.4 Litre and 3.4 Litre models made between 1955 and 1959 are identified as Mark 1 Jaguars.Eric Dymock, The ...

body with an upgraded interior and trademark Daimler grille, and called the Daimler 2½ litre V8. In 1962, the last year of the "pre-unit" models, Triumph used a frame with twin front downtubes, but returned to a traditional Triumph single front downtube for the unit construction models that followed. From 1963 all Triumph engines were of unit construction. Triumph 64tr6r

Triumph Scooters

1965 Triumph Tina scooter Coventry Transport Museum

Two Turner-designed scooters were introduced, about 1958 the high-performance

Triumph Tigress The Triumph Tigress, also sold as the BSA Sunbeam, was a scooter designed to have good performance and handling for the motorcycle enthusiast. The entry of the BSA group into the scooter field was announced by Edward Turner in October 195 ...

(also sold as the BSA Sunbeam) and in 1963 the

Tina Tina may refer to: People * Tina (given name), people and fictional characters with the given name ''Tina'' Places * Tina, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran * Tina, Tunisia, a town in Sfax Governorate, Tunisia *Tina, Guadalcanal, Solom ...

(later called the T10), a Turner-designed 100 cc automatic transmission scooter for shopping.

Retirement

Turner retired as Chief Executive of the Automotive Division (which included motorcycles) in 1963, but retained his BSA Directorship. He was apparently by this time unhappy about the direction the company was taking.

had hopes of being appointed Turner's successor, but the job went to BSA's Harry Sturgeon. BSA management now took over Triumph policy completely. Sturgeon decided to streamline motorcycle operations after McKinsey, an international business consultant, recommended treating the two companies as one. 1966 saw Turner working on a large-displacement, four-cylinder engine design which was not built. In 1967, Turner, at 66, retired from the BSA Board and Harry Sturgeon took his place. Unlike Turner, Sturgeon was convinced Triumph had to be involved in racing, and John Hartle won the

1967 Isle of Man TT The 1967 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy was a motorcycle road racing event held on the 37-mile Snaefell Mountain course on the Isle of Man. Five races, in different engine capacity classes of 50, 125, 250, 350 and the 500 cc Senior TT, made up ...

production event on a Bonneville, just before Harry Sturgeon suddenly died, and was replaced by Lionel Jofeh.

Triumph Bandit and BSA Fury

In November 1970 the ailing company's last major press and trade launch was held. In the lineup was an ohc 350 cc twin with twin carburettors and five-speed transmission, designed by Turner (already retired) as his last project, and further refined by Bert Hopwood and

. It was to be sold as both the Triumph Bandit and BSA Fury, each distinguished by minor cosmetic changes and paint schemes, with 34 bhp and capable of 110 mph. Although included in that year's brochures, financial problems forced cancellation of the model before any production. Several pre-production prototypes still exist. Triumph Bandit 350cc

This model represented an attempt by BSA-Triumph to compete in the wider 350 cc category, being a large-selling engine-displacement at the time. In an early 1970s issue of Cycle Buyers Guide (a yearly listing of all available motorcycles) it was stated that in the year prior to that issue, Honda had sold more 350 cc motorcycles than Yamaha had sold motorcycles. BSA-Triumph marketed two versions of exhaust system on the Bandit and Fury; the Street Scrambler 'SS' version had a high-mounted matt black system with both pipes on the same side, and the other version had bright-chromed exhausts conventionally mounted low on either side. BSA-Triumph made a major media push with multi-page brochure inserts in all the major US Cycle publications, and the 350s were prominently displayed. This determined response was to challenge the Japanese by designing a competitive and aesthetically up-to-date 350. The look was very well received and many enthusiasts were looking forward to their arrival but BSA-Triumph was in a deteriorating financial condition (labour disputes, unreliable electrical systems, oil-leaking engines, and ageing styling). With limited resources, the company made a decision not to produce any 350s, but to concentrate instead on the "proven models".

Commemoration

When the

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

issued six postage stamps on 19 July 2005 each featuring a classic British motorcycle, Turner was the only designer cited by name in the accompanying presentation packet notes. This was in relation to the 47 pence stamp featuring his 1938

. In 2008, an address where Turner lived and worked in

, South-East London was awarded a

Blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term ...

Southwark Southwark ( ) is a district of Central London situated on the south bank of the River Thames, forming the north-western part of the wider modern London Borough of Southwark. The district, which is the oldest part of South London, developed ...

Borough Council, following a popular public vote in 2007. The Blue Plaque at 8 Philip Walk, where he lived whilst working for his father's bottle-brush factory itself now at 6 Philip Walk, was unveiled by his son, Edward Turner Jr on Sunday 25 October 2009 in the presence of his siblings, Jane Meadows and Charmian Hawley. File:Edward Turner Blue Plaque.jpg, Turner's

at his former residence, 8 Philip Walk,

, London SE15 File:Edward Turner Blue Plaque Unveiling1.jpg, The Blue Plaque unveiling by Edward Turner Jr., in October 2009

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Turner, Edward 1901 births 1973 deaths British automotive engineers British motorcycle pioneers British motorcycle designers Daimler people