Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

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Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 167,647 pages of information and 247,064 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.

C. A. Vandervell and Co

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Tin for Radio Crystal and Cat's Whisker.
Advertising sign.
November 1908.
1909.
June 1909.
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July 1912. 'F' Model headlight.
July 1912. 'E' Model headlight.
November 1913
1914.
September 1914.
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September 1916.
1917.
November 1919.
January 1920.
January 1920.
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May 1922.
1922. Tool and Jig Department.
1922. Tool and Jig Department.
1922. Inspecting V-Blocks.
1922. Milling Machines in Production Department.
November 1926.
1927.
January 1944.
November 1920.
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of Warple Way, Acton Vale, London were electrical engineers.

Later known as C. A. V. - Bosch and C. A. V.

Also sold CAV-Ruthardt magnetos for motorcycles and cars.

Company formed by Charles Anthony Vandervell

1892 Vandervell set up a business at Willesden Green making accumulators.

1899 Offering small gas engines rated up to 1.5 bhp

1902 August. Acquire new premises at Chapter Works, Chapter Road, Willesden Green.[1]

1910 Albert Henry Midgley formed a syndicate with Charles Vandervell, and William Proctor, a buyer for the Daimler Car Company and a friend of Vandervell's, to manufacture Midgley's electrical transmission gear and dynamo and develop Vandervell's idea of an accumulator powering an electric lighting set for cars.

Midgley made arrangements with H. P. Brookes and Co to manufacture his design of dynamo for Vandervell's. Orders came in at a great rate as the system was in great demand from the motor industry and the manufacturers of lighting systems for trains. Production was moved to new works in Acton.

1914 The Acton factory employed 2000 people.

1916 A limited company was formed with a share capital of £350,000 to take over a business carried on by Vandervell at Acton.[2] The products of the company included batteries, magnetos, dynamos, starters, lamps, horns and other motor goods. Mr. Vandervell was one of the pioneers in the manufacture of batteries and dynamos for motor vehicles, having started manufacture of these items well before the time when Lucas first began the manufacture of electrical goods, and he had made particular progress in the development of electrical equipment for the heavier commercial types of vehicles.

1917 Established a factory in Hove, initially on a temporary basis, to produce war materiel including munitions.

Post WWI the Hove business traded as C. A. V. Small Tools

1920 Issued a catalogue of magnetos. [3]

1920 Dynamo for car lighting. [4]

1920 October. Exhibited at the Commercial Motor Exhibition at Olympia with electrical lighting equipment for commercial vehicles. [5]

By 1922, the supply of electrical equipment for commercial vehicles was largely in the hands of C. A. Vandervell Ltd.

1922 Producing hand tools including dividers, calipers, engineers' squares, V-blocks. These were produced in the Brighton factory, established in WW1 to produce magnetos [6]

1926 Joseph Lucas Ltd acquired C. A. Vandervell and Co and Rotax Motor Accessories Co.

Robert Bosch A.G. of Stuttgart acquired a 49 per cent interest in the company

1929 The AGM of Joseph Lucas Ltd was told that a collaboration of Lucas, C.A.V. and Rotax had been formed, for which the marketing name Luvax "had been coined". Products offered under the Luvax name were hydraulic shock absorbers and the Luvax Bijar centralised system of chassis lubrication[7]

1931 Following a manufacturing and market sharing agreement between Lucas and Bosch, the name of C. A. Vandervell and Co was changed to C. A. V. - Bosch. By the agreement made in 1931 between Lucas and Bosch the ownership of Bosch Ltd. was transferred to C.A.V.-Bosch Ltd.

See C. A. V. - Bosch

See Also

Sources of Information

  1. ↑ The Autocar 1902/08/30
  2. ↑ Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser - Friday 21 January 1916
  3. ↑ The Engineer of 6th Feb 1920 p130
  4. ↑ The Engineer of 9th April 1920 p366
  5. ↑ The Engineer of 29th October 1920 p426
  6. ↑ 'The Engineer' 17th March 1922
  7. ↑ The Times Oct. 31, 1929
  • [1] Competition Commission Web Site
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