Herbert Churchill Capel (1862-1899) of Capel and Co and Clarkson and Capel Steam Car Syndicate
204 Amhurst Road, Hackney.
Engineer of Capel and Co, engineers of Dalston.
1900 died of Typhoid Fever.
1900 Obituary [1]
HERBERT CHURCHILL CAPEL was born at Capelton, Canada, on 5th July 1862; and was educated at the Home and Colonial Schools, King's Cross, London, and also by private tutors.
In 1879 he was employed at the works of the Sun Gas Machine Co., Southwark Street, London, and later at Messrs. Weston Brothers, brass finishers, Hatton Garden, London.
He served his apprenticeship with Messrs. Head, Wrightson, and Co., Stockton-on-Tees, and with Messrs. Ladd and Co., American baling-press engineers, London; and in 1882 went to the United States to superintend the design and construction of larger presses.
In 1883 he returned to London, and became engineering assistant and draughtsman to the same firm. While with them he designed the perpetual hay and straw-baling presses and the automatic peat-baling machinery afterwards made by this firm.
He became works manager in 1886, which position he held until the patents were sold in 1890, when the works were closed.
In 1890 he started in business in London, trading as Messrs. Capel and Co., engineers and gas-engine manufacturers, and in 1895 new works were erected in Dalston, and equipped for the production of gas and oil engines on the American system of manufacture. These works have been added to recently.
In 1896 he commenced a series of experiments jointly with Mr. Thomas Clarkson in connection with steam-propelled vehicles, and in 1898 he designed and built a petrol motor vehicle.
In 1899 he visited the United States with Mr. Clarkson, where they negotiated the sale of the American rights of their various patents relating to oil burners, generators, and coolers for steam motor cars, etc.
After his return home he became ill, first with influenza and later with typhoid fever, to which he succumbed on 31st December 1899, at the age of thirty-seven.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1899.