Early years

Atkinson & Co. was founded in the Frenchwood district of Preston, the cotton town and administrative capital of Lancashire, by two of five brothers, Edward Atkinson (1880–1932) and Henry Birch Atkinson (1882–1921) with assistance from their brother-in-law George Hunt (1870–1950). The real and effective beginning of the company was in 1907, when the partners decided to capitalise on the need for local engineers to make temporary or permanent repairs to the increasing number of 'pullcars' and private motor vehicles on the road. By 1912, the organisation had moved to premises in Kendal Street and the number of employees had grown to twenty. In the same year a second, smaller repair centre was opened in Freemason's Row, Liverpool, to cater for the enormous volume of steam traffic using the docks. Very soon the company made something of a name for itself in the north of England as quality repairers, and the growing number of operators brought new business from far and wide.

Progress

With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, demand for internal road transport grew considerably, the nation finding itself desperately throttled by the inadequacy of the railways to offer a complete transport network. Some method of local delivery and collection was needed to supplement the services of the railway companies, and with most of the existing steam wagon manufacturers turning their resources over to munitions production, demand increased further. The Atkinsons, shrewd observers at any time, decided to experiment by making a wagon of their own design, and in 1916, the first Atkinson six-ton four-wheel steam wagon was produced in Kendal Street and became an instant success. The market enjoyed a short boom period following the Armistice and the Atkinsons, realising the potential, purchased a five-acre site of land near their homes in Frenchwood, on which they intended to erect a new and enlarged factory, solely designed for the production of steam wagons. Together with the field they also bought the 17th century Frenchwood House, with the intention of using it partly as their offices and partly as their personal quarters. By 1918 the Atkinsons had built up a competent team of engineers and salesmen as well as an enthusiastic and loyal labour force, and were producing wagons competitive in both price and performance. Henry Atkinson died suddenly in 1921 and consequently the company fell into the hands of his brother Edward. At this time, new ideas and designs were constantly being tried out while production rose to a peak of some three wagons per week, and the total labour force rose to well over a hundred and fifty.

Decline of steam

Edward Atkinson had a glorified view of steam and did not acknowledge the warnings when sales began to slow down in the mid-1920s. Leyland Motors sold their steam remnants to Atkinson in 1926, followed by Mann in 1929. There seems to have been various family rivalries at the time and the firm was undoubtedly in difficulties when Edward Atkinson decided to seek help from mine engineers and Pagefield lorry makers, Walker Brothers of Wigan. Under a new arrangement, Walkers manufactured Uniflow engines for Atkinsons, but by this time very few orders were forthcoming. Edward Atkinson had cancer and was unable to pay any dividends on the preference shares and finally abandoned wagon production in 1929 after a grand total of about 545 Atkinsons had been built. The final years were made possible by a cancellation fee from Manchester Co-op Society, which had ordered a hundred wagons. The Frenchwood and Freemason's Row factories closed with the end of the steamers, though the Kendal Street factory remained for repairing and servicing existing wagons. Edward Atkinson died in 1932 and a year later the firm he co-founded was acquired by London garage owner W. G. Allen, whose father had started Nightingale Garage. Allen was chairman of Atkinson Lorries (1933) Ltd and H. B. Fielding was managing director. Allen had effectively run the firm since 1931, and remained in charge until his death in 1949.

Atkinson lorries

The formula established in the 1933 reorganisation served the company well and became the basis of most production at Walton-le-Dale (the new factory opened in 1948) thereafter. The production philosophy was similar to that of Seddon, ERF, Rutland (Motor Traction) and other competitors aiming for value-for-money lorry sales, viz: the assembly of tried and tested proprietary components. A bought-in chassis frame to Atkinson design was generally powered by a Gardner engine, driving through a David Brown Ltd. gearbox to Kirkstall Forge Engineering rear axles. During World War II, Gardner engines were reserved for military applications, excepting the Guy Arab bus; Atkinson lorries sanctioned by the Ministry of Production for sale to civilian hauliers for the duration were fitted with the AEC '7.7 litre' unit (which actually displaced 7.58 litres). Nationalisation of the road haulage industry in 1948 affected Atkinson as many of their customers were private sector general hauliers who were nationalised, but British Road Services bought rigid-eight Atkinson Lorries alongside similar products made by state-owned Bristol Commercial Vehicles.

During the 1950s hauliers began to ask for more powerful engines – at the time, Gardner only offered engines for road-vehicle applications with a maximum output of 120 bhp. In response, in the early 1950s Atkinson trial-fitted a Daimler 650 cubic inch engine rated at 150 bhp in a rigid-eight (8-wheel, non-articulated) chassis.^[4] Later, Rolls-Royce and Cummins engines were offered alongside Gardner units; Gardner responded with a 150 bhp unit in 1957, and 180 and 240 bhp units in 1966 and 1970, respectively.

In 1958, following a change in Construction & Use Regulations, Atkinson offered a glass-fibre clad cab (which became known as the Mk I cab) as a replacement for the previous coachbuilt hardwood and metal cab on standard production models; it featured twin fixed wrap-around windscreens rather than the traditional flat opening glasses but retained the traditional exposed Withnell-tube type radiator. The initial offering was a single headlight model, followed in 1963 by the 'Deluxe' twin headlight model which quickly became an Atkinson characteristic. As orders for the twin headlight model increased, the single headlight version was dropped as an option. From the 1950s many Atkinsons had carried the 'Knight of the Road' trademark device on the upper offside corner of the radiator grille, and in the 1960s models were sold under the trade names Silver Knight (tractor unit), Gold Knight (rigid tipper or tanker) and Black Knight (rigid freight chassis), as well as the 'Weightmaster' range of lightweight chassis.

A small number of left-hand-drive Atkinsons were built for export to mainland Europe in the late 1960s, with pressed-steel cabs bought from Krupp after that company had ceased commercial vehicle production. Most were sold eventually in the U.K., via Comberhill Commercials of Wakefield. A different design of glass-fibre cab, launched in prototype form at the 1966 Commercial Motor Show, and named View-Line, had a deep single-piece main windscreen with wrap-around quarter glasses. The prototype had three separate chrome radiator grilles, but lacked the character of the exposed radiator models. Thereafter, although the Krupp Cabs, introduced in 1969, and View-Line cabs had concealed radiators, they carried a fibreglass replica of the Atkinson radiator outline with the 'Big A' device centred upon it. Both were available until 1970 but ceased prior to both the launch of the new model range in October 1970, and the merger with Seddon.^[5]

Notable Atkinsons of the era were a fleet of 6x6 gritters built in 1962–73 on the orders of various U.K. highway authorities for use on the motorway network. These had Cummins NH engines installed, rather than the more popular Gardner power units, due ostensibly to the use of steel in their construction, which didn't suffer salt corrosion to the same degree as the alloy-constructed Gardners. Early examples had AEC engines.

A 1972 Atkinson Leader - modified to appear similar to a 6x4 Venturer

From 1968 the standard Mk I glass-fibre clad cab was revised, with stronger ash framing, larger dimensions and wider, deeper windscreens. The traditional Withnell-tubed, exposed radiator was replaced with the more imposing concealed version, which was fitted behind a glass-fibre shrouded metal grille - again carrying the Knight's Head, circular A logo and additional adornments in the form of engine manufacturer plates.

A 1975 Atkinson Borderer

This cab featured on the final Atkinson haulage models, announced at the Commercial Motor Show at Earls Court in October 1970, the naming of which originated from an idea by Frank Whalley, the company publicity officer at the time. The most famous of the range were two-axle tractor units carrying the name 'Borderer'. Three-axle rear-steer tractor units carried the name 'Leader', and were designed to meet eagerly anticipated increases in permitted gross weights (although no increases were actually forthcoming until May 1983). Three-axle haulage chassis carried the name 'Searcher'. Four-axle chassis carried the name 'Defender'. Three-axle heavy haulage tractor units carried the name 'Venturer'. The two-axle haulage chassis were never given an official name, but were originally planned to carry the name 'Raider'; however factory grille plates were never produced for this model, and company literature never referred to the proposed name.

It was at this time that the famous 'Knight of the Road' badging was dropped. When the exhibits were being prepared for the Commercial Motor Show at Earls Court in October 1970, they were fitted with four separate badges on the radiator grille: the 'Big A', the Knight's head, the new model name and the engine manufacturer's badge. The late Frank Whalley recounted that, when Managing Director Peter M Yates saw them, he said that they looked "like fairground lorries" and directed Frank to terminate the use of the Knight badge forthwith. This was also consistent with ending the use of the 'Knight' names for the model range.

There is one vehicle which assumed a name of its very own after it was modified by one of its owners - John Killingbeck. The vehicle in question is MVD432L, which was originally a T3446C 'Borderer' and survives in preservation. After acquisition by Killingbeck, it was stretched into a 6x2 'Chinese Six' tractor and fitted with an uprated Gardner 6LXB engine to enable it to meet the legal requirement for 6 bhp/ton after 1973, whereupon the well-known Atkinson enthusiast and archivist, Michael Deuchars, named it 'Buccaneer'. A replica grille plate was made in a similar fashion to those on factory vehicles and was saved by an enthusiast prior to the closure of the company.

Bus production

In 1948 Bristol Commercial Vehicles had been nationalised as part of the Tilling Group. Thanks to a Conservative-sponsored amendment to the Transport Act 1947 (designed to make sure British Railways' locomotive and rolling stock works did not compete with the private-sector) Bristol found itself legally unable to accept orders for its bus chassis outside fleets wholly owned by the British Transport Commission, a situation which lasted until 1965.

One of the most loyal Bristol customers up to 1948 had been the North Western Road Car Company of Stockport, who had until 1941 been jointly owned by Tilling and British Electric Traction (BET), after 1941 it was transferred to BET control. After the North Western's last Bristols were delivered in 1950, the company took Leyland Titans and Royal Tigers for a year or so, but the heavy weight, high fuel consumption, poor braking performance and high purchase cost of the Royal Tiger led North Western's management to seek an equivalent to the nationalised sector's Bristol LS bus, with lightweight construction and a Gardner engine horizontally oriented and mounted underfloor. Not impressed by the heavyweight Gardner-engined Guy Arab and Daimler Freeline they approached Atkinson asking for a bus to their specification. This was called the Atkinson Alpha, the first entering service in August 1951.^[6] The Alpha range featured a horizontal Gardner engine (four, five and six-cylinder versions were offered), a choice of constant mesh and synchromesh gearboxes from David Brown, and either a lightweight or medium-weight frame. As events turned out, after the initial two batches for North Western in 1953/54 – the first of which were rare rear-entrance underfloor-engined buses – the senior management of the BET group removed Atkinson, Guy and Daimler from their list of preferred suppliers. Around the same time, Leyland dropped the purchase price of the Tiger Cub. North Western then took Tiger Cubs and AEC Reliances for their single-deck needs for the rest of the 1950s.

Atkinson's management then decided that although Daimler and Guy were publicly offering Gardner-engined double-deckers, and some influential (mainly Scottish) customers could purchase AEC Regents with that make of engine, they would also enter this market. Thus at the 1954 Earls' Court Commercial Motor Show two Atkinson double-deck buses were exhibited: one was a chassis, the other carried a 60-seat centre-entrance double-deck body by Northern Counties to the order of the Stalybridge, Hyde, Mossley and Dukinfield Joint Transport (and Electricity) Board. This bus (UMA370) is preserved by the Museum of Transport, Greater Manchester and is also of interest as the first double-deck bus with an electrically controlled direct-acting epicyclic gearbox, this Self-Changing Gears (SCG) unit was fitted by Atkinson after delivery but before entry into service as the SHMD board's drivers (who were used to pre-selective transmissions on the fleets' standard Daimlers) did not want to use the originally installed David Brown constant-mesh unit. The un-bodied exhibition chassis, which featured semi-automatic transmission, was dismantled around the same time. No further Atkinson double-deck bus chassis were built.

It is unclear whether Atkinson's early lead in two-pedal bus transmissions has anything to do with the minority shareholding (around 15%) that Leyland Motors held in Atkinson Lorries (1933) Ltd until the firm was taken over by Seddon. Leyland were, by 1954, part owners of SCG but the 1954 PDR1 prototype had the direct air-operated Pneumocyclic transmission at the time. Neither Guy nor Daimler had a two-pedal transmission and AEC had only just exhibited theirs on the prototype AEC Routemaster.

As well as an underfloor engined single-deck and a front-engined double-deck, Atkinson also produced a front-engined single-deck bus chassis, this being to a similar layout to the Bedford SB but of more durable construction. It sold well to Atkinson export markets, mainly in the Sterling zone, an example survives as a mobile home in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom sales of this Atkinson bus amounted to three: one batch of two for a municipal operator and a further frustrated export chassis.

Norman Morton, the General Manager of Sunderland Corporation Transport from 1953 to 1968, looked for efficiency-savings wherever they could be found. He had a route with a peak vehicle requirement of two, and a peak load of just over 40 which was being run by a pair of 32-seat 1950 Guy Arab III half-cab single deckers due for overhaul. Initially he approached Guy with the replacement specification, but they said they were not prepared to build a mere two buses to his detailed requirements, so he went to Atkinson. Sunderland 30-1 (GGR230-1) were the result, bodied in 1958 by Charles H Roe to FB41F layout and 8 ft wide by 30 ft long box-dimensions; they had constant-mesh gearboxes and four-cylinder 80 bhp Gardner 4LW engines. The route was a 'limited-stop' taking workmen from their homes to the docks and back again. The route was not hilly and the stops were few. The bodywork was utilitarian and the livery was mainly drab mid-green with cream window surrounds. The 41 seats were well-shaped and well padded and the wide double-stream entrance-exit just aft of the front wheels was covered by four-leaf double jack-knife doors.

Shortly afterwards a frustrated export chassis, to a shorter wheelbase and 27 ft 6in overall length, was bodied by Plaxton to its then-new Highway outline at the orders of a Wakefield dealer, Comberhill Motors who registered it as NHL127 and sold it to Simpson of Rosehearty.

After North Western were discouraged by the British Electric Traction group from purchasing Atkinson Alphas the company sought sales in the independent market, producing lightweight bus and coach demonstrators. A large independent which did buy some was Lancashire United Transport and SHMD bought some Alphas to go with their double-decker. The most successful fruit of Atkinson's bus-sales effort was with Venture Transport (Newcastle) Limited, of Consett, County Durham. Between 1946 and 1948 Venture had replaced the majority of its pre-war fleet with 35-seat Willowbrook-bodied Daimler CVD6's. No further buses were bought by Venture over the next half decade. In 1954 Atkinson lent Venture TTC882 a HV Burlingham bodied 44-seat bus which met with the approval of Venture's management and orders ensued for twenty-four vehicles delivered in three batches from 1955 to 1957 with differently styled B45F or DP41F Willowbrook bodies. Over the rest of the 1950s small numbers of Alphas were sold to other independent operators.

The Alpha continued to be listed without sales into the 1960s but a final home market order came from Sunderland Corporation in 1962 for 1963/64 delivery. The three buses concerned looked like buses from a different age to previous Atkinsons as they carried Marshall bodies of 33 ft length and 8 ft 2 ½ in width to the then-new BET-group outline, with double curvature front and rear screens and peaked roof-domes at either end. They were finished in a mainly cream version of the Sunderland livery and were to B45D layout. Like Doncaster Corporation's slightly later Leyland Royal Tiger Cubs they were purposely designed for the 'intermediate' length and had a wheelbase of 18 ft. They were numbered 46-48 and registered WBR246-8. The first initially was fitted with a constant mesh gearbox, but was swiftly refitted with a direct-air operated Self-Changing Gears unit, featuring a Leyland style 'pedestal' gear change with which the other two were built. Sunderland 48 was the last Atkinson PSV constructed and is preserved, as is no.46. Ironically, the last Seddon PSV design, the Pennine 7, had much more in common with the Alpha than with most previous Seddon bus chassis. However, these three buses had the unusual combination of vacuum-assisted brakes and air-operated Self-Changing Gears gearbox.

Atkinson nomenclature

This was very simple in style, and a system that in its basics, lasted from 1933 to 1975 consisting of a number for weight (initially estimated payload, but after 1964^[7] maximum gross vehicle or gross-train weight) then a second number for wheels and then the number of cylinders, assuming initially vertically mounted Gardner LW series engines.

Thus an Atkinson 646 would have been a 6-ton payload 4x2 wagon with four wheels and a Gardner 6LW engine.

A 1066A would have had a ten-ton payload, to 6x4 layout and an AEC (seven-seven) powerplant.

During the 1950s as well as the already-existing suffix for engine-type, prefixes H, M and L (for heavy, medium and light duty frames) were adopted, the Alpha had a second prefix P (for passenger) Thus an early Alpha could carry the code:

PL745H (H used for horizontal Gardner engines)

By the mid-1950s Alphas had pre-prefixes depending on whether they had overdrive constant-mesh (C, for coach) or direct-drive synchromesh gearboxes (B, for bus) hence BPL745H for the first 18 Venture examples, the last six being CPL745H.

The double-decker had the unique frame-code D. Whether that stood for double-deck or dropped frame is not clear, but the PD746 designation given to the two built showed a seven-ton payload, four wheels and a Gardner 6LW. Assuming somebody would have wanted a pantechnicon with a dropped-frame at that time from Walton-le-Dale, it may have been a D746.

Relaxation of legally allowed length and widths resulted in further suffix letters: The first two Sunderland buses were L644LWs (lightweight frame, six tons, four wheels, 4LW engines, long wheelbases, wide-track). The New Zealand survivor is given as an L644XLW (extra-long, around 33 ft long).

The final three Alphas were coded PM746HL, viz: passenger, medium-weight frame, six-tonne payload, four wheels, Gardner 6HLW engine, long wheelbase.

Later Atkinson codes included T3246RR for a 32-ton GCW Borderer with a Rolls-Royce Eagle engine. A Rolls-Royce-engined Borderer was T3446RR220 or T3446RR280^[8]

The work with the Alpha was also taken into Atki's mainstream wagon business, there were Atkinson customers, particularly breweries, who ordered underfloor engined Atki wagons, enabling a three-seat cab. The platform body had a trap in it so the (Gardner 4HLW) engine could be seen to. Sentinel, Albion, Guy and Dennis had also done the same but not as reliably because they did not use a Gardner.

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"Atkinson Defender KVT 604 P: The very last Atkinson built, Gardner-engined 'Defender' chassis number FC29941, reaches the end of the Walton-le-dale production line in April 1975..."

Atkinson merged with Seddons of Oldham late in 1970. The last "true" Atkinson, a Defender 8-wheel rigid bearing chassis number FC29941, was built at Atkinson's Walton-le-Dale works in 1975. It went to G & B McCready of Newcastle-under-Lyme and carried the registration KVT 604 P. Today it remains with them.

Alongside Seddon's facility at Oldham, the Atkinson works assembled the Seddon Atkinson 400 Series and also the first batch of the new 401 model, before closing at the end of 1981. Oldham remained operational until late 2004, when production was moved to Spain.^[2]