Private company
Cotton
Logo: Auge=mit, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons3
Former British motorcycle manufacturer
The Cotton Motor Company, was a British motorcycle manufacturer of 11a Bristol Road, Gloucester, and was founded by Frank Willoughby Cotton in 1918. F.W. presided over the company until his retirement in 1953. The company was reconstituted as E. Cotton (Motorcycles) Ltd, and traded until 1980.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0
Last updated Oct 21, 2026.
Overview
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The Cotton Motor Company, was a British motorcycle manufacturer of 11a Bristol Road, Gloucester, and was founded by Frank Willoughby Cotton in 1918. F.W. presided over the company until his retirement in 1953. The company was reconstituted as E. Cotton (Motorcycles) Ltd, and traded until 1980. The marque was later resurrected in the late 1990s by a business which manufactured replicas of earlier machines.2
Products and brands
- motorcycle
Listed on Wikidata.1
Closure of the Quay Street, Gloucester factory
The factory moved to Stratton Road in 1970, with diversification into production of the Cotton Sturdy, a three-wheel factory truck. Over the next decade production was moved a number of times, and they managed to produce a good 250 cc racing machine with a Rotax engine. The difficulty of finding a supply of engines after the loss of Villiers was compounded by the appearance of mass-produced Japanese motorcycles in the 1970s.In 1977 the firm moved to premises in Leckhampton but moved back to Gloucester, Merchants Road, in the following year after an unsuccessful bid for a military contract (Gloucestershire Echo article 22/5/1978).
A commemorative plaque to the Cotton name was unveiled in 2013, mounted on the wall of the City Folk Museum, which is close to the old factory location in Quay Street, Gloucester.
Closure of the Bolton factory
The factory moved to Bolton in 1978 but closed in 1980. Following a series of successful 1990s Cotton exhibitions at the Gloucester Folk Museum, the Cotton Owners Club was formed, where a rally is held each summer.
From Wikipedia’s article on Cotton (motorcycle), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4
Timeline
Links
- WikipediaCotton (motorcycle)
- More imagesWikimedia Commons
- WikidataQ3695976
Sources
The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.
- 1WikidataCotton on Wikidata
- 2WikipediaCotton on Wikipedia
- 3Wikimedia CommonsCotton logo by Auge=mit, CC BY-SA 4.0
- 4WikipediaCotton on Wikipedia (revision used)
- 5Wikimedia CommonsCotton photo by Yesterdays Antique Motorcycles, CC BY-SA 4.0