White & Poppe
White & Poppe was a British manufacturer of built-in engines and motorcycles . The company was founded in Coventry in 1899 . In 1919 it was taken over by Dennis Brothers and finally closed its doors in 1933.
founding
The Briton Alfred White and the Norwegian Peter August Poppe met in 1897 while visiting an arms factory in Austria-Hungary . White suggested that Poppe move to Coventry, where the two founded White & Poppe Ltd in 1899 with the help of White's family . Of the 588 company shares, 250 belonged to Alfred White personally, 337 to his family and only one to Peter August Poppe.
Engine construction
While White & Poppe had started to manufacture ammunition for the second Boer War (1899–1902), in 1900 the company registered a number of patents for machine parts. They were the first manufacturer to propagate a common parts strategy in engine construction. Their carburettors were the first to deliver a constant gasoline / air mixture over the entire power range.
In 1903 the first motorcycle engine, a single cylinder with 80 mm bore and 85 mm stroke (427 cm³ displacement) was presented. Two years later, engines with 2.3 or 4 cylinders were also supplied - with 80 mm bore and now 90 mm stroke - that is, with displacements of 904-1810 cm³. These engines delivered between 7 and 14 bhp (5.1-10.2 kW). In 1906 there were already 22 different engine models. The most important customer was Dennis Brothers.
1916 was u. a. also a German airship , the Schütte-Lanz SL 11 , equipped with a White & Poppe carburetor.
From 1902 to 1919 White & Poppe produced a total of 12,000 engines, 5000 of which were supplied to the main customer Dennis Brothers.
Motorcycle construction
From 1904 White & Poppe also offered its own motorcycle, which was equipped with a parallel twin of its own production. The engine with 498 cm³ displacement and an output of 5 bhp (3.7 kW), normally air-cooled, could also be equipped with water cooling for use in a tricycle.
With their motorcycle, which was still being built in small numbers until 1914, they were in part in competition with their engine customers.
Ammunition manufacture and takeover
During the First World War , White & Poppe manufactured ammunition components, primarily from aluminum. The workforce increased from 350 workers in 1914 to 12,000 workers in 1918, many of them women.
After the war ended, the White family sold their shares to their most important peacetime customer, Dennis Brothers. Since then, White & Poppe has been just a division of this company.
Further engine construction, shutdown and sale
In 1921 White & Poppe also brought out a small two-stroke engine . Until then, only four-stroke engines had been made. The main focus was on the construction of automotive engines, e.g. B. for the Morris Motor Company .
In 1922 Poppe left the company and moved to Rover as chief engineer .
In 1933, Dennis Brothers stopped building engines at White & Poppe and large parts of the factory were sold to Swallow Sidecars .