Roy Larkin

For most things you want to know about petrol tins and the general supply of petroleum during world war one a most interesting volume is " The Shell that Hit Germany the Hardest", by P.G.A.Smith, published 'Shell' Marketing, London c.1920. Usually can be found on ABE Books £20/£40. Well worth a read on this particular subject.

Richard Peskett.

Thanks Richard,

Looks an excellent little book. It's also on Amazon as a modern POD copy, but they aren't the same as the originals are they?

The only reference I have found so far as to the colour used on WD vehicles is in an ambulance company records which revealed that their ambulances had been repainted and that 'Standard Army Green' was used. Not much help really.

Looks like a great job and I hope after the video that Tony, Steve and Tim add some Weetabix to their Shredded Wheat for breakfast and add Red Bull instead of milk when working on the Thorny.

Looks like a 16hp 2-cylinder R or S Type, available as 15 or 25cwt and introduced in 1906 (or 1908 depending on which book you read).

Those vehicles, either original or restored, and built soley for the war effort prior to 11-11-18 are category one.

The date should probably be extended to July 1919, which is when the Great war actually ended. New vehicles were being built for the WD up to that date, either under existing contracts not being cancelled or new contracts. Both the Allies and the Germans were actively replenishing stocks in case the Armistice proved to be only a temporary cessation and not the final ending and the British had a large, though gradually diminishing occupation force in Germany after 11/11/1918 and it was mid-1919 before many vehicles started to come home.

You will notice in the last of this sequence of five photos that the ball race is rather beyond its "sell-by" date!

 

Ah, Great War ball-races! Such was the problem of getting new ones during the war, 3rd Heavy Repair Shop at St Omer were renovating on average 1,000 ball races per month. I suspect that the other main workshops were doing much the same.

Although St Omer didn't overhaul Thornycrofts (they simply shipped them on to 1st Heavy Repair Shop, Paris for overhaul) they did average some 10 complete overhauls per week, which means your Thorny should have been finished by last Thursday at the latest! Hopefully when I get to Paris, via Calais, Boulogne and Rouen, I'll have a better idea of how long it took them to overhaul a Thorny and get an accurate idea as to just how late yours is. I will of course take into account the 1,000 men employed at workshops and their facilities, compared to the 3 of you as I wouldn't want to appear to be unfair.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Thorny progress and every confidence it will be as good as the Dennis.

I believe this Daimler to be a ' Box Car', its from my collection of Daimler glass plate negatives and would date from late 1914 / early 1915. I assume the use would be for carrying officers and other hierarchy baggage etc.

Richard Peskett.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]47405[/ATTACH]

Richard, certainly looks like a box car. I suspect their justification was for carrying personnel luggage, but they were also used, it seems, as a sort of emergency express carrier. The Heavy Repair Shop at St Omer used them at least once as a speedy means of getting spares from Rouen ahead of the normal rail system. Only small quantities could be carried, but it kept the works going until the normal delivery arrived.

I seem to recall some debate in a previous thread about what Box Cars were. They were standard saloon cars of the larger variety such as Daimler with the car body removed and a box body replacing it. In addition they had extra leaves put into the springs. There doesn't appear to have been any further modifications.

OK, so what kept you?

Whilst I fully appreciate the efforts put into your Dennis, and the others done previously, I can't help wonder if there has been some dallying with its progress.

Admittedly the ASC Repair Shop at St Omer employed 943 personnel in May 1916, but they did manage to completely overhaul 27 lorries, 81 cars and 136 motorcycles and also fitted in garage repairs on 1 lorry and 14 cars during the month whilst ducking out of the way of bombs dropped by enemy aircraft. Did you have that problem in Devon?

Given that a complete overhaul was a complete strip down and full nut and bolt rebuild including cabs and bodies, (if they didn't meet the maker's original specification in all respects, they weren't passed as fit by the testers) and involved parts manufacture due to shortages from manufacturers, I think you should step up the pace on the next one a bit.

Absolutely magnificent - congratulations to all of you. Looking forward very much to seeing you all and Dennis at Brighton. Of course Dennis will behave en-route - it would be churlish of it not to after all the effort spent on it.

To quote from orders issued at the end of July 1914 for the impressment of vehicles to be delivered to the Temporary Motor Transport Depot, Kensington by midnight on day of mobilisation:

'When impressing vans, care must be taken not to seize any vehicles already subsidised by the War Department (note - Subsidy type vehicles all have towing hooks fitted)'

I think the tractor in the show photograph is the War Office Foster-Daimler tractor. The front axle, light position and the large fuel tank are all identical to a photo I have. Also the size seems the same, using the people as guides. It also has a number on the chimney box which is either 64 or 84 and this is in an identical position and font to my photo which is 62. Mine is an 'Official photograph taken on the Front - a scene on the road'. If the numbering is 62, or even if it is 84 it would seem to date my image to 1915.

It's only a theory but I'm not sure that they were being shown to sell to the civilian market. I think that by the end of 1914 it was already being recognised that we were in for the long haul and by summer of 1915 there was virtual stalemate. Conscription hadn't yet been introduced and the initial wave of patriotism had begun to diminish and finding volunteers was becoming harder, so I'm wondering if the stand was as much about recruitment as vehicle sales, particularly as the Dennis shown has war-time markings and bodywork. R.A.S.E. Shows would have been a good opportunity to get the message to the farming community. Summer would have been a busy time for farm labourers and I suspect many would have opted for work on the farm rather than the Front and waited until after the harvest when farm work declined before choosing what would have been a reliable job to see them through the winter.

I'm not sure, but wasn't the Foster-Daimler shown conceived as a military vehicle? I seem to recollect that the MTC had a big part in its design. Whilst Daimler histories claim the Foster-Daimler as their own, as do Foster claim it as their own, I seem to recall from an MTC Annual Report that it was the War Office who chose Foster to design the tractor with the instruction that the Daimler engine was to be used, effectively forcing the 2 companies to cooperate.

It is often forgotten that the vast majority of the British public didn't 'go to war' and it must have been apparent that the war would end at some point and even though entrenched, 1918 was still a long way off. I'd guess that even though their time was fully occupied with war production that the more astute companies would also have had at least half an eye on the future and their prospects when the war production ended.

Yes, transport was desperately needed, but a few lorries used for shows would have paid dividends for both the War Office and the manufacturers in showing the public what fine products were being sent to France for 'our boys' to use.

All supposition, but I suspect there's more of a message here than just selling lorries.

Don't loose the plot over detail !., in my experience of restoration, at my workshops we have restored a considerable number of solid tyred vehicles incluiding WW1 military . Reasearching brings up all the best contraditions imaginable and the contents of my library and photographic collection will prove this beyond doubt. No one person did all the sign writing , mixed paint ,drilled holes in brackets etc. etc., so variations occur. Immediate priorities were cost and to get the job finished, not cosmetic. The London General 'bus company were a fine example of this , hardly any London bus is identical in finite detail and constant changes and imporovements were being made. The conclusion is when a restoration is a 'new build' whatever you do providing it is well researched it passes !.

Richard Peskett.

Absolutely right, Richard. A vital role of ASC workshops between 1914 and 18 was identifying weak spots in design and working with manufacturers to improve them or simply carrying out their own modifications, which if successful were then incorporated during overhauls. A Dennis impressed in 1914 could easily have been 7 or 8 different Dennises by 1918, even if it did retain it's original number.

Getting the right info is so hard. The definitive answer invariably turns up just after the job has been done!

 

Steve

The more I find out, the more I realise that the definitive answer is at the end of the rainbow. If only I had a couple of quid for each definitive answer that then got contradicted, I could buy myself a Holt and even afford to take it to Brighton.

 

 

Looking OK!

 

 

 

Great British understatement - looking brilliant is more appropriate.

I am in awe at the standard of conservation and reconstruction of vehicles such as this. In a related way, I have been searching for a piece of film about a project I have on at the moment and found this footage on the Pathe film archive. Therefore this film isn't for the feint hearted.

 

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=3327

Feltham was an RASC MT base post WW1. Not got any other info as its a bit late for my work but wonder if they were war-surplus staff cars deemed not worth trying to sell, or had been experimental cars (Feltham appear to have had some experimental lorries at times). At least we know where there are a few projects for the future. Just need to find the lake.

That's on hell of a size press Barry's got. If a press that size was necessary, how did the mobile presses work during the war and Dunlop operate a mobile press for changing tyres at the roadside during the 1920s? I'm told that Dunlop used to go out to the 100-tonner to change the tyres but the crew had to remove them as the wheels weighed 8cwt each. Apparently it was a case of take the weight off the wheel, plenty of grease on the road and then slide the wheels off the axle.

Though in those days the hoses were canvas, now they're synthetic!

 

If the tyres are fitted with canvas 'shim', does the canvas not rot after a few years allowing the wheels to come loose again?

The tyres on the Scammell 100-tonner didn't last anywhere near long enough for the canvas to rot. New rears every 2 months was about the average.

When we fitted these tyre originally, we were concerned about the fit and put a couple of layers of canvas underneath them. Unfortunately, they are still not tight enough.It has been suggested that we tack weld them around the edges but I think that they will 'work' on the rim and the welds will crack eventually so we have opted to fit them over shims. Guessing the thickness needed was pretty hard so I hope that we won't burst them now!

 

Sorry, no solids in stock! They are pretty hard to find these days.

 

Steve

Back in the 1930s when M.R.S./Edward Box had trouble with solid tyres slipping on their Scammell 100-Tonner and 45-Tonners, they purchased worn out hoses from the Liverpool Fire Brigade and put short strips around the rim as the new tyres were pressed on. Seemed to work for them. Maybe if you invite the fire brigade round with their cherry picker or ladders to help lift the seat into place, one of you could 'find' a spare hose on their fire engine, or is it an appliance these days? Incidentally, I trust you haven't forgotten that if working more than 12 inches above the ground it is now a health and safety reguirement to erect scaffolding? probably teaching grandmothers to suck eggs but don't forget that new solids need to be run-in or they are likely to burst.

 

Any good suggestions please?

 

Tim

I am very confident that after you have written the 7 page risk assessment, donned the yellow jacket, hard had and steel boots then put up the obligatory signs and created a 3 mile exclusion zone to keep Mr and Mrs Publc safe that all will become clear and you'll realise there was no need to worry about it at all.

There does not seem to be any cross-reference information available between vehicle identification numbers and their allocation, (Unless you know better, Roy?)

 

Steve :confused::confused:

I've not yet come across anything that identifies vehicles allocated. I have seen a register of vehicles, almost all Daimlers of various sizes which gives WD Number, date acquired and where acquired from. It's not possible to identify the individual vehicles before their WD Number. It is however a WD book, which suggests there should be more of them somewhere. I can't imagine the military not having detailed records of the vehicles they acquired and where they were allocated to and in theory if there is a register it should be a massive document but so far no sign of it and I believe several people have looked.

My thoughts as well. I could imagine some bureaucrat in Wellington unwittingly looking at a photo of your endeavors, seeing the kiwi insignia and starting procedures to classify it as a significant piece of New Zealand national heritage.

The other other side of the coin for you, could be a sponsored trip to the battle fields for NZ centenary events. Now if we had our projects completed on time I wonder if they ( NZ Govt) would cover the costs of a couple of Kiwi trucks to participate in European centenary events!

Doug;)

Did the New Zealand army have their own Service Corps operational? My guess is that for Europe it would have been British ASC Coys attached to the New Zealand armies. Being attached to the New Zealanders would have been a reason to choose the New Zealand emblem.

 

 

How more original can you be?

Absolutely brilliant!

Here is a nice line up of Locomobiles. It looks like the photographer thought that they did not have enough snow so added a bit more.

 

The 'somewhere in England' looks to be Grove Park. I've not got any details on 588 Coy ASC, so suspect it was formed at Grove Park as a LAMT Coy for the Home Front. Only comanies serving abroad were required to keep a diary, which may explain there being no diary for it, or it might just be the diary has been lost in the mists of time.