Peter Brotherhood

In 1867 before he had reached the age of 30 Peter became a partner in the engineers and millwrights business of Kittoe and Brotherhood in Clerkenwell when their main product was brewing machinery.[1] A restored Kittoe and Brotherhood beam engine of 1867 can be seen at the Coldharbour Mill museum in Devon - it was originally supplied to the Whitechapel Albion brewery.

Kittoe retired in 1871 and the firm became Peter Brotherhood.

Brotherhood radial engine

After Kittoe's retirement this firm mainly produced machines of Peter Brotherhood's own invention, in particular from 1872 the Brotherhood 3-cylinder 120 degrees radial engine which could be powered by steam, water or compressed air at high speed and in perfect balance. Put to many uses it drove the Navy's Whitehead torpedoes and was used in the torpedoes of other navies as well.[1] Fans, dynamos and other high speed machines were directly driven by this engine.[2]

In 1881 the business was moved to Belvedere Road, Lambeth.[1]

Generating set of MS Batory 1936

Products 1

The radial engine led not only to fans dynamos etc. but eventually to the manufacture of steam turbines, internal combustion engines and heavy oil and Diesel engines specially the Brotherhood-Ricardo high-speed heavy oil engine.[2]

In 1903 Peter's only surviving son, Stanley (1880–1938), previously general manager for his father, moved the works from the Lambeth premises taken in 1881 to Peterborough where it continues as Peter Brotherhood Limited.[2]

Brotherhood 20-25 landaulette 1905

Peterbro tractor with a complicated but powerful paraffin engine designed by Ricardo

Peter Brotherhood Limited made cars in Lambeth then, unable to get consent for a car factory in Peterborough, moved their manufacture to Tinsley in Yorkshire before they withdrew from that venture in 1906. They continued to make heavy agricultural tractors. From late 1906 the cars were named Sheffield-Simplex.[3] Brotherhood's backer Fitzwilliam of Milton near Peterborough and Wentworth Woodhouse near Tinsley took over the car business naming it for Sheffield the nearby town and the operational simplicity of his very expensive cars.

Stanley Brotherhood was a director then chairman of Humber Limited until it merged with Hillman Motor Company and came under the control of Rootes Group in 1929.[4][5][6]

A private limited liability company was incorporated to own the Peter Brotherhood business on 16 December 1907. In 1920 it joined the engineering combine Agricultural & General Engineers or AGE[7] however AGE sold its 70 per cent share of Peter Brotherhood in late 1930[8] before AGE collapsed in 1932.[9] On 29 June 1937 Peter Brotherhood became a public company[2] and was listed on the London Stock Exchange a few days later.[10]

Products 2

In June 1937 Peter Brotherhood's products included: high and low pressure compressors, compressors for torpedo service, torpedo tubes, Brotherhood high speed forced lubrication steam engines, steam turbines, turbo-generators, high speed diesel engines, oil and gas engines, refrigerating compressors, pumps, water cooling towers, filtering plants, fans, dynamometers, pressure gauge testing and other precision instruments.[2]

Before the company went public in 1937 contracts had been undertaken for more than 60 years for H M Government and numerous Dominion and foreign governments and many of the principal industrial, shipping, and utility enterprises in and beyond the United Kingdom including: London County Council, Metropolitan Water Board, Gas Light and Coke Co, Imperial Chemical Industries, Union Cold Storage, Burmah Oil, Anglo-Iranian Oil, LNER railway, LMS railway, P & O.[2]