Historian and CovSoc member, Peter James, tells us the fascinating story of one of Coventry’s best known industrial families.
William Henry Herbert was born in Leicestershire in 1850. His father William was a building contractor and farmer and a very wealthy man. He and William Hillman met in 1863 and eventually formed Hillman and Herbert Company in 1876, initially manufacturing sewing machines. By 1878 they occupied a factory on the corner of South Street and Read Street leased to them by William Herbert’s father William. They soon expanded there and started making bicycles establishing the brand name of Premier.
They were later joined in the business by George Beverly Cooper who was financially astute and ran the London branch based at Holborn Viaduct. In 1887 William Henry Herbert became a director of Coles and Matthews based in the Butts in Coventry. By 1891 William had become a founding director of the Premier Cycle Co Ltd. which bought out Hillman Herbert and Cooper. He died in Coventry in 1911 while still a director of the Premier Cycle Co. Ltd. and having a business interest in Alfred Herbert Ltd.
Alfred Herbert was the brother of William Henry Herbert and was 16 years younger, born in Leicestershire on 5th September 1866. After being educated locally at Stoneygate School he became an apprentice at George Jessop & Son, cranebuilders of Leicester. Aged 21 he moved to Coventry to become Works Manager at Coles and Matthews based in the Butts. They were a small engineering company involved in building small boilers and repair work and his brother William was a director there. A year later the business was dissolved and was bought by Alfred and an old school friend W.S. Hubbard who was a clever mechanic. They traded as Herbert & Hubbard for a few years making simple machine tools mainly for the growing bicycle industry. Until 1894 when the partnership was dissolved and the firm became Alfred Herbert Ltd.
William Henry Herbert introduced his brother Alfred to Monsieur Secretan the president of a weldless steel tubing manufacturer in Paris. These tubes were in great demand in Britain by bicycle manufacturers and Herberts became sole sales agents in the U.K.
This was the birth of agency business which was important to the growth of the company.
In 1897 Oscar Harmer an American joined Herberts and his engineering experience led to an increase in the scope of the company’s products. Capstans and lathes were developed to meet demand from the automotive industry. Within two years he had supervised the building of a foundry at Edgwick in Coventry and joined the company board of directors. The production of machine tools increased rapidly and foreign trade developed with Herberts opening branches around the world.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Alfred Herbert was appointed Controller of Machine Tools at the Ministry of Munitions reporting to David Lloyd George. This was recognised in 1917 when he was awarded the K.B.E. By 1928 the whole firm had moved from the Butts to the Edgwick Works. The company continued to grow eventually becoming the largest machine tool organisation in the world. After Alfred’s death in 1957 business carried on until it was acquired by Tube Investments in 1980 before going into receivership in 1982.
