MOTOR COMPONENTS AND SPARES
(Author unknown, but it may have been the editor of a long defunked
Glasgow motoring magazine called 'Motoring World'. )
It was at the 1906 Edinburgh
Motor Show that I first met James Albert Thomson, another pioneer
who had determined to risk fortune in the motor industry. Mr Thomson's
father had founded a business in Edinburgh in 1879 as a manufacturer
and wholesaler of goods in the horse and carriage business. Mr. Thomson
joined his father's business in 1897 and early in the 1900's was impressed
by a series of articles by Sir Henry Norman, M.P., which appeared
in The World's Work, and which envisaged the replacing of horses and
carriages by self-propelled vehicles.
The business of James
Thomson & Son then started a motor department and, in the course
of a year or two, secured the sole agency for Scotland for Bleriot
lamps; Parsons chains; Harvey Frost vulcanisers; E.I.C. and Pognon
sparking. plugs; Smith's speedometers; and other accessories. From
that time the business went rapidly ahead and in 1919 amalgamated
with the world's largest motor & cycle wholesalers, Brown Brothers
Ltd. Mr. Thomson is now chairman and managing director of Brown Brothers,
and is also a director of Joseph Lucas.
In the intervening years
he has held all the chief offices in the motor industry, viz. President
respectively of The S.M.T.A., The M.F.A., The S.M.M. & T., and
The Motor & Cycle Trades Benevolent Fund.
It was in
1904 that J. A. Thomson met Peter Bennett, then manager of the Electric
Ignition Company of Birmingham and together they formed Thomson-Bennett
Ltd., manufacturers of electrical equipment for motor vehicles, including
magnetos. I italicize the last word for in this connection
it holds historical significance. When the first World War broke out
the only manufacturers of magnetos in Great Britain were Thomson-Bennett
and but for the existence of this solitary source of supply much of
our mechanized transport might have been immobilized. Truly a romance
of industry! To admit of rapid expansion of production in 1914 an amalgamation
was effected with Joseph Lucas Ltd., of which, today (Sir) Peter Bennett,
M.P., is chairman and managing director.