Tom Birkett Barker (1852-1924) of T. B. Barker and Co and of the Forward Gas Engine Co
1924 Obituary [1]
TOM BIRKETT BARKER, J.P., was born at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on 13th April 1852, and was educated at Alcester, Leamington, and Paris, after which he served an apprenticeship with Mr. G. E. Belliss (afterwards Messrs. Belliss and Morcom).
On its completion he secured an appointment in Portsmouth Dockyard, following which he spent some years in New York.
On his return to England he established the Forward Gas-Engine Works in Schofield Street, Birmingham, where, in conjunction with [[Mr. F. W. Lanchester, he produced a self-starting type of gas-engine and the first internal-combustion motor-car built in England.
He retired from business in 1898, and took up various hobbies and travelled extensively in Europe.
He was made a Justice of the Peace for Warwickshire in 1910, and was a Member of the Solihull District Council and Lapworth Parish Council.
Having suffered from ill-health for several years, added to which was the blow suffered by the loss of two sons in the War, he decided to winter in the South of France, where at Pau he died after a brief illness on 29th February 1924, in his seventy-second year.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1885.