Marshall, Sons & Co.

Marshall, Sons & Co

Former type	Private
Industry	Agricultural engineering
Fate	Taken over
Successor	Marshall Fowler Ltd British Leyland
Founded	1848
Defunct	1947
Headquarters	Gainsborough, Lincolnshire
Products	Steam engines, Portable engines, Threshing machines, Tractors

Marshall, Sons & Co. was a British agricultural machinery manufacturer founded in 1848. The company was based in the Britannia Iron Works, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.

History

Marshall's produced large numbers of steam traction engines, steam rollers, portable engines and agricultural machinery of all types.

Former Britannia Iron Works buildings on Beaumont Street, Gainsborough, 2008

Preserved Marshall 6nhp single-cylinder portable engine, no. 87866, built 1936. This design has a 'colonial' boiler and the patented "Britannia" firebox.

A Marshall Threshing machine being demonstrated at the Holcot Steam Rally 2008 in Northamptonshire, with a Massey-Harris baler attached (rhs)

Marshalls, Sons & Co. portable engine (right) 2nd half of the 19th century at the Riga open air museum (Latvia)

Later production included diesel tractors such as the Field Marshall, Track Marshall and former Leyland wheeled tractors. In 1900 they started designing internal combustion-engined tractors to be called the Colonials, with a power of 16 to 32 hp (not comparable to modern hp) for the export market to replace steam engines, selling 300+ by 1914.^[1]

In 1917 the company started to build aircraft at a new works built for the purpose on Lea Road in Gainsborough.^[2] The works became known as the Carr House works and the company built 150 Bristol F2B two-seat biplane fighters.^[2] When the aircraft were completed they were dismantled and towed to West Common in Lincoln to be flown, although some were flown from Layne's Field in Gainsborough.^[2]

In 1928 they started to develop a tractor similar to the Lanz Bulldog from Germany. They launched the 15/30 (Model E) in 1930, followed by the 12/20 which became the Model M in 1938; this then developed into the Field-Marshall in 1944.

Marshall, Sons & Co. Ltd. merged with John Fowler & Co., (Leeds) Ltd in 1947 to form Marshall-Fowler Ltd, which eventually became part of the Bentall Simplex industrial group. The Marshall name was revived in the 1980s, initially with the 'Track Marshall' name building large tracked tractors and bulldozers. In 1982 the company bought the production rights to the Leyland tractors range, moving production to Gainsborough and selling them under the Marshall name. Initially successful, the venture failed to generate enough capital to fund the successful development of new models and the company began to lose its market share. A few new, technologically advanced, models were launched but failed to find favour and Marshall was eventually forced to stop production in 1992. The name was then used as a badge engineering exercise on imported Steyr tractors from Austria, before the marque finally vanished in the mid 1990s.

There is now a supermarket ("Marshall's Yard") standing on (part of) the former Britannia Iron Works site.

Marshall, Sons and Co. built the boiler for the Fairbairn steam crane which stands on the dockside in Bristol. The maker's plate reads "Marshall Sons & Co. Ltd., Engineers, Gainsboro, England, No.92766".

Preserved examples

What is thought to be one of the oldest surviving Marshall product, works no. 415, a 2.5nhp portable engine from 1866, may be seen at the Turon Technology Museum (Museum of Power), in New South Wales, Australia. This engine is also the oldest documented portable engine in Australia.^[3]

The Weald and Downland Museum in Singleton, West Sussex, England has a Marshall Threshing Drum which dates from 1862.

The oldest existing Marshall Traction Engine supplied to the British Market is number 14242, Victoria Empress of India, built in September 1886 and supplied new to Walter Seward of Petersfield, Hampshire, England.

See also

Competitors in the agricultural machinery market:

• Ruston & Hornsby
• Ruston, Proctor and Company
• Clayton & Shuttleworth
• William Foster & Co.
• John Fowler & Co. – taken over by Marshall
• Aveling-Barford – Steam roller & road roller builders, later part-merged with Marshalls under British Leyland control.
• Leyland tractors – Later became Marshall Tractors in the old Marshall, Sons & Co. factory

References

1. ^ Three Decades of Marshall Tractors, by Peter Anderson, ISBN 0-85236-380-X
2. ^ ^{a b c} Walls, John (1977). Clayton & Shuttleworth and Marshall Aircraft Production. Lincoln: Control Column. pp. 16–17. 
3. ^ "Gallery 1 – Steam engines". Turon Technology Museum (Museum of Power). http://www.hermes.net.au/turon/gallery1.htm. Retrieved 2008-01-04. 

External links

Media related to Marshall, Sons & Co. at Wikimedia Commons

• Marshall Britannia portable steam engine, 1914 – at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia