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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

MIRRLEES,BICKERTON & DAY. LTD


ralphjd

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A friend of mine has emailed me an image that appears on the back cover of a book he has. It is in the shape of an elongated diamond and has the following around the edges " Mirrlees,Bickerton & Day, Ltd War Service Nov 11th 1918" Inset within the diamond is an image of a male WW1 tank.They apparantly produced a diesel engine for the new invention, the tank.Any member any idea if this was just a logo for the firm or a war service badge for the employees ? Regards. Ralph.

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Can't help with the logo but here is a good photo I have of a Mirrlees tank engine (taken from a friend's photo album of testing of variable steering on Mark IV & Mark VII tanks at Redbraes, Scotland

Rgds

C.

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Ralph,

I note from the Internet that Mirrlees Blackstone are still trading in Stockport.I remember the Company from working in Stockport in the 1970's.

Worth contacting the Company to see if they can shed any light on the logo/badge?

George

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Hi Gwyn

Some years ago a local friend (Bill Wallace) showed me an old photo album he had from his engineer

father which contained what I thought were some unique and interesting photos of the development of a hydraulic drive and steering based on the Williams Janney Variable Delivery Gear.

The design was intended to keep the engine running at constant speed as motive power was delivered via this hydraulic system. I think it also allowed for both tracks to be steered centrally. The test bed the Mark VII tank and it was put through its paces in 1917 at Brown Bros Engineering in Edinburgh.

This mechanism was never introduced in the field- not sure of the reasons, maybe the end of the war was in sight by the time it may been put into production.

I passed the album of photos to the IWM who copied them for their archives. I also sent a copy of the photos to the Tank Museum at Bovington as I believe some of the testing of various engineering of (later Sir) William Wallace's designs took place mainly using the Mark IV tank. I can send you an article I wrote some time ago on this tank testing which also has some of the photos. I can email you the photos.

In the meantime I hope attached is an image showing one of the testing phases at Rosebank in Scotland (Dec 1917)

Regards

Christopher

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Hi Crickhollow

Your post is intriguing. Are you able to tell us more about this please?

Gwyn

I have just remembered that I wrote an article that was called ' The Mark VII Tank: Experiments with Hydraulic Drive' published in Stand To! , Number 78, January 2007 (pp28-29).

It has a number of photos which you might find interesting- if you can source a copy.

Christopher

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Christopher,

I too would be very interested to read a copy of the article. If I sent you a PM would you be able to send a copy to me also?

Thanks

Tanks3

Yes, happy to do so.

Rgds

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