• Current opened records

  • Daimler Co Ltd

Aircraft manufacturers
Location:

  • Coventry, West Midlands

History:
  • Daimler Motor Co Ltd was founded in Coventry in 1896, by investor Harry Lawson, as a motor vehicle manufacturer. Frederick Simms, who had facilitated acquisition of the right to use the Daimler name from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft of Germany, became consulting engineer. A works was opened in Coventry and the first cars were completed in 1897. In 1904 the company changed name to Daimler Motor Co (1904) Ltd, it then merged with Birmingham Small Arms Co in 1910 and was renamed Daimler Co Ltd. By 1913 Daimler Co Ltd was making about 1,000 cars per year. During the First World War the company made cars, lorries, buses and ambulances for the war effort and also aero-engines and complete aircraft, tank and tractor engines and munitions. The company had a body shop and woodworking experience ideal for producing aircraft and constructed the Royal Aircraft Factory BE2C, BE12 and RE8 and The Air Manufacturing Co Ltd DH10. The company acquired a site beside their factory for the government to test Royal Air Force aircraft built in the Coventry district. The chief test pilot was George Bulman. After the war, in 1919, the company set up a new subsidiary, Daimler Hire Ltd, to operate a private limousine hire service. In early 1920 The Air Manufacturing Co Ltd was acquired by Birmingham Small Arms Co and its subsidiary Aircraft Transport & Travel Ltd was placed under Daimler Hire before being put into liquidation later the same year. Its assets were subsequently acquired from the liquidator by Daimler Hire to set up Daimler Airway which began operating in 1922 and provided scheduled flights from London to Paris and Berlin and European charter flights. Daimler Airway flight operations were taken over by the new national carrier, Imperial Airways, upon its formation in 1924. The acquisition of The Air Manufacturing Co Ltd proved to be a financial disaster for the company and by 1930 Daimler Co Ltd's primary activity was the manufacture of vehicles. During the Second World War Daimler produced military vehicles, tank parts and aircraft components, rather than whole aircraft. After the war Daimler returned to luxury car and bus production but struggled in a competitive market. In 1960 it was bought from Birmingham Small Arms Co by Jaguar Cars then taken over by British Motor Corporation in 1966; British Leyland in 1968; Jaguar Cars again in 1984; Ford Motor Co in 1989 and Tata Group in 2007. Daimler Co Ltd is still extant but non-trading.
Publications:
  • D Burgess-Wise, A Daimler century: the full history of Britain's oldest car make (1995).
Records 1:
Records 2:

  • Institution of Mechanical Engineers

    Letters from Laurence Pomeroy, managing director of Daimler Co Ltd, re circulating oil and fluid flywheel experiments in relation to gears 1931 [HUT/1/1].

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