Maythorn

Maythorn & Son Ltd.
legal form	Limited Company
founding	1842
resolution	1931
Seat	Biggleswade , Bedfordshire , UK
management	John Maythorn Fred Maythorn Guy Pelham Clinton
Number of employees	200
Branch	Body shop

Bentley 4½ liter with Maythorn body

Bentley 4½ liter open tourer with Maythorn body

Maythorn & Son Ltd. was a British body manufacturer who initially made carriages and, in the 20th century, individual bodies for automobiles. Maythorn was temporarily associated with the coachbuilder Hooper Coachbuilders and clad many Daimler chassis .

Company history

Maythorn & Son was founded in 1842 by John Maythorn (1822–1897). The company was based in the town of Biggleswade in the central English county of Bedfordshire . In the first decades, Maythorn produced numerous carriages, initially mainly for commercial purposes and later also for passenger transport. The company gained a good reputation nationwide in the second half of the 19th century. After the founder's death, his son Fredrick Alfred "Fred" Maythorn took over management of the company and expanded the range of activities to include automobile bodies at the beginning of the 20th century. Before the outbreak of the First World War , Maythorn had over 200 employees, after the end of the war the workforce fell to around half. In 1920 Fred Maythorn sold his company to the London- based body manufacturer Hooper , who had it run independently from the new parent company by the managers Guy Pelham Clinton, MGW Burton and Jimmy George. In the 1920s, Hooper gave Maythorn access to customers from the British upper class, who otherwise mostly preferred London bodywork manufacturers and avoided factories in the provinces. In 1923, Maythorn's factory facilities burned down to a large extent. The reconstruction lasted until 1925; During this time, body production at Maythorn temporarily came to a standstill.

In the period after the First World War, Maythorn mainly bodyworked Daimler chassis. On a larger scale, bodies were also made for Fiat and Minerva , and individual bodies for Bentley , Buick , Packard , Rolls-Royce and Voisin chassis were also produced at the customer's request . Maythorn's customers included Edward VIII , the then Prince of Wales , and some Indian princes.

Maythorn's automobile bodies usually had conservative lines; their design was considered "not very progressive". It was usually wooden constructions, although the company sometimes also worked according to the Weymann patent . This production method became increasingly out of fashion in the 1920s. With technical progress, the opportunities to press steel inexpensively increased. Steel structures were increasingly finding their way into the automotive sector. Interest in Maythorn's wooden structures declined significantly towards the end of the 1920s. Failure to adapt to new production methods was one of the reasons that ultimately led to its decline.

In 1931, Hooper stopped production at Maythorn. The company was liquidated. The factory halls were initially taken over by a local manufacturer of film rolls; after its bankruptcy, a department store was opened in them.

literature

• Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 .

Web links

Commons : Maythorn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Company history of Maythorn on the website www.biggleswadehistory.org.uk

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Company history of Maythorn on the website www.biggleswadehistory.org.uk ( Memento of the original from 23 September 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 23, 2015). 
2. ^ ^{A b c} Nick Walker: A – Z of British Coachbuilders 1919–1960 . Shebbear 2007 (Herridge & Sons Ltd.) ISBN 978-0-9549981-6-5 , p. 140.