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Crossley, based in Manchester, United Kingdom, was a pioneering company in the production of internal combustion engines. Since 1988 it has been part of the Rolls-Royce Power Engineering group. More than 100,000 Crossley oil and gas engines have been built.


History


Crossley Brothers

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 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 apprenticeships: Francis, known as Frank, at Robert Stephenson and Company; and William at W.G. Armstrong, both in Newcastle upon Tyne. William concentrated on the business side, Frank provided the engineering expertise. The brothers were committed Christians 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 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'' (Χρι ...
symbol of the
Coptic cross The Coptic cross refers to a number of Christian cross variants associated in some way with Coptic Christians. Typical form The typical form of the "Coptic cross" used in the Coptic Church is made up of two bold lines of equal length that inte ...
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 **Ger ...
) rights to the patents of Otto and Langden of Cologne 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 fro ...
four-stroke cycle 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 Openshaw is a suburb of Manchester, England, about three miles east of the city centre. Historically part of Lancashire, Openshaw was incorporated into the city of Manchester in 1890. Its name derives from the Old English ''Opinschawe'', which me ...
, in eastern Manchester. Further technical improvements also followed, including the introduction of poppet valves and the hot-tube ignitor in 1888 and the introduction of 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 ...
, 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 Diesel may refer to: * Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression * Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines * Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...
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 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. The Crossley system even influenced Henry Ford, 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 (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 In the automotive industry, rebadging is a form of market segmentation used by automobile manufacturers around the world. To allow for product differentiation without designing or engineering a new model or brand (at high cost or risk), a manu ...
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 usuall ...
, Nottingham, 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 engine The Hornsby-Akroyd oil engine, named after its inventor Herbert Akroyd Stuart and the manufacturer Richard Hornsby & Sons, was the first successful design of an internal combustion engine using heavy oil as a fuel. It was the first to use a se ...
s, 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 chamber In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...
s with single inlet and exhaust valves above and below the chamber. Other manufacturers at the time, notably
Brush A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped durin ...
, produced very similar engines as modular, opposed cylinder units. Crossley's were distinctive for using a monobloc head on each cylinder, although this was in the form of a self-supporting
wet liner In an internal combustion engine, the engine block is the structure which contains the cylinders and other components. In an early automotive engine, the engine block consisted of just the cylinder block, to which a separate crankcase was atta ...
and the water jacket around the whole cylinder bank 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 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 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 Amalgamated Power Engineering was a British engineering holding company, created through the 1968 merger of W.H. Allen, Sons and Co (which had absorbed William Foster & Co. in 1960) and Belliss and Morcom. In 1966, the receiver of Crossley Bro ...
(APE) group and the name became APE-Crossley Ltd. For the first time the new company used the
Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...
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. APE, in its turn, became part of
Northern Engineering Industries Northern Engineering Industries plc (NEI) was a British engineering firm, which for over 10 years was one of the largest employers on Tyneside. Its headquarters were based at the Regent Centre at Gosforth in Newcastle upon Tyne. History The com ...
(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, 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 Dunfermline (; sco, Dunfaurlin, gd, Dùn Phàrlain) is a city, parish and former Royal Burgh, in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. The city currently has an estimated population of 58,508. Accord ...
. Demolition of the works began in December 2009.


Diesel engines

Crossley Brothers built diesel engines for stationary, marine and locomotive use. There was a wide range of engines from six to 3200 horsepower (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 CIE 001 Class 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 1950s ...
* the KLCKee-25 used in the KLC 123 Class * the ESTVee-8 used in the CIE 201 Class * the ESNT6 used in
British Rail Class D3/3 British Rail Class D3/3 was a 0-6-0 shunting locomotive built by British Rail at their Derby Works in England. It was similar to the British Rail Class 08, except they were built with different engines and traction motors. They were all withdra ...
shunting locomotives All were two stroke engines equipped with Crossley's system of exhaust pulse pressure charging 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 were re-motored with EMD engines between 1968 and 1971 and the CIE 201 Class 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 *
Gas engine A gas engine is an internal combustion engine that runs on a gaseous fuel, such as coal gas, producer gas, biogas, landfill gas or natural gas. In the United Kingdom, the term is unambiguous. In the United States, due to the widespread use of ...
* Diesel engine


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