Bruce Peebles & Co. Ltd. was an Edinburgh industrial

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

company.

Early history

The company was founded as D. Bruce Peebles & Co. by

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

engineer

David Bruce Peebles Bruce Peebles & Co. Ltd. was an Edinburgh industrial electrical engineering company. Early history The company was founded as D. Bruce Peebles & Co. by Scotland, Scottish engineer David Bruce Peebles (1826–1899) in Edinburgh in 1866. The c ...

(1826–1899) in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

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 co ...

and a licence to manufacture

three-phase Three-phase electric power (abbreviated 3ϕ) is a common type of alternating current (AC) used in electricity generation, Electric power transmission, transmission, and Electric power distribution, distribution. It is a type of polyphase system ...

electrical equipment designed by

Ganz The Ganz Machinery Works Holding is a Hungarian holding company. Its products are related to rail transport, power generation, and water supply, among other industries. The original Ganz Works or Ganz ( or , ''Ganz companies'', formerly ''Ganz ...

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

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 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 (Ontario), Thames River and N ...

. 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 population o ...

, a resort town on

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) 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 also has the shortest avera ...

. 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, 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 locomotives 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. 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 (electricity), battery or a supercapacitor. Locomotives with on-board fuelled prime mover (locomotive), ...

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

transformer In electrical engineering, a transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple Electrical network, circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces ...

s for

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

s, including the world's largest 400 kV 'quadrature booster' for the UK national grid. It also produced heavy

electric motor An electric motor is a machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a electromagnetic coil, wire winding to gene ...

s for various uses, including railway locomotives.

Ownership changes

The company became part of the Reyrolle Parsons in 1969, part of Northern Engineering Industries in 1977 and part of

Rolls-Royce plc Rolls-Royce Holdings plc is a British multinational aerospace and defence company incorporated in February 2011. The company owns Rolls-Royce, a business established in 1904 which today designs, manufactures and distributes power systems for ...

in 1989. Many young electrical engineers were taken on by this company, with a special course in electrical engineering being run at the nearby Telford College. They gained skills in highly specialised work, and Peebles' products were exported all over the world. The late 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.

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 Leith (; ) is a port area in the north of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith and is home to the Port of Leith. The earliest surviving historical references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of ...

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 Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

that year.

Motors & Generators division

The motors & generators business relocated to Wood Road in the nearby

Rosyth dockyard Rosyth Dockyard is a large Royal Navy Dockyard, naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which formerly undertook refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels and submarines. Before its privatisation i ...

. 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