Sir John Valentine Carden, 6th Baronet

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(6 February 1892 – 10 December 1935) was an English

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

and vehicle designer. He was the sixth

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

Templemore, County Tipperary Templemore () is a town in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is a civil parish in the historical barony of Eliogarty. It is part of the parish of Templemore, Clonmore and Killea in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly. The 2011 Censu ...

, from 1931.

Work

Born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Carden was a talented, self-taught engineer, with an ability to put his ideas to practical use. From 1914 to 1916, he ran a company that manufactured light passenger-cars under the brand '' Carden''. The company's first model was a

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive car manufactured in Europe and the United States between 1910 and the early 1920s. The purpose of cyclecars was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the car. A key c ...

, with seating only for the driver. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Carden served in the Army Service Corps and gained the rank of captain, acquiring experience with vehicles such as tracked

Holt tractor The Holt tractors were a range of continuous track haulers built by the Holt Manufacturing Company from California (U.S.), which was named after Benjamin Holt. Between 1908 and 1913, twenty-seven of the first 100 Holt caterpillar track-type tr ...

s. After the war, he returned to car manufacturing but sold his original design and factory to Ward and Avey who renamed it the AV. He then designed a new cyclecar and started manufacture at Ascot but at the end of 1919 sold the design to E. A. Tamplin who continued manufacture as the

Tamplin The Tamplin was an England, English automobile manufactured by Tamplin Motors from 1919 to 1923 in Kingston Road, Staines, Middlesex and from 1924 to 1925 in Malden Road, Cheam, Surrey. Edward Alfred Tamplin, a member of the Henry Tamplin, Su ...

car. A further design followed with a two-seat fibreboard body. Carden even sold one of these to

King Alfonso XIII Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alf ...

of Spain before selling the company to new owners in 1922 who renamed it the

New Carden New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

. Two or three years later, Carden met car-designer

Vivian Loyd Captain Vivian Graham Loyd MC, (13 May 18941972) was an English people, English soldier and engineer who designed armoured vehicles including the Carden Loyd tankette and Loyd Carrier. Early years Vivian Graham Loyd was born in Windsor, Berksh ...

and the two started a small company in Chertsey named

Carden-Loyd The Carden Loyd tankettes were a series of United Kingdom, British tankettes of the Interwar period, period between the World Wars, the most successful of which was the Mark VI, the only version built in significant numbers. It became a classic ...

, working on light, tracked vehicles for military use. Carden was reportedly described as an "introvert engineering genius", while Loyd was conversely described as an "extrovert engineer-salesman". What brought the pair real success was a tankette design: the first Carden-Loyd One-Man Tankette, which was designed in 1925. In the next two years, it was developed into

Mark Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Fi ...

s I, II and III, and later, two-man tankette models Mark IV and Mark V. All were built in small numbers but were very promising, and, as a result, Carden-Loyd was bought by

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

in March 1928. Carden himself was employed by Vickers as the technical director. The pair continued developing their tankette model, eventually creating their best-known design, the Mark VI. It became the first successful design for that vehicle type in the world, and a classic one, several hundred being produced and exported to 16 countries. Many foreign tankette models developed later were said to be inspired by the Mark VI. Carden and Loyd also designed

light tank A light tank is a tank variant initially designed for rapid movements in and out of combat, to outmaneuver heavier tanks. It is smaller in size with thinner armor and a less powerful main gun, tailored for better tactical mobility and ease of ...

s, such as the well-known Vickers-Armstrongs Commercial Light Tanks series (used, for example, in Belgium) and the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

's Light Tanks, including

Light Tank Mk VI The Tank, Light, Mk VI was a British light tank, produced by Vickers-Armstrongs in the late 1930s, which saw service during the Second World War. Development history The Tank, Light, Mk VI was the sixth in the line of light tanks built by Vi ...

(one of Carden's last designs). The pair also developed the world's first

amphibious tank An amphibious vehicle (or simply amphibian), is a vehicle that is a means of transport viable on land as well as on or under water. Amphibious vehicles include amphibious bicycles, ATVs, cars, buses, trucks, railway vehicles, combat vehicles an ...

, the Vickers-Carden-Loyd Amphibian Tank, and played a role in the development of the Vickers E tank model. Aside from tanks, Carden and Loyd also developed several light artillery tractors and carriers, including the VA D50 model, which was a prototype of the

Bren Carrier The Bren gun was a series of light machine guns (LMG) made by Britain in the 1930s and used in various roles until 1992. While best known for its role as the British and British Empire, Commonwealth forces' primary infantry LMG in World War II, ...

. Carden's interest in flying also led him to build an ultralight plane based on the French " Flying Flea", using a modified Ford engine uprated from 10

bhp BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, natural gas petroleum public company that is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded ...

to 31 bhp. In 1935, Carden started

Carden Aero Engines Carden Aero Engines Limited was a 1930s British fixed-wing aero-engine manufacturer, based at Heston Aerodrome. History Sir John Carden established the company in March 1936, while the Flying Flea craze was sweeping Britain. He saw a need for a ...

Ltd., an aircraft engine manufacturer. A partnership with

L.E. Baynes Leslie Everett Baynes, AFRAeS (23 March 1902 – 13 March 1989) was an English aeronautical engineer. Early life Born at Barnes, Surrey, on 23 March 1902 the son of James and Florence Baynes. Baynes was educated at Gresham's School, Norfolk, le ...

led to the founding of Carden Baynes Aircraft Ltd., which produced gliders of Baynes' design fitted with auxiliary engines. John Carden was killed in an air crash near

Tatsfield Tatsfield is a village and civil parish in the Tandridge District of Surrey, England. It is located 3.3 miles north west of Westerham and 3.9 miles north east of Oxted, and is adjacent to the Surrey border with both Greater London and Kent. Geog ...

, Surrey on 10 December 1935, while flying on a Sabena airliner.Obituary, ''Flight'', 19 December 1935
/ref>

Notes

References

*Christopher F. Foss, Peter McKenzie. ''The Vickers Tanks'', 1995, *Arthur E. Carden. ''Carden of Templemore 2010'', 2010. Available from Lulu website, blocked by Wikipedia but to be found at Google. This book contains a 30-page chapter on Sir John Valentine Carden, with 24 illustrations. {{DEFAULTSORT:Carden, John 1892 births 1935 deaths Baronets in the Baronetage of Ireland British automotive engineers British Army personnel of World War I English aerospace engineers English aviators Members of the Order of the British Empire Royal Army Service Corps officers Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in England 20th-century British inventors