Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

Registered UK Charity (No. 1154342)

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 167,675 pages of information and 247,074 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Horace George Thornton

From Graces Guide

Horace Thornton (1859-1924)

21 November 1902 Thornton writes to the Financial Times as secretary of the Fischer Motor Vehicle Syndicate, of 9 Charing Cross Road.[1] The syndicate is an offshoot of the American-owned Fischer Motor Vehicle Co, of Hoboken, New Jersey, which has a contract to supply petrol-electric hybrid buses to the London General Omnibus Company.

By 1907 Horace (George) Thornton becomes associated with a number of companies controlled by Edward Lehwess.

24 October 1907 Thornton becomes a director of Improved Electric Traction Co.[2]

February to March 1908 Thornton writes to several local councils urging them to run electrobuses.[3]

8 June 1909 Thornton is listed as a director of the International Motor Traffic Syndicate.[4]

1910 Thornton is listed as a director of the Electric Vehicle Co.[5]

28 January 1911 Thornton becomes director of the Asia Caoutchouc Trust, a company promoted by the Commercial and Financial Agency and in turn controlled by Edward Lehwess.[6]

27 March 1914 Horace George Thornton, a company director, is remanded in custody at Marlborough Street magistrates, charged with fraud. The charges include failing to pay for ladies underclothing worth £15 4s and the theft of a Burberry overcoat.[7] He was later convicted and sentenced to nine months in Wormwood Scrubs.[8]


See Also

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Sources of Information

  1. Financial Times, 22 November 1902
  2. Improved Electric Traction, National Archives, BT 31/11428/87822
  3. Mick Hamer, A Most Deliberate Swindle, RedDoor, 2017, p. 281
  4. International Motor Traffic Syndicate, National Archives, BT 31/12112/94860
  5. Garke’s Manual of Electrical Undertakings, 1911, p. 1185
  6. Asia Caoutchouc Trust, National Archives, BT 31/13508/113908
  7. The Standard, 30 March 1914
  8. Calendar of Prisoners, National Archives, HO 140/304