John North Birch (1867–1945) was born in

Foleshill Foleshill is a suburb in the north of Coventry in the West Midlands of England. Longford, Courthouse Green and Rowley Green are to its north and Keresley is to its west. The population of the Ward at the 2011 census was 19,943. History Folesh ...

, Warwickshire, England, and trained as an engineer. He constructed his own pushbikes (bicycle) and automobiles. Birch also used the first names George and William (Bill) while in New Zealand.

Early life and career

Birch was one of 11 children and eldest son of a

ribbon manufacturer. He completed an engineering apprenticeship with a

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

engineering firm which produced steam engines. About 1884 he joined bicycle manufacturers Starley Brothers of Coventry. The following year he moved to

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

and worked in a railway carriage factory. From there he worked in a steel foundry before returning to Nuneaton in 1888. Birch married Hannah Taylor of

Exhall Exhall is a suburban settlement and former civil parish, now in the unparished area of Bedworth, in the Nuneaton and Bedworth district of Warwickshire, England.OS Explorer Map 232 : Nuneaton & Tamworth: (1:25 000) : History Historically, the ...

, near Coventry, in 1892. They had three daughters.

George Eliot motor cycles

About 1888 Birch built a pushbike with an oil retaining hub, an invention of his which is universally used in cycle production. He named it the Foleshill and this pushbike proved popular and included among its purchasers

Dennis brothers Dennis Brothers Limited was an English manufacturer of commercial vehicles based in Guildford. It is best remembered as a manufacturer of buses, fire engines and lorries (trucks) and municipal vehicles such as dustcarts. All vehicles were made ...

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

. Moving his business to Princes Street, Nuneaton, in 1898, Birch renamed his bike the

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wro ...

after the author of the same name. Here he employed some 20 people, including his brothers Harold and Fred. About 1900 Birch built his first motorcycle, which he also named the George Eliot. The bike had three innovations: the engine was positioned where the pedals are on a bicycle, the engine was built into the frame, and it had a low-tension magneto superseding the battery type ignition. Two of his bikes were shown at the 1902 Stanley Show. The brochure from the show described them as

one (is) fitted with Simms' Magneto in conjunction with Birch's advance sparking apparatus. This machine is constructed with Birch's patent combined crank chamber and bottom bracket built in the frame; surface carburetter (
carburetor 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 meteri ...
), belt drive, Birch's disc hubs, and compound brake. The other has a surface carburetter, wipe contact, accumulator, trembler coil, and self-compensating contact

In 1903 the bike was awarded a first class diploma for reliability. In July 1904 Birch and F W Marston rode one from

John o' Groats to Land's End Land's End to John o' Groats is the traversal of the whole length of the island of Great Britain between two extremities, in the southwest and northeast. The traditional distance by road is and takes most cyclists 10 to 14 days; the record ...

. In 1903 Birch sold the right to construct these bikes to

Bradbury Motor Cycles Bradbury Motor Cycles was a British motorcycle manufacturer based in Oldham, England and established in 1902. Originally involved in the manufacture of machine tools, sewing machines and cycles, their first motorcycles were bicycles with clip- ...

, which produced them under the Peerless brand. His brother also continued to manufacture them until 1925 under the name George Eliot. In 1905 Birch left his family in England, intending to return within 5 years. He never did, but kept in contact through correspondence. Birch immigrated to New Zealand in 1905.

Marlborough Engineering Limited

In 1908 Birch worked with Miles Cheesman at Birch and Co,

Blenheim, New Zealand Blenheim ( ; mi, Waiharakeke) is the most populous town in the regions of New Zealand, region of Marlborough Region, Marlborough, in the north east of the South Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of The surrounding Marlborough ...

. He started his own firm, Marlborough Engineering Limited, in 1912. There he developed and constructed a motor car, which he named Marlborough after the province, between 1912 and 1920. It was a touring car, had a four-cylinder engine with a four-inch bore and seven-inch stroke, five main bearings, and full force feed lubrication. Valves were two-and-a-half inches across the face, cam lift was half an inch. The Marlborough was thought to be capable of over a 100 miles an hour on a good straight road with a good set of tyres. In the same period he also built several marine and stationary engines, plus the huge marine engine which ended up in a Mr McManaway's launch the ''Marlborough.'' James Fuller of Seddon bought the first Marlborough car in 1920. It lasted up to the 1940s when it was broken up for scrap. Only the motor remained and this is now held in a Blenheim's Brayshaw Heritage Park. In 1915 Birch is believed to have created a

shrapnel shell Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions which carried many individual bullets close to a target area and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell's trajectory and strike targets individually. They relied almo ...

for the New Zealand Army. Newspaper reports of the day refer to George Birch of Blenheim as being its creator.

Trouble with a motor

During the war period Birch constructed a marine engine for a Blenheim farmer, Thomas Davies, and garage owner, Edward Parker. Construction proved more difficult and expensive than originally assessed by Birch and resulted in litigation. In June 1918 Birch was ordered to pass the motor to Davies but either refused or could not and was jailed over the matter. Having served almost a year in jail, Birch was released on the understanding he would supply Davies with the engine. This did not happen to Davies satisfaction and the case was returned to Court in October 1919. Davies claimed parts were missing and Birch said that they had never been in his possession. It was this engine that finally ended up in McManaway's launch after being discovered at Picton some years later.

Carlton Car Company

After making his first car, Birch moved in 1922 to Gisborne. While working as a foreman for Collett Motors, he built three more cars. These were renamed Carlton. Both the second and third cars were extensively damaged by fire, but the second car was redesigned and sold as a three-ton truck and the third car was used for spare parts by the owner of the truck. In the 1950s, the truck was recovered from a swamp and rebuilt as a car by the Gisborne Vintage Car Club. The rebuild was completed in 1998. Birch's fourth and final car, the baby Carlton, was completed about 1928. In 1930 a prospectus was published to raise £7,000 and a new company called the NZ Motor Manufacturing Co Ltd was formed. One financial columnist of the day commented that the prospectus lacked sufficient detail to make a reasonable assessment. It did note that the car was to be a six-cylinder

front-wheel drive Front-wheel drive (FWD) is a form of engine and transmission layout used in motor vehicles, where the engine drives the front wheels only. Most modern front-wheel drive vehicles feature a transverse engine, rather than the conventional longit ...

. Insufficient funds and the Great Depression ended Birch's car company and he built no more cars after that.100 years of Motoring in New Zealand, John McCrystal, Hodder Moa Beckett, 2003, , pages 178–179

Death

Birch died at Gisborne, New Zealand, on 19 February 1945 and is buried at Taruheru Cemetery. He was 77.

Photographs

1904 George Eliot motor cycle

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20120424031023/http://exhibits1.museums.org.nz/collection7VCC/exhibit1/e10001b.htm Marlborough* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131218234659/http://exhibits1.museums.org.nz/collection7VCC/exhibit1/e10002b-14.htm Carlton at Gisborne after construction (although the article calls it the Marlborough, this second car was a Carlton)]
Remains of the Carlton in 1961

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Birch, John 1867 births 1945 deaths People from Nuneaton Car manufacturers of New Zealand Burials at Taruheru Cemetery English emigrants to New Zealand 20th-century New Zealand engineers 19th-century British engineers Cycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom