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‘ I is as a natural con

21st December 1995
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Page 52, 21st December 1995 — ‘ I is as a natural con
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

sequence to the

increasing use of commercial motors, both at home and abroad, that 'THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR" makes its bow to the world. We enter the arena determined to support the highest traditions of class journalism, and to maintain ourselves and our charge in the front rank."

So wrote CM's first editor, E Shrapnel! Smith, in the first paragraph of the first page of the first issue, published on 16 March 1905. In a twopage leader, Shrapnel! Smith went on to proclaim grandly: 'THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR" is a missionary and educative medium. It has possession of records which show how success has been made to

attend users of the commercial motor in a great variety of trades and business." But, stressed Shrapnel! Smith sharply, prudence is vital to capturing that success: "We shall be guided by the rule that 'Economy is the planet round which all considerations do but revolve as satellites'."

After this stern lecture, readers could then leaf through the rest of the 24page issue to find features on camel and horse haulage in Southern Australia; Motor Fire Engines The Advantages of Petrol Over Steam; The Light Delivery Van Its Advantages over the HorseDrawn Vehicle and a profile of

Pick fords, in which excuses are offered some

what crossly for the paucity of illustration:" The photograph on the next page was taken at short notice in the middle of the day, otherwise many more would have been included."

In the profile a Pick fords director (unnamed) asserts that its conversion to motor vehicles has its limits: "We do not see, at present, that the one-horse van can be displaced in London for our tedious city and surburban rounds of street delivery."

Over the page in a celebrity interview the Hon Arthur Stanley MP ventures that the "time is ripe for such a jour

nal as 'THE COMMER CIAL MOTOR" and

congratulate you on your having taken up the editorship of a paper • which will be so useful to the industry." Perish the thought that E Shrapnell Smith, that principled fellow, was fishing for compliments here. But why interview Stanley at all? His father, the Earl of Derby, was, it seems, president of the Liverpool Self-Propelled Traffic Association.

So that was then. Many of the organisations and companies that we wrote about in those early days no longer exist but some are not only as old as CM but predate the magazine's launch by many years.

Over the next few pages we take a look at some of the operators and manufacturers that were around at CM's inception, including an update of the Pickfords story, a company which began with packhorses in the 17th century and, as far as we are aware, no longer runs horse vans in London, or anywhere else for that matter.

Tags

People: Shrapnel
Locations: Derby, London

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