Petters

1913.

1913.

1913.

1916. Ref AA below

1946.

Petters Limited of Nautilus Works, Yeovil (known as J. B. Petter and Sons of Yeovil until 1910), were makers of stationary petrol and diesel engines from 1896 onwards.

• 1892 James Bazeley Petter, an agricultural engineer and iron founder, had premises in the Borough, Yeovil. It was there that Ernest and Percival, his twin sons, designed and built a self propelled oil engine in 1892.

• 1895 Company founded.

• 1895 They designed the first internal combustion engined motor car to be made in the United Kingdom. The car, using a converted four-wheel horse-drawn phaeton and a 3 hp (2 kW) horizontal oil engine, had a top speed of 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). The vehicle was constructed at the Park Road carriage works of Hill and Boll. It weighed 9 cwt (457 kg) including the 120 lb (55 kg) of the Petter engine with its flywheel and side bars. A contemporary report said: The carriage is intended for two persons, with which a speed of ten miles an hour is obtained on level road. It will mount the hills of the neighbourhood with two persons, but larger power would be used for four persons … The exhaust is, we are informed, quite invisible, and the engine almost noiseless'. The removable handle (indicated in the plan drawing) was used to start the engine in the first place, and an arrangement is made so that the handle, when put in position, automatically opens the exhaust valve which closes instantly when, a good impulse being given, the handle is withdrawn and the engine starts … Tube ignition is adopted, and a small heating lamp is used … The engine starts in ten minutes and runs, we are told, without attention. The larger road wheels of the vehicle were 42 in (1.07 m.) in diameter.

• 1897 The twins continued to develop vehicles, the twelfth of which they entered to a competition at Crystal Palace in 1897, without success. Failing to achieve the commercial success that they hoped, they adapted the engines for agricultural and industrial use. Sometime used the name of Yeovil Motor Carriage Co.

• 1900 June. Royal Agricultural Show at York. Showed various small engines.

• 1902 They produced the first agricultural tractor, powered by a 30 horsepower (22 kW) horizontal oil engine.

• The first engines made by Petter were Petter Standard oil engines which were horizontal open crank engines made to very high standards.

• 1902 With commercial production under way, the family launched a private company called J. B. Petter & Co. Ltd.

• Around 1903 cheap American imports, including the "Jack of all Trades" manufactured by the Fairbanks Morse Company, threatened the English stationary engine industry, and unlike most companies at the time Petter decided to produce a cheaper engine of their own to combat the threat. This engine was called the Petter Handyman which was sold around 20% lower in price than the 'Petter Standard' and was sold in batches of 50 or more.

• 1911 Smithfield Club Show. Spring-mounted oil traction engine for hauling loads from 8 to 10 tons. Engine is 30 bhp.

• 1912 the company went public and began engine production in a new factory named the Nautilus Works (after the fire grates that had made James Petter's fortune) in Reckleford. Its workforce of 500 men produced 1500 engines a year.

• 1913-1917 For a list of the models and prices of Marine Motors see the 1917 Red Book

• 1913-1917 For a list of the models and prices of Petrol Motors see the 1917 Red Book

• In 1915 Petter founded Westland Aircraft Works (renamed "Westland Aircraft" in 1935)

• At the 1920 Darlington Royal Agricultural Show they exhibited two-stroke engines from 2.5 to 8 hp of a simple design. These were petrol-paraffin types. They also showed 13.5, 35 and 54 bhp oil engines.

• 1921 Formed Vickers-Petters Ltd in conjunction with Vickers Ltd, who had purchased a facility at Ipswich during WW1 and equipped it for engine manufacture. Manufactured oil engines up to 500h.p. Advertisement

• 1922 A freehold works at Yeovil advertised for sale by Petters

• 1922 Annual meeting told about poor financial position. The aircraft works had sufficient work in hand to justify retaining this business

• 1922 Supplier of electricity generators and lighting systems.

• 1925 Annual meeting told that engines business was profitable - a small profit from each of a large number of transactions; the aircraft business suffered from gaps between orders when there was no revenue; Vickers-Petters with its larger engines continued to make losses due to industrial depression.

• 1925 'M' type oil engine. (Exhibit at Birmingham Thinktank museum). By 1930s more than 50,000 'M' type engines had been sold.

• 1926 Vickers sold their interest in Vickers-Petters

• 1927 Vickers-Petters renamed Petters (Ipswich) Ltd.

• 1928 Petters (Ipswich) closed at end of year; manufacture of larger engines transferred to Yeovil.

• In the 1930s the company manufactured mechanical calculators. The company obtained a patent on calculator technology in 1923 and two more in 1930. Guy Bazeley Petter then took out equivalent US patents and assigned the rights to the company. The company subsequently sold its calculator designs to the Bell Punch company.

• 1939 Private company.

• After the second world war, Petters took over the old Lagonda works in Egham Hythe near Staines, Middlesex, employing over 1'000 people at its peak.

• 1961 Manufacturers of air and water-cooled industrial and marine diesel enfines in a range of 1.5 to 108 bhp and air-cooled industrial petrol or vaporising oil engines of 1.5 to 10 bhp. 1,500 employees.

• In 1986 Petters Limited merged with one-time rivals companies R. A. Lister and Co to form Lister Petter.

Sources of Information

• [1] Wikipedia
• The Engineer of 16th July 1920
• The Engineer of 22nd June 1900 p650
• The Engineer of 8th December 1911 p593
• 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
• AA. [2] Image courtesy of Aviation Ancestry