The story
W.B. Dick and Company was founded in 1854 in Glasgow by William Bruce Dick. The company were initially oil refiners and manufacturers of paint used for coating the bottom of ships. They had depots and works in Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Barrow-in-Furness, Cardiff and Hamburg by 1890. From 1883 the company joined with John Kerr and under its new name, expanded into rail transport, supplying tramway equipment and rolling stock and built around fifty locomotives up to 1919.
In 1885 Dick, Kerr and Co. started construction of 6 steam launches at its Britannia Works, Kilmarnock. In 1888 it produced the 'Griffin' gas engine which is described and illustrated in The Engineer. This 6-stroke engine was devised to get around Otto's patent of the 4-stroke cycle. By 1892 Dick, Kerr was producing gas engines in a wide range of sizes using the Otto principle, both single and double acting.
In 1890 it took limited company status, as railway and tramway appliance makers and as iron and steel founders and electricians. There was a public offer of shares to acquire the engineering and contracting company of the same name –reasons given were the advancing years of the senior partner and the need for investment to expand the works at Kilmarnock including a modern iron and steel foundry.
Until the late 1890s the company had largely produced steam tram engines, but in 1888 they bought the assets of the Patent Cable Tramways Corporation (including the Highgate Cable Tramway) and in 1892 they built the Brixton Cable Tramway for the London Tramways Company. They built other cable tramways in Douglas, Matlock and two in Edinburgh, but while cable tramways overcame problems where horse tramways struggled with hills, it was the electric tramway that came to dominate, and Dick Kerr became one of the largest manufacturers of electric tramway cars.
The company facilities in Preston, Lancashire, were acquired in 1893 along with the railway and tramway plant activities of Hartley, Arnoux and Fanning which had been bought from Kerr Stuart and Company.
The company was registered on 24 August 1899, as a reconstruction of a company of the same name, to take over a business of engineers and contractors. In 1899 the "English Electric Manufacturing Co." was incorporated as a public company, for purpose of manufacturing, at its own new works at Preston, every variety of electrical machinery, particularly for use by railways and tramways. In 1900 it was an exhibitor at the First International Tramways and Light Railways Exhibition in London.
In 1902 the bulk of the capital of the English Electric Manufacturing Co was acquired, and the capital of that company largely increased, which gave Dick, Kerr and Co a factory at Preston. In the same year, the company was a major exhibitor at the Second International Tramways and Light Railways Exhibition in London.
In 1904 Dick, Kerr and Co. were contractors for the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's electrification. From 1904 to 1912, the company supplied first generation tram cars to Hong Kong Tramways. The 60 single deck cars were retired in 1935. In 1910 they began construction of steam turbines under the Bergmann patents, and one year later built a lamp factory at Preston, to make metal filament lamps.
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Dick, Kerr supplied the Municipal Council of Sydney with eleven alternators for its Sydney Electric Lighting Station between 1904 and 1914.
From Wikipedia’s article on Dick, Kerr & Co., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3