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Aviation History
1953
1953 - 0075.PDF
FLIGHT, 16 January 1953 73 FIFTY-YEAR STORY Older than the Industry: H. M. Hobson, Ltd., Celebrate their Jubilee WHETHER or not fifty years is a long time depends upon the span of history against which we set it. If we take it not as a proportion, but as a slice of history in its own right, then its significance probably depends upon the period in which it has its place, according to whether that period is one of stagnation or progress. What is quite certain is that fifty years is both a very long and a very significant time when considered in relation to a manufacturing company whose interests have from the outset been mainly in the sphere of motoring and flying—for half a century ago the motor-car was in its infancy, and the first aeroplane was as yet unfledged, though the time was very near. Thus a firm whose name is well known to readers of this journal —H. M. Hobson, Ltd.—deserve congratulation on having attained the magic figure; today, almost to a day, they celebrate their jubilee, and in these circumstances a brief review of their growth will not be out of place. Though mention of the name "Hobson" automatically evokes association with the word "carburetters," in the first few years of the company's existence these components concerned them only incidentally : they started as agents for cycles, then for motor cycles and cars, with a little off ce in Basinghail Street, in the City of London, and a works in Wimbledon. The business was founded by Hamilton McArthur Hobson, and his partners were E. A. H. de Poorter and George Cheesman. It is also worthy of remark that they employed a junior clerk : his name was S. W. Hughes, and it will appear again in this story. Through Mr. de Poorter's Continental connections the firm became concessionaires for varieties of Belgian and French cars, and soon they began to make headway. Before long they were joined by Major (then Mr.) T. P. Searight, who was destined Mr. Stanley W. Hughes, the company's present chairman and managing director. to become the company's chairman some thirty years later. In 1906 they moved to premises in King's Road, Chelsea, and later to Vauxhall Bridge Road, where they serviced the cars for which they were agents—particularly the Decauville and the Nagant-Hobson. They also went into the motor-accessory business, notably with the French Pognon sparking-plug, a highly successful line. It was during a visit to Paris in connection with these plugs that Messrs. Hobson and de Poorter met a talented motor engineer, M. Claudel, who had designed a carburetter of obvious merit. By 1908 Hobsons held the concession, and before long they made arrangements for the Claudel-Hobson carburetter to be manu factured under licence by a firm in this country. Incidentally, it is curious to note that economy was the principal sales-point, though in those days petrol cost but a shilling a gallon. Two years later—in April, 1910—the firm entered aeronautics by obtaining an agency for M. Roger Sommer's new biplane, which they advertised on the front cover of Flight at the time. At about this period, too, a Claudel-Hobson carburetter first took to the air : Maj. Searight now shared with Col. Ogilvie the owner ship of a Wright biplane and, oddly enough, its engine had a form of direct fuel-injection; but speed-control was uncertain, so a car carburetter—with the body cast in aluminium—successfully substituted. So far the H. M. Hobson business had been principally a sales and servicing organization, but by 1911 the demand for Claudel- Hobson products had become so great that it was decided to begin actual manufacture, a company known as Accuracy Works, Ltd., being formed for the purpose, with a modest factory (pur chased for £825 !) in Wolverhampton. War Production, 1914-18 Soon after the outbreak of the First World War the Accuracy Works found itself busy on hitherto undreamed-of quantities of aircraft carburetters. Claudel's C.7 instrument, used on Hispano engines in France, was developed as the HC.7 for Sunbeam- Coatalen and Liberty engines; and from this came the further- improved HC.8, eventually contracted-out to eight different firms. Towards the end of 1916 the firm received large orders for car buretters (type RRCH) developed in conjunction with Rolls- Royce, Ltd., for use in Eagle, Falcon and Hawk engines. It was on two particular Rolls-Royce Eagles that, in 1919, Claudel-Hobson carburetters first figured in what was to be, for the company's products, a long succession of historic flights : these two Eagles powered the Vickers Vimy in which Alcock and Brown made the first direct Atlantic air crossing. A few weeks later the airship R.34, commanded by Maj. G. H. Scott, made a two-way Atlantic crossing; and its Sunbeam-Coatalen engines had C.H. carburetters. After a post-war recession the business began to expand once more, and in 1927 it was found necessary to move the London •headquarters into larger premises, this time at Acton Vale. With almost monotonous regularity, in reports of records on land, on water, and in the air, the words "Claudel-Hobson carburetter" appeared in the fists of equipment used by successful aspirants. So far as the aircraft side was concerned, much the most important development during the mid-1930s was the fully automatic „ altitude-control carburetter, first air-tested on an Armstrong- Siddeley Cheetah, and subsequently developed into the famous "master control" system used on many well-known makes of engine. This development was largely the .work of the late Capt. E. Dodson, a gifted engineer who was the company's technical director. In 1936, ten months after the company had been converted into a public one, with the new title of H. M. Hobson (Aircraft and Motor) Components, Ltd., it lost its founder by the death of Hamilton Hobson. But there were capable men to carry on the tradition : Maj. Searight succeeded to the chairmanship, and under Before, and for some years after, the First World War the firm occupied premises at Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. The lower view shows the finely designed office-block which now fronts the newly completed exten sions at Stafford Road, Wolverhampton.
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