Wolseley 6/90 Series I- Series II- Series III
1954 -1956 - SERIES I - Car Number 501 - 6801
Determining British Car/Chassis number divisions for various Marks and or Series can be sketchy at best. Post war British Automobile manufacturers used parts left over from previous models, ran out of some and replaced with what was available, or brought in changes mid model.
The 6/90 during its build dates 1954 to 1959 was divided into three Series for various reasons. Poor handling with its original rear spring setup, an interesting, but disliked 'formica' facia rather then wood and small rear window were some of the characteristics of Series I
Improved handling, floor gear shift, and and revised interior marked the Series II
The Series III introduced the larger rear window and power assisted brakes
Car Numbers are approximate and based on the part number changes found in the Wolseley Parts Catalogue Series I/II/III
1956 -1957 - SERIES II - Car number 6802 -7701
1957 -1959 - SERIES III- Car Number 7702 - To End of Production
| Item | Chassis/Car Number | Chassis/Car Number | Chassis/Car Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheese grate speaker | Up to 6755 | .......... | .......... |
| Coil Arm Suspension | Up to 6758 | .......... | .......... | Column Gear Shift | Up to 6758 | .......... | .......... | Floor Gear Shift | .......... | From 6758 | .......... | Two Spoke Wheel | Up to 6801 | .......... | .......... | Three Spoke Wheel | .......... | From 6801 | .......... | Formica Facia | Up to 6801 | .......... | .......... | Wood Facia | .......... | From 6801 | .......... | Small Rear Window | .......... | Up to 7701 | .......... | Large Rear Window | .......... | .......... | From 7701 | Power Assist Brakes | .......... | .......... | from 7701 |
Frederick York Wolseley - 1837-1899
WOLSELEY, FREDERICK YORK (1837-1899), inventor, was born at Kingstown, County Dublin, Ireland, on 16 March 1837, second son of Major Garnet Joseph Wolseley and his wife Frances Anne, née Smith; his elder brother Garnet became Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley. He arrived in Melbourne in July 1854 in the Norwood and went to Thule sheep station on the Murray River. Here he worked for his brother-in-law Ralston Caldwell for five years before acquiring an interest in Thule and Cobram stations; by 1871 he had Toolong in the Murrumbidgee District. Financed by Garnet, about 1868 he began experiments on a machine for shearing sheep and by 1872 had evolved a working model which removed at least part of a fleece. He then visited England, Ireland, and possibly the United States of America, and on his return in 1874 resumed experiments in Melbourne with R. P. Park.
In 1876 Wolseley bought Euroka station, near Walgett in New South Wales; next year he joined the Union Club in Sydney. In the 1880s he was a sheep director for Walgett and in 1883 was involved in litigation over the ownership of Rosebank station. He continued testing his machine at Euroka and on 28 March 1877 he and R. Savage were granted a patent for a shearing device driven by horse power. A second patent was granted in December, but there were serious problems with the drive mechanism and physical limitations on the shearer's movements. On 13 December 1884 he and Park patented an 'Improved Shearing Apparatus' which included a cog-gear universal joint. In 1885 Wolseley bought the rights of John Howard's horse-clipper and engaged him as a mechanic at Euroka at £3 per week. Howard made several improved machines which worked so well during the 1885 season that Wolseley went to Melbourne and to form a manufacturing company and to arrange for public demonstrations, pitting the machine against the blades. Similar displays took place at Sydney and Euroka in 1886: Hassan Ali, a Khartoum native, used the appliance and Dave Brown was the blade-shearer. It proved superior and after William Ryley's suggestions for improving the hand-piece were adopted, the Wolseley machine was widely demonstrated in eastern Australia and New Zealand in 1887-88. In 1888 (Sir) Samuel McCaughey's shed at Dunlop, Louth, New South Wales, was the first to complete a shearing with machines. That year eighteen other woolsheds were fitted with the invention.
In 1889 Wolseley went to England and set up the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Co. Pty Ltd in Birmingham and engaged Herbert (later Baron) Austin as foreman in his workshops at Goldsbrough, Mort & Co. Ltd, in Melbourne. Austin improved the overhead gear and in 1893 went to Birmingham as production manager. Wolseley resigned the managing-directorship for health reasons in 1894, and next year Austin designed and made the first Wolseley motor car.
Handsome, likeable and well built, Wolseley lacked practical mechanical experience and had to rely on others, but he was inventive and, above all, persevering; he has the honour of inventing the shearing machine which revolutionized the wool industry in Australia. He died of cancer at 20 Belvedere Road, Penge, London, on 8 January 1899 and was buried in Elmers End cemetery, Norwood, London. He left a widow but no family.
In 1901 Vickers Sons and Maxim Ltd took over the machine tool and motor side of the Wolseley works trading as the Wolseley Tool & Motor Car Co. Ltd. Austin was general manager until 1905 when he started the Austin Motor Co.
Herbert Austin - 1866 -1941
Herbert 'PA' Austin, 1st Baron Austin KBE was an English automobile designer and builder.
He was born in Little Missenden, the son of a farmer in Buckinghamshire, but the family moved to Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire in 1870 when his father was appointed farm bailiff. Herbert Austin first went to the village school, later continuing his education at Rotherham Grammar School.
In 1884 he emigrated to Australia, with an uncle, on his mother's side, who lived in Melbourne, Australia, but had recently returned to England on a family visit. They travelled to Australia by ship, via the Cape.
He initially started work with his uncle, who was Works Manager at a general engineering firm, Mephan Ferguson, in north Melbourne. However, after two years he left and joined another company, called Cowen, who were agents for printing equipment and Crossley gas engines. After that he worked for Longlands Foundry Company in Melbourne, which made locomotive boilers and wheels and mining equipment for gold mining.
He also attended Hothan Art School in Melbourne, to continue his interest in drawing.
He met and married his wife, Helen Dron, in Melbourne. Herbert and Helen were married on 26 December 1887 and bought a house in Melbourne. They had a son Vernon, who was killed in 1915 whilst serving in First World War and two daughters, Irene (born in 1891) and Zoe.
Three days before they were married he left the Longlands Foundry Company, to work as manager of an engineering workshop, owned by Richard Pick-up Parks, who had developed a new sheep-shearing machine for Fredrick York Wolseley.
After spending three months improving the sheep-shearing machine, Herbert Austin was asked to join the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company, founded in 1887, in Sydney. Austin had patented the improvements he had made to the sheep shearing machines in his own name, but sold the patents to the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company on 10 March 1893 in exchanges for shares.
He returned to England with Frederick Wolseley, docking at Tilbury in November 1893.
Wolseley, had closed down the Sydney-based company and transferred it to a company registered in London. Wolseley set up a factory in Broad Street, Birmingham, where Austin became Manager. Fredrick Wolseley resigned from the company in 1894. The Broad Street factory was not large enough so Austin bought a bigger one in Aston, Birmingham. During slack periods in the year they built bicycles.
Becoming interested in motor cars Austin built two different types in his own time. A version of one of these was taken up by the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company and listed for sale in 1900. In 1901 Vickers bought out the car interests of Wolseley to form the Wolseley Tool & Motor Company and Austin moved to the new company, in Adderley Park, Birmingham, but was allowed to continue working part-time for the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company. He was Chairman of the Board of the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company from 1911 to 1933.
In 1905 Austin resigned from the Wolseley Tool & Motor Company taking some of the senior staff with him. His brother Harry also joined him in this new venture, having worked with him at Wolseley in Birmingham. Austin raised capital of £37,000 and embarked on a search of a factory that could accommodate his idea for a new car manufacturer. He took over an old print works, outside Birmingham, in Longbridge, which was then in the County of Worcestershire, Longbridge did not became a suburb of Birmingham until 1911 when the city's boundaries were expanded.
Austin was producing 17 different models by 1908. The company turned its resources to the war effort in 1914.
The Austin car works at Longbridge were later to become one of the greatest car manufacturers in the world.
GERALD MARLEY PALMER -1911- 1999
Gerald Palmer, who died in June '99 at the age of 88, was a designer par excellence. Known to M.G. enthusiasts as the creator of the ZA Magnette and an important influence in the Y-type, his achievements also included a number of BMC‘s cars of the 1950s as well as, and perhaps most importantly, the Jowett Javelin, which he created from the ground up, and which demonstrated that function and utility need not be at the expense of style and performance.
He was born in 1911 and spent his childhood in Southern Rhodesia, where his father was a railway engineer. By the age of 16 he had made a rakish two seat boat-tailed body tor the family‘s old Model-T Ford before being despatched to England to start an engineering apprenticeship with the conmnercial vehicle manufacturer, Scammell.
While at Scammell, Palmer was privately commissioned to create a unique sports car for the racing driver, Joan Richmond, and thus was born the Deroy. With independent suspension front and rear, the Deroy was in many respects well ahead of its time, and it served as an important influence on Palmers life. Seeking to get into the mainstream of the motor industry, he went for an interview with Cecil Kimber at MG. He drove to Abingdon in the Deroy, which clearly impressed the great man. This resulted in the offer of a job in charge of M.G. work at the Morris drawing office in Cowley, where the Y-Type was under development.
With the onset of war, car production ceased and Palmer became involved with the manufacture of Tiger Moth trainers and the repair of Spitfires. Then in 1942 he moved to become chief designer with the Jowett Car Co. in Bradford, where he was responsible for one of the first new post-war cars, the brilliant Javelin, launched in 1946.
The Javelin's‘s innovative features were received with much acclaim by the industry, which resulted in Palmer being offered the job of designer for the new range of MG., Riley and Wolseley saloons back at Cowley in 1949. His work reflected the strong influence of italian designers in the industry at the time, and his interpretation of this theme, seen first in the Wolseley 4/44 and shortly afterwards in the M.G. ZA Magnette (which was dasigned first), produced some of the most elegant cars of the decade.
Palmer was made chief engineer of BMC and a director of the company in 1952, but in 1955, having seen the introduction of the new Riley Pathfinder and Wolseley 6/90 models, he became a victim of the internal politics of the BMC group at the time and was dismissed by its mercinal chairman, Leonard Lord. He subsequently joined Vauxhall Motors, and the team responsible for the Viva and Victor ranges, before retiring in 1972.
But Palmer was much more than a car designer. During the war, his talents were tumed to the production of the Oxford Vaporiser, a portable anaesthetic apparatus for use in the field of battle, versions of which rernain in use today. Then after his retirement from the motor industry, he was responsible for the creation of the Oxford Hoist, an apparatus for assisting disabled people that is still widely used both in the UK and around the world. And in addition to his designer talents, Palmer was true motoring enthusiast. He restored and competed in the 2-litre Mercedes-Benz that won the 1924 Targa Florio, as well as a T44 Bugatti.
In recent years Palmer attended a number of gatherings organised by the M.G.C.C Z- Magnette Register, and more than
once expressed surprise at the amount of interest and enthusiasm still shown for his cars. Particularly memorable was the 1996 event, when the five Palmer-designed cars -an M.G. Magnette ZA, a Wolseley 4/44 and 6/90, a Riley Pathfinder and a Jowett Javelin - were brought together in a display for the first time.
Gerald Palmer will be remembered for his courtesy and thoughtfulness. He was an extremely modest man and appeared unconcerned that his talents were eclipsed in the public eye by those of Alec Issigonis, who succeeded him at BMC. lt was only when Christopher Balfour began to assist him in writing his autobiography that many of his past achievements were revealed for a wider audience to appreciate. The book was published in 1998 and its title, Auto—Architect, is a true reflection of the life's work of a real professional whose creations continue to bear witness to his talents.
Written by
Warren Marsh and Paul Batho (M.G. Z-MAGNETTE REGISTER)