Thrupp & Maberly

Thrupp

This family coachbuilding firm was started near Worcester about 1740. The founder's son, Joseph Thrupp (died London 1821), came to London about 1765 and ran a coach making business in George Street, Grosvenor Square.

There was access to the workshops through an arch in Oxford Street, and in the early 19th century this was developed into a showroom.

Joseph's London business was continued by his nephew Henry East Thrupp (1774-1852), father of coach builder Robert (1813-1871), together with Joseph's much younger fourth son Charles Joseph Thrupp (1791-1872), who left his nine surviving children £30,000. Those nine children included George Athelstane Thrupp (1822-1905), who later carried on the business.

Maberly

At the beginning of 1858 coachbuilder George Maberly (1797-1883) merged his 70 Welbeck Street business with Thrupps, moving to Oxford Street and becoming their partner. The firm's name was immediately changed to Thrupp & Maberly. In 1863 they advertised they were Coach Builders & Harness-Makers by Appointment to the Queen. Later his son George Henry Maberly (1836-1901) was taken into George Athelstane Thrupp's partnership.

George Athelstane Thrupp

George Athelstane Thrupp (1822–1905) became company head and a leader of his craft known internationally within it. He was a founder of the Coach-makers' Benevolent Institution and helped form the Institute of British Carriage Manufacturers and the technical schools for coach artisans which were taken over by the Regent Street Polytechnic. He served as Master of the Coachmakers' and Coach Harness Makers' Company in 1883

Thrupp's publications included:

A History of the Art of Coachbuilding published in 1877, originally a series of lectures delivered in 1876 to the Society of Arts;

Coach Trimming with William Farr in 1888;

Motor vehicles

As far back as the 1880s Thrupp & Maberly began its move from making horse-drawn carriages to making car bodies watching developments in electric cars, fitting Immisch motors in carriages to order and in 1896 supplying an electric car to the Queen of Spain. By the spring of 1897 Thrupp & Maberley held the British licence for the Duryea Motor Wagon. More commissions followed and the business grew leading to large numbers of bodies being made for staff cars during World War I.

After the 1914-1918 war Thrupp & Maberly produced a range of bespoke bodies for up-market British and European marques. In 1924, the works were moved to new premises at 108 Cricklewood Lane, Cricklewood, London, with a showroom at 20 North Audley Street in the West End of London, which in 1925 was bought by the remarkable salesmen the Rootes brothers. The Rootes brothers interests were then in distribution and repair and not manufacture. Thrupp & Maberly remained a prestige coachbuilder, concentrating on luxury bodies for Rolls-Royce, Daimler and Bentley automobiles. In 1929, they built the body for Sir Henry Segrave's land speed record car, the Golden Arrow. The Rootes brothers bought Humber, and with it Hillman in 1928, and from 1932 bodies were made for the top of the range Humbers. Additional premises were obtained in 1936 in the old Darracq works in Warple Way, Acton, London, adjacent to a company called British Light Steel Pressings, with whom they merged in 1939. During the Second World War they again built staff cars on Humber chassis.

When peacetime production resumed after the end of the Second World War the Acton works was disposed of, and as the market for luxury coach-built vehicles was in decline, they concentrated on special bodies for Rootes Group vehicles, including making all the catalogued open-top Humbers. By the mid-1960s, this work was also in decline, and the Cricklewood factory closed in 1967 when employee numbers had fallen to 1,000.

At the time of its sale in January 1968 the Cricklewood factory on Edgware Road by the North Circular Road contained 120,000 square feet on a site of six acres.