A.H. Haden Motorcycles was a British

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

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from

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

. Haden was originally a bicycle-making business in

Hockley, Birmingham Hockley is a central inner-city district in the city of Birmingham, England. It lies about one mile north-west of the city centre, and is served by the Jewellery Quarter station. Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter continues to thrive in Hockley, a ...

, begun in the late 1880s, after the

safety bicycle A safety bicycle (or simply a safety) is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing ("ordinary") and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were know ...

was introduced. The business passed from George Joseph Haden to his son Alfred Hamlet Haden, who continued making bicycles from 1902 until 1912. They began manufacturing motorcycles in about 1906, and went into more extensive motorcycle production shortly before the First World War, when in 1913 A. H. Haden bought the Regal motorcycle company. The Haden marque was best known from 1912–1924. The main motorcycle was marketed under the Haden name as the "New Comet", and it was a long-standing independent brand. It used parts from Villiers, PeCo, JAP, Precision, and Climax, and was entered in the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

TT races in 1920 (10th place) and 1921. The New Comet was discontinued in 1924, but in 1931 small numbers of 198 cc models were produced with Villiers parts. The machine was probably named "New Comet" to distinguish it from the earlier "Comet" motorcycle produced by the Comet Motor Works, at New Cross, London (1902–1907). It is possible A. H. Haden had bought out the owners of the earlier London-based Comet. Alfred's sons Donald William Haden and Denis Howard Haden, took over the business after 1937. It then became "Haden Bros.", and made tank parts for the military during the Second World War. After the War, Haden Bros. continued to be well known for making cycle and motorcycle parts, and these were sold worldwide from 1954 until 2002 when the company folded due to overseas competition. Denis Howard Haden founded his own separate company D.H. Haden Ltd. to manufacture electric

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s. The only known surviving Haden machines are 347 cc

two-stroke cycle 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 ...

models. The Haden marque is not to be confused with the short-lived Hayden motorcycle, produced in 1904 only for F. Hayden of Cheltenham, by Kynochs of Birmingham. An archive of research and original papers about the manufacture of New Comet motorcycles is held by the Vintage Motorcycle Club in Burton-upon-Trent, where they are available for inspection.

References

External links

* http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/A._H._Haden * http://www.hadenappliances.com/ {{British motorcycle manufacturers Motorcycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United Kingdom Defunct companies based in Birmingham, West Midlands