Death of Mr. Henry Spurrier
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(IN March 4, the manufacturing side
of the commercial-vehicle industry lost one of its best-known figures in the person of Mr. Henry Spurrier,. the first and only managing director of Leyland Motors, Ltd. It was with the greatest regret that we heard this news, for Harry Spurrier was a most cheerful and likeable man, a born engineer and a good sportsman, with a great interest in yachting. He was an excellent host and took an almost fatherly interest in his staff, workers and customers. Since the war he •had greatly missed his relaxations from the strain of business responsibility, whilst the comparatively recent loss of his brother, Arthur, also a director, came as a shock to him, but few realized that he was in his seventyfifth year.
He came from an old Derbyshire family, and his father was the founder of the Manchester firm of Spurrier and Glazebrook. After his education at Uppingham and the completion of his apprenticeship, he worked on a railway in Florida, and later enjoyed an adventurous life for some years in the Canadian North-West.
In 1894 he acquired the interest of his brother George in the Stott Company, and, with James Sumner, started one of the earliest Steam-wagon-manufacturing businesses in the country. The site was a blacksmith's shop in Leyland, and the first product—a steam wagon—of the Lancashire Steam Wagon Co., as the concern was named, appeared in 1896. Many followed, but then the petrol engine was introduced. Despite this, the demand for the steam wagon continued until a few years after the 1914-18 war, when Mr. Harry foresaw the advantages possessed by the oil engine. He was amongst the first to produce a satisfactory unit of this type, and claimed to be the first to have applied pneumatic tyres to double deck buses.
His son, the third of the name to be a director of the company, continues the family interest in the concern.