Mann and Charlesworth
In January 1894 James Hutchinson Mann formed a partnership with Sidney Charlesworth under the title Mann and Charlesworth. Their works were in Canning Street, off Dewsbury Road, Leeds. This company manufactured traction engines, stationary engines and road rollers. One of their notable inventions was the single eccentric reversing gear. This compact device allowed the sequence of valve opening of a steam engine to be changed, both in terms of “cut-off” and “direction” without the need for link motion and all the associated levers.
1898 Mann and Charlesworth produced, on behalf of Philip Parmiter, an agricultural steam cart using the front end of a conventional traction engine and a roller at the rear. This was one of the first practical, load-carrying road vehicles. Mann realised the potential for this machine and went on to develop this into his “Patent Steam Cart” – to which the title of the successor company referred.
1898 Charlesworth left the partnership
1899 In September the company was reformed as Mann's Patent Steam Cart and Wagon Co