Lucas Industries plc, now known as Lucas Automotive, is one of the world’s oldest continuously trading automotive brands, tracing its origins to 1875 and the first patent issued to its founder, Joseph Lucas.
Based originally in Birmingham, the company grew over the years into a manufacturer and supplier of automotive industry and aerospace industry components to vehicle and aerospace manufacturers around the world.
Lucas continues to operate as a recognised brand for automotive aftermarket products manufactured and distributed by exclusive agreements with established international partners. Lucas products are available in most countries and there are manufacturing plants located in Europe, South America, Tunisia, China, and other locations.
History
Foundation In the 1850s, Joseph Lucas, a jobless father of six, sold paraffin oil from a barrow around the streets of Hockley. In 1860, he went on to found the firm that would later become Lucas Industries. His 17-year-old son Harry joined the firm around 1872. At first the firm made general pressed metal merchandise, and later in 1875, they branched out into lamps for ships. Joseph Lucas & Son was based in Little King Street from 1882 and later Great King Street, Birmingham. The business of Joseph Lucas & Sons was incorporated into Joseph Lucas Ltd in 1897.
King of the Road
In 1879, Joseph’s son Harry designed an oil hub lamp for use on high wheel bicycles and christened it the ‘King of the Road’, which birthed a Lucas sub-brand. ‘King of the Road’ would come to be associated with the manufactured products of Lucas Companies, although its use was reserved for their most prestigious, and usually highest priced, electrical goods. The naming format lasted until the 1940s with the ‘King of the Road’ used profusely on communication material whilst product branding was limited to bicycle lamps and batteries.
In 1896, Joseph and Harry Lucas formed a joint-stock corporation with the New Departure Bell Co. of America in order to manufacture their bicycle lamps in America and thus avoid import duties.
The ‘King of the Road’ name is still used today on several products in the Lucas Classic parts programme.
1902 to World War I In 1902, Joseph Lucas Ltd started making automotive electrical components such as magnetos, alternators, windscreen wipers, horns, lighting, wiring and starter motors. It was in 1914, however, that the company's significant growth commenced when they won a contract to supply Morris Motors Limited with electrical equipment. During World War I Lucas manufactured shells and fuses, as well as electrical equipment for military vehicles. Lucas remained the principal supplier of magnetos, dynamos, alternators, switches and other electrical components to British manufacturers (such as BSA, Norton and Triumph) until the early 1970s.
UK general strike 1926 Thousands of workers belonging to Birmingham's Lucas electrical factory walked out and joined the 1926 United Kingdom general strike. Birmingham communist activist and trade union leader Jessie Eden, who was a volunteer union steward for the only section of unionised women in the factory, convinced the women to join the strike. The strike was depicted in the British crime drama Peaky Blinders.
1931 women's strike Jessie Eden again organised another strike of Lucas factory workers in 1931, this time leading 10,000 non-unionised women on a week-long strike, during which she joined the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Before the strike, Eden had noticed that Lucas factory supervisors had been closely observing her work, and that the supervisors were monitoring her because she was a fast worker and that they planned to use her work speed as a standard for all the other workers in the factory. Eden approached the Amalgamated Engineering Union; however, they did not allow women to join their membership so she instead approached the Transport & General Workers' Union (T&G). In protest to the factory's plans, Eden organised a mass walkout of 10,000 Lucas factory worker women, who refused to work for a week. The strike was successful and the Lucas Electrics factory management was forced to back down. After the victory, the overjoyed factory workers were so ecstatic that the factory could not function during normal hours and had to be closed early. One of the communist activists who had encouraged Eden was raised up upon the shoulders of factory workers at a dinner hour in celebration. This strike was described by the Trades Union Congress as "unprecedented at the time", and led to the T&G's leader (then Ernest Bevin) to award Jessie Eden with the union's Gold Medal. Eden's leadership and organisation of the Lucas Electronics factory strike prompted a massive increase in the number of women in the midlands joining British trade unions.
Post-World War I expansion After World War I, the firm expanded rapidly, branching out into products such as braking systems and diesel systems for the automotive industry and hydraulic actuators and electronic engine control systems for the aerospace industry. In 1926 they gained an exclusive contract with Austin. Around 1930, Lucas and Smiths established a trading agreement to avoid competition in each other's markets. During the 1920s and 1930s Lucas grew rapidly by taking over a number of their competitors such as Rotax and C.A.Vandervell (CAV).
World War II and after During World War II, Lucas was engaged by Rover to work on the combustion and fuel systems for the Whittle jet engine project, specifically making the burners. In about 1957Lucas Industries Vintage Semiconductors they started a semiconductor manufacturing plant to make rectifiers and transistors.
The company’s name was changed to Lucas Industries Ltd in 1975 and to Lucas Industries plc in 1982 when it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Lucas Plan (1976)
In 1976, the workforce within Lucas Aerospace were facing significant layoffs. Under the leadership of Mike Cooley, they developed the Lucas PlanWainwright, Hilary, The Lucas Plan, London: Allison & Busby, 1981, ; New York: Schocken Books, 1981, . to convert the company from arms to the manufacture of socially useful products, and save jobs. The plan was described at the time by the Financial Times as "one of the most radical alternative plans ever drawn up by workers for their company", and by Tony Benn as "one of the most remarkable exercises that have ever occurred in British industrial history". The Plan took a year to put together, consisted of six volumes of around 200 pages each, and included designs for 150 proposed items for manufacture, market analysis and proposals for employee training and restructuring the firm's work organisation.
The plan was not put into place but it is claimed that the associated industrial action saved some jobs.Doyle, Kevin, "1976: The fight for useful jobs at Lucas Aerospace", libcom.org, 13 September 2006. In addition, the Plan had an impact outside of Lucas Aerospace: according to a 1977 article in New Statesman, "the philosophical and technical implications of the plan (were) now being discussed on average of twenty-five times a week in international media". Workers in other companies subsequently undertook similar initiatives elsewhere in the UK, continental Europe, Australia and the United States, and the Plan was also supported by and influenced the work of radical scientists such as the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science and community, peace and environmental activists through spreading the idea of encouraging socially useful production. The Plan's proposals also had an influence on the economic development strategies of a number of Labour councils, for example, the West Midlands, Sheffield, Cleveland and the Greater London Council, where Cooley was appointed Technology Director of the Greater London Enterprise Board after being sacked by Lucas in 1981.
Factory automation and lighting In 1987, the Lucas Research Centre in Shirley, Birmingham, developed a flexible automatic assembly system designed to manufacture a range of multi-variant automobile headlamps. The system was subsequently implemented at the division's Cannock Headlamp Factory.
LucasVarity (1996) In August 1996, Lucas Industries plc merged with the North American Varity Corporation to form LucasVarity plc. Its specific history is covered on the LucasVarity page but for the sake of continuity key aspects of the old Lucas business histories to date, particularly that referring to CAV and Lucas Diesel Systems are still included here.Holusha, John, "2 Automotive Part Makers Agree to Merge", New York Times, 9 June 1996.
Acquisitions and agreements Lucas also acquired many of its British competitors:
CAV CAV Ltd. was headquartered in Acton, London making diesel fuel injection equipment for diesel engine manufacturers worldwide and electrical equipment for commercial and military vehicles.
The company was formed by Charles Anthony Vandervell (1870–1955), making accumulators, electric carriage lamps, and switchboards in Willesden.
In 1904, the firm moved to Warple Way, Acton. The firm pioneered the dynamo-charged battery principle and in 1911 it produced the world's first lighting system used on a double-decker bus. By 1918 1,000 employees were making vehicle electrics and aircraft magnetos. Wireless components were also made from 1923.
In 1926 CAV was bought by Lucas. In 1931, CAV in partnership with Robert Bosch, became CAV-Bosch Ltd and began making fuel injection pumps for the diesel industry and later fuel systems for aircraft. Lucas bought Bosch's interest out in 1937 and it became CAV Ltd in 1939. In 1978 the company's name became Lucas CAV. In 1980 the Acton factory employed around 3,000 people making heavy-duty electric equipment for commercial vehicles, by this time high volume diesel fuel injection manufacturing had been relocated to larger modern factories in Kent, Suffolk, Gloucestershire, and many countries throughout the world. Acton continued to make low volume specialist pumps for the military and for Gardner engines.
The electrical business was sold to US company Prestolite Electric in 1998 and remained at Acton until relocating to nearby Greenford in 2005.
The diesel fuel injection equipment research, engineering, and manufacturing business known in later years as Lucas Diesel Systems Ltd continue at all of the worldwide sites (with the exception of those in Japan and South Carolina, US, which had closed by this time) and since 2000 has been owned by Delphi, a US-domiciled automotive parts and systems manufacturer. The name has been changed to Delphi, and the business is a major part of the Delphi Powertrain Division.
Worldwide diesel fuel injection business sites: England - Gillingham, Kent; Park Royal, London; Stonehouse, Gloucestershire. France - Blois and La Rochelle. Brazil - São Paulo. Mexico - Saltillo. Spain - Sant Cugat, Barcelona. Turkey - İzmir. India - Mannure, Chennai. Korea - Changwon, Busan.
Butlers Limited Butlers Limited formed as a family business of brassfounders at Small Heath, Birmingham, and developed as an important manufacturer and supplier of motor vehicle lamps.
In 1948, at the time of its acquisition by Lucas, 60 per cent of Butler's production was represented by its sales of lamps of various types to Ford Motor Company and Vauxhall Motors and to Simms (who resold the lamps to heavy vehicle manufacturers) for use as initial equipment.