Whitby Morrison, doing business as Whitby Specialist Vehicles Ltd, is a family-run British engineering company based in

Crewe Crewe () is a railway town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The Crewe built-up area had a total population of 75,556 in 2011, which also covers parts of the adjacent civil parishes of Willaston ...

Cheshire East Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The local authority is Cheshire East Council. Towns within the area include Crewe, Macclesfield, Co ...

. It has been described as "the world's leading

ice cream van An ice cream van (British) or ice cream truck (North American) is a commercial vehicle that serves as a mobile retail outlet for ice cream, usually during the spring and summer. Ice cream vans are often seen parked at public events, or near ...

manufacturer".

History

Bryan Whitby (13 May 1932 - 1 July 2016), born in Cheshire, started out as a bodywork apprentice at J.H. Jennings in

Sandbach Sandbach (pronounced ) is the name of a historic market town and a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements: Sandbach itself as the largest, Elworth, Ettiley Heath a ...

, and later did national service in the

Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equip ...

. He subsequently worked again for Jennings and at Crewe's

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

car works before joining Shavington-based S.C. Cummins in 1955, working on ice cream vans and

narrowboat A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commerc ...

s. He worked with Sid Cummins to develop the Direct Drive System, and, after establishing his own company in 1962, filed a UK patent in January 1965 for mobile ice cream producing equipment through which

soft serve Soft serve, also known as soft ice, is a frozen dessert, similar to ice cream but softer and less dense due to air being introduced during freezing. Soft serve has been sold commercially since the late 1930s in the US. In the US, soft serve is ...

units were powered off the van's drive mechanism. He built his first ice cream van in 1965. All his ice cream vans afterwards followed this design, previously having a separate electrical generator. This system was known elsewhere as

power take-off A power take-off or power takeoff (PTO) is one of several methods for taking power from a power source, such as a running engine, and transmitting it to an application such as an attached implement or separate machine. Most commonly, it is a sp ...

(PTO), and mostly found on

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

s. Bryan Whitby Engineering Ltd was incorporated on 12 February 1973. In 1989 it became known as Whitby Morrison, after taking over the Electrofreeze business of Morrison Industries based in

Sholing Sholing, previously Scholing, is a district on the eastern side of the city of Southampton in Southern England. It is located between the districts of Bitterne, Thornhill and Woolston. Various explanations from where the name derives b ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

, and in 1998 acquired the Crewe-based S.C. Cummins brand. In 2015, Whitby Morrison successfully sued a Yorkshire-based firm for copying its registered ice-cream van designs, including exterior and interior bodywork and the direct drive system; the rogue operator had bought a Whitby Morrison van and reverse-engineered its design to produce 30 fake vans, worth around £2 million, bearing its logo. In August 2020, two Whitby Morrison vans featured in an episode of the BBC's ''

Top Gear Top Gear may refer to: * "Top gear", the highest gear available in a vehicle's manual transmission Television * ''Top Gear'' (1977 TV series), a British motoring magazine programme * ''Top Gear'' (2002 TV series), a relaunched version of the or ...

'' TV show. In March 2022, Whitby Morrison workers appeared in an episode of the BBC regional documentary series, ''

We Are England "We Are England" is a single released by British indie band Ricky on 12 June 2006. The song is an indie ballad which celebrates the national team in time for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, and is a charity record with profits going to the NSPCC. The s ...

''.

Operations

The company's works are situated on Fourth Avenue on the Crewe Gates Industrial Estate in

, off the A532 (Weston Road) - approximately 0.5 km south-east of

Crewe railway station Crewe railway station is a railway station in Crewe, Cheshire, England. It opened in 1837 and is one of the most historically significant railway stations in the world. was appointed a director in 1991, and is now managing director; his son Edward (born 5 February 1982) is operations director. Since the 2012–13 season, the firm has sponsored a stand, The Ice Cream Van Stand, at

Gresty Road Gresty Road or the Alexandra Stadium, currently known as the Mornflake Stadium for sponsorship reasons, is a football stadium in Crewe, Cheshire, England. The home ground of Crewe Alexandra, it has an all-seated capacity of 10,153. History Cre ...

, the home of

Crewe Alexandra Crewe Alexandra Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Crewe, Cheshire, that competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Railwaymen' because of ...

In July 2021, the firm announced a 99-year extension of its stand sponsorship at Crewe. It also sponsors a stand at nearby

Nantwich Town Nantwich Town Football Club is a semi-professional football club based in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. The club was founded in 1884 and is nicknamed ''The Dabbers'', a reference to the town's tanning industry. They currently compete in and play ...

's Weaver Stadium.

Products

Whitby Morrison converts production vans into ice cream vans for the mobile soft ice cream industry. Their products have been exported to over 60 countries. It has mainly converted

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter is a light commercial vehicle ( van) built by Mercedes-Benz Group AG of Stuttgart, Germany as a large van, chassis cab, minibus, and pickup truck. In the past, the Sprinter had been sold under the Mercedes-Benz, Dodge, ...

s or

Ford Transit The Ford Transit is a family of light commercial vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company since 1965, primarily as a cargo van, but also available in other configurations including a large passenger van (marketed as the Ford Tourneo in ...

s, both popular vehicles in the UK. The UK's biggest ice cream van manufacturer, the firm produces around 100 vans a year: 60 new, 30 conversions and 10 vintage van conversions. All new vans are built on a

Euro 6 The European emission standards are vehicle emission standards for pollution from the use of new land surface vehicles sold in the European Union and EEA member states and the UK, and ships in EU waters. The standards are defined in a seri ...

-compliant Mercedes Sprinter chassis, which meets rules for particulates and NOx emissions. An electric motor-drive (EMD) system is installed in 80% of the vans Whitby Morrison builds, allowing vendors to switch off their engines and use mains electricity to run freezers and other equipment. EMD systems can also be retrofitted to existing vans. The company has also been developing a fully electric on-board battery system to power the

Carpigiani Carpigiani is an Italian company, located near Bologna, specialising in the production of gelato and ice cream machines. It has approximately 35% of the global market share, which includes both machines for the production of Italian artisan gelat ...

soft-scoop machines it fits, meaning vans' engines can be turned off when they are parked. The first all-electric van was expected to be delivered in the summer of 2019.

Notes and references

* Whitby, Stuart; Earnshaw, Alan (1999). Fifty Years of Ice Cream Vehicles, 1949–99. Appleby: Trans-Pennine

External links

Whitby Morrison
{{Cheshire Motor vehicle manufacturers of England Ice cream vans Coachbuilders of the United Kingdom Companies based in Cheshire Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1962 1962 establishments in the United Kingdom Crewe British brands Milk transport