Bruce Peebles & Co. Ltd. was an Edinburgh industrial electrical engineering company.

Early history

The company was founded as D. Bruce Peebles & Co. by Scottish engineer David Bruce Peebles (1826–1899) in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

in 1866. The company initially specialised in gas engineering but later expanded to include electrical engineering as well. It continued to trade after Peebles' death and, in 1902, the name was changed to Bruce Peebles & Co. Ltd. The company held the British manufacturing rights for the

Cascade converter A cascade converter is a type of motor-generator which was patented in 1902 by J. L. la Cour and O. S. Bragstad. It consists of an induction motor driving a dynamo through a shaft. In addition, the rotor of the induction motor is electrically c ...

and a licence to manufacture three-phase electrical equipment designed by

Ganz The Ganz Works or Ganz ( or , ''Ganz companies'', formerly ''Ganz and Partner Iron Mill and Machine Factory'') was a group of companies operating between 1845 and 1949 in Budapest, Hungary. It was named after Ábrahám Ganz, the founder and th ...

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Canadian Electric Traction Company

In 1903, Peebles expanded into Canada. Along with other investors, it formed the Canadian Electric Traction Company and supplied the three-phase equipment, car motors and generators for the South Western Traction Company of

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

. The main line ran 28-miles between London and

Port Stanley Stanley (; also known as Port Stanley) is the capital city of the Falkland Islands. It is located on the island of East Falkland, on a north-facing slope in one of the wettest parts of the islands. At the 2016 census, the city had a popula ...

, a resort town on

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also h ...

. It was the only three-phase traction line in Canada, and was closed in 1918.

New factory

In 1904 the company opened a new factory at a site in

East Pilton Pilton is a residential area of northern Edinburgh, Scotland. It is to the north of Ferry Road, immediately east of Muirhouse, and to the west and south of Granton (the Boswall, Royston Mains and Wardieburn neighbourhoods). Description Somet ...

, Edinburgh, employing 3,000 at its peak in the 1950s. The works had its own internal railway system, which was electrified and used electric

shunting locomotive A switcher, shunter, yard pilot, switch engine, yard goat, or shifter is a small railroad locomotive used for manoeuvring railroad cars inside a rail yard in a process known as ''switching'' (US) or ''shunting'' (UK). Switchers are not inten ...

s built by Peebles themselves. This was the first electric line in Edinburgh (main line electrification did not reach Edinburgh until the early 1990s). In 1905 the company was exhibiting at the

Third International Electric Tramway and Railway Exhibition The Third International Electric Tramway and Railway Exhibition was held in the Royal Agricultural Hall, Islington, London from 3 July 1905 to 14 July 1905 It was a successor event to the Second International Tramways and Light Railways Exhibiti ...

. It also manufactured at least one (from an order of ten)

electric locomotive An electric locomotive is a locomotive powered by electricity from overhead lines, a third rail or on-board energy storage such as a battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime movers, such as diesel engines or g ...

s for the Portmadoc, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway.

War work

During both World Wars, the works produced shells, submarine and aircraft parts, tank and electrical equipment such as mobile search lights and minesweeping units.

Woodhead Line electrification

It was the main sub contractor for the electrification of the Woodhead Line between Manchester and Sheffield from 1947–1954, a major engineering achievement. Throughout this period it specialised in large scale transformers for power stations, including the world's largest 400 kV 'quadrature booster' for the National Grid (Great Britain), UK national grid. It also produced heavy electric motors for various uses, including railway locomotives.

Ownership changes

The company became part of the A. Reyrolle & Company, Reyrolle Parsons Group in 1969, part of Northern Engineering Industries in 1977 and part of Rolls-Royce plc in 1989. Many young electrical engineers were taken on by this company, with a special course in electrical engineering being run at the nearby Edinburgh's Telford College, Telford College. They gained skills in highly specialised work, and Peebles' products were exported all over the world. The late Ron Brown (Scottish politician), Ron Brown, MP for Leith, was employed by the company, as was the late Sir Duncan McDonald who was the chief transformer designer.

The business divided

In 1998 the business was split, with the Peebles Electrical Machine Division (Motors & Generators) being acquired by Pope (Australia) and the Transformer Division going to the Austrian company VA Tech Wabag, VA Tech.

Transformer division

In April 1999 a substantial fire destroyed the main transformer works in East Pilton. The company decided that a replacement factory should be relocated to Leith Docks to better facilitate transfer of the largest transformers onto ships for export. The Pilton site was sold for residential redevelopment. VA Tech closed the Leith factory during 2005 and continued service work only. The entire VA Tech company became part of Siemens that year.

Motors & Generators division

The motors & generators business relocated to Wood Road in the nearby Rosyth dockyard. Parsons Peebles Motor & Generators was acquired by Clyde Blowers Capital in January 2013. The company is still located in the Royal dockyard Rosyth and continues to manufacture and service specialised motors and generators.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bruce Peebles and Co. Ltd. Manufacturing companies of Scotland Engineering companies of the United Kingdom Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom