J. A. Prestwich Industries, was a British engineering equipment manufacturing company named after founder John Alfred Prestwich, which was formed in 1951 by the amalgamation of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd.

History

John Prestwich, an engineer, commenced manufacture of scientific instruments in 1895, when he was 20, initially behind his father's house at 1 Lansdowne Road,

Tottenham Tottenham (, , , ) is a district in north London, England, within the London Borough of Haringey. It is located in the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London. Tottenham is centred north-northeast of Charing Cross, ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. By 1911 he had moved to new premises in Tariff Road, within the Northumberland Park area of Tottenham, London, an
which still exists as of 2015
Prestwich was initially best known for his

cinematography Cinematography () is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens (optics), lens to focus reflected light from objects into a real image that is transferred to some image sen ...

cameras and projectors. He worked with S.Z. de Ferranti and later the cinema pioneer

William Friese-Greene William Friese-Greene (born William Edward Green, 7 September 1855 – 5 May 1921) was a prolific English inventor and professional photographer. He was known as a pioneer in the field of motion pictures, having devised a series of cameras bet ...

. Circa 1902 J. A. Prestwich and Company began manufacturing motorcycle engines which were used in many motorcycle

marque A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

s. The motorcycle engines were associated with racing and record success and were used in

speedway Speedway may refer to: Racing Race tracks *Daytona International Speedway, a race track in Daytona Beach, Florida. *Edmonton International Speedway, also known as Speedway Park, a former motor raceway in Edmonton, Alberta. *Indianapolis Motor Spe ...

bikes into the 1960s. Prestwich also made engines for aeroplanes. In 1919 Prestwich formed Pencils Limited to exploit his invention of new machinery and the company made Master Pencils, also in Tariff Road. In the nineteen thirties engine production increasingly focused on small industrial and agricultural engines. During WWII Prestwich produced around 240,000 industrial petrol engines in support of the war effort, together with millions of aircraft parts, fuses, etc. In 1951 the assets of J. A. Prestwich and Company Limited and Pencils Ltd were taken over by J. A. Prestwich Industries Limited which was registered on 23 April 1951 and floated on the London Stock Exchange shortly after. By 1957 practically all the shares in the company had been acquired by Villiers Engineering Company Limited of Wolverhampton, which also made motorcycle and industrial engines. The engineering works in Northumberland Park closed in 1963 and J. A. Prestwich Industries Limited was liquidated in 1964. Papers, photographs and publicity material relating to the company are held at the Bruce Castle Museum, Tottenham and the Science Museum Library & Archives at the

Science Museum at Wroughton The Science and Innovation Park is a research and cultural site near Swindon, England. Part of the Science Museum Group, the Park hosts a range of research and development activity, filming and photography projects, storage for culture sector ...

Products

Motorcycles

From 1903 to 1908 complete motorcycles were produced from the development of the first overhead valve

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike; uni (if one-wheeled); trike (if three-wheeled); quad (if four-wheeled)) is a lightweight private 1-to-2 passenger personal motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar from a saddle-style ...

engine to be produced in the UK. After that the factory concentrated on supplying its engines to other manufacturers, including

Brough Superior Brough Superior ( ) motorcycles, sidecars, and motor cars were made by George Brough in his Brough Superior works on Haydn Road in Nottingham, England, from 1919 to 1940. The motorcycles were dubbed the "Rolls-Royce of Motorcycles" by H. D. ...

, Triumph Motorcycles, A. J. Stevens & Co. Ltd, Enfield Cycle Co,

Hazlewoods Limited Hazlewoods Limited of Coventry were manufacturers of bicycles from 1895, and motorcycles from 1911 until closure 1923. They were typical many British companies who proceeded from bicycle manufacture to motorised bicycles, a change made possible ...

, Zenith Motorcycles,

Grindlay Peerless Grindlay Peerless is a historic motorcycle manufacturer that operated out of Coventry, England, throughout the early 20th-century, specialising in racing machines including the record breaking 498cc Grindlay Peerless. Although a relatively sho ...

and

HRD Motorcycles HRD Motors Ltd was a British motorcycle manufacturer in the 1920s. It was founded by Howard Raymond Davies. He had worked in motorcycling, and had raced with some success in the mid-twenties, but often not finishing due to unreliability. This i ...

, the forerunner of

Vincent Motorcycles Vincent Motorcycles was a British manufacturer of motorcycles from 1928 to 1955. The business was established by Phil Vincent, Philip Vincent who bought an existing manufacturing name HRD Motorcycles, HRD, initially renaming it as ''Vincent HRD ...

. Machines that incorporated its engines included the

AJS Model D The AJS Model D is a British motorcycle made by A. J. Stevens & Co. Ltd in Wolverhampton between 1912 and 1925. With production halted by the First World War AJS managed to develop the Model D into a popular sidecar machine and it was eventuall ...

, fabricated for the Russians in the First World War. JAP exported significant numbers of engines to foreign motorcycle manufacturers including Dresch and

Terrot Terrot was a motorcycle manufacturer in Dijon, France. Charles Terrot and Wilhelm Stücklen had founded a machinery factory in Cannstatt, Germany in 1862, and Terrot added a branch factory in Dijon in 1887, and in 1890 the Dijon factory added ...

in France, and

Ardie Ardie was a company in Nürnberg, Germany that manufactured motorcycles from 1919 until 1958. The company's name derives from that of its founder, Arno Dietrich. At first Ardie made motorcycles with its own 305cc and 348cc single cylinder two-s ...

, Hecker and Tornax in Germany. Latterly, JAP engines (under Villiers control) were used in motorcycle racing, and most commonly

or dirt track. Various enthusiasts continued development of the engine into the 1970s primarily for grass track, speedway and long track use. Variants included the use of 4 valve heads, twin spark plugs and early electronic ignition systems. Some were modified to run as alcohol fuelled engines primarily for speedway use. All the engines were 4 stroke. Use of the engine declined in the 1970s as competing engines from Jawa-CZ and

Weslake Weslake & Co also known as Weslake Research and Development was founded by Harry Weslake, described as England's greatest expert on cylinder head design, with premises in Rye, East Sussex, England. Weslake is most famous for its work with Bentley ...

were developed giving better performance. File:JA Prestwich 'Jap' motorcycle 1946 SLNSW.jpg, J. A. Prestwich 'Jap' speedway bike, Sydney, 9 February 1946. File:Elstar JAP.JPG, 1948 Elstar JAP Grasstrack, National Motor Museum Monorail File:Rotrax JAP.JPG, 1950 Rotrax JAP Speedway, National Motor Museum Monorail File:1948 J.A.P. Speedway Racer.jpg, 1948 J.A.P. Speedway Racer, California Automobile Museum

Aircraft engines

Early aircraft were light and basic, and needed a reliable lightweight engine for power. JAP motorcycle engines were often used in this application. A JAP engine was originally fitted in A V Roe's 1909 triplane, regarded as the first all-British aircraft, and for a while Prestwich and Roe had a partnership. J. A. Prestwich at first would deliver the same engine to the aircraft manufacturer, allowing them to make local modifications – mainly larger venturi tubes for the carburettor, to allow for greater air intake at altitude. In the late 1920s and early 1930s J. A. Prestwich produced various heavier engines under licence, including those for the UK market for

Aeronca Aeronca, contracted from Aeronautical Corporation of America, located in Middletown, Ohio, is a US manufacturer of engine components and airframe structures for commercial aviation and the defense industry, and a former aircraft manufacturer. ...

Motorcar engines

JAP engines were extensively used in

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive motorized car manufactured in Europe and the United States between 1910 and the early 1920s. The purpose of cyclecars was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the c ...

s in the 1910 to 1914 period when they were popular with small manufacturers. In 1914 JAP announced a new engine made specifically for the cyclecar: a V-twin of 90mm bore and 85mm stroke (1082cc). The engine had a larger flywheel than the motorcycle engine and an enclosed magneto drive. The engine was illustrated fitted to a Morgan three-wheeler. In light of JAP's development of high-powered light engines for speedway, some low volume pre-war car manufacturers, including G.N., T.B.,

Morgan Motor Company Morgan Motor Company Limited is a British automobile, motor car manufacturer owned by a British investment group Investindustrial. Morgan was founded in 1910 by H. F. S. Morgan, Henry Frederick Stanley Morgan. Morgan is itself based in Malvern ...

and

Reliant Reliant may also refer to: * Reliant Energy, an energy corporation from Houston, Texas, United States * Reliant Motors, a defunct British car manufacturer * Reliant Pharmaceuticals, now owned by GlaxoSmithKline * Stinson Reliant, a utility and ...

, used JAP engines to power their vehicles. This use of the JAP extended into motor racing after WWII. Most were used in specialist UK lightweight formulas, or more extensively in

Formula 3 Formula Three (F3) is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One drivers. History Formula Three (adop ...

and

Formula 2 Formula Two (F2) is a type of open-wheel formula racing category first codified in 1948. It was replaced in 1985 by Formula 3000, but revived by the FIA from 2009 to 2012 in the form of the FIA Formula Two Championship. The name returned aga ...

racing and in

hillclimbing Hillclimbing, also known as hill climbing, speed hillclimbing, or speed hill climbing, is a branch of motorsport in which drivers compete against the clock to complete an uphill course. It is one of the oldest forms of motorsport, since the firs ...

after developments by John Cooper. Cooper cars powered by JAP engines won the

British Hill Climb Championship The British Hillclimb Championship (BHC) is the most prestigious hillclimbing championship in Great Britain. The British Hill Climb Championship was held every year from 1947 to 2019, and resumed in 2021. The 2020 season was cancelled due to the ...

for eleven consecutive years. In its later life, J. A. Prestwich produced components for other vehicle manufacturers, including the cylinder head for the

Lotus Cortina Lotus Cortina is the commonly used term for the Ford Cortina Lotus, a high-performance sports saloon, which was produced in the United Kingdom from 1963 to 1970 by Ford Motor Company, Ford in collaboration with Lotus Cars. The original version, w ...

and the early versions of the Ford-based

Lotus Elan Lotus Elan is the name of two separate ranges of automobiles produced by Lotus Cars. The first series of cars was produced between 1962 and 1975 as a rear-wheel drive vehicle. The second series was produced between 1989 and 1995 as a front-wheel ...

engine.

Film production and projection

Cinematographic equipment including

camera A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. As a pivotal technology in the fields of photograp ...

s, printers,

mutoscope The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler and granted to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only ...

s, cutting and perforating machines, and

projectors A projector or image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen. Most projectors create an image by shining a light through a small transparent lens, but some newer typ ...

, such as the Bioscope projectors for the

Warwick Trading Company The Warwick Trading Company was a British film production and distribution company, which operated between 1898 and 1915. History The Warwick Trading Company had its origins in the London office of Maguire and Baucus, a firm run by two American ...

and

Charles Urban Charles Urban (April 15, 1867 – August 29, 1942) was a German-American film producer and distributor, and one of the most significant figures in Cinema of the United Kingdom, British cinema before the First World War. He was a pioneer of the do ...

, were produced by the company in the early part of the 20th century.

Railway trolleys

Early models of the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

maintenance ganger's

Wickham trolley The Wickham trolley was a railroad speeder, railway engineering personnel carrier built by D. Wickham & Co of Ware, Hertfordshire. This long established firm introduced their rail trolley in 1922 as a lightweight track inspection and maintenance ...

, from 1948, used a vee-twin JAP engine. This drove through a large flat flywheel and a

friction drive A friction drive Definition of "friction drive"
in the Merriam-Webster Di ...

. In the 1950s other Wickham trolleys used the 600 cc JAP engine and drove through a clutch, tail shaft and bevel drive.

Utility engines

J. A. Prestwich also made small utility engines under the JAP name for a variety of uses, both stationary and in motorised equipment. They ranged in size from the smallest model 0 two-stroke engine to the much larger type 6 engine, and were used on rotovators, generating sets, milking sets, water pumps, lawnmowers, hay elevators and other agricultural machines. Most were 4-stroke, but there were some 2-stroke engines such as the model 0; they were quite reliable, and examples can still be seen at vintage rallies around Britain. While most of the engines bore the JAP name, some, such as the model 3 OHV engine made for Arthur Lyon & Co for their ALCO generator sets, had timing covers with the name ALCO Featherweight cast in. J.A.P. also had a factory in Chelmsford Road,

Southgate, London Southgate is a suburban area of north London, England, in the London Borough of Enfield, north of Charing Cross. History Southgate was originally the south gate of Enfield Chase, the King's hunting grounds. This is reflected in the street n ...

, employing 40 to 50 people, where these engines were being made in 1955.

References

External links

A brief history of J. A. Prestwich/JAPGracesguide.co.uk: J. A. Prestwich Industries company history
{{Authority control

JAP ''Jap'' is an English abbreviation of the word " Japanese". In the United States, some Japanese Americans have come to find the term offensive because of the internment they suffered during World War II. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, ''Jap ...

Defunct engineering companies of England Defunct motorcycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom Aircraft industry in London Vehicle manufacture in London Cinematography Engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom Motor vehicle engine manufacturers Motorcycle engine manufacturers Motorcycle manufacturers of the United Kingdom Manufacturing companies based in London Manufacturing companies established in 1895 Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1902 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1964 1895 establishments in England 1951 establishments in England 1964 disestablishments in England Defunct companies based in London Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange British companies established in 1951 Formula One engine manufacturers British companies disestablished in 1964 British companies established in 1895