So this was the next step in the road-going technology from a steam-locomotive pulling a ‘train’ of three wagons.The first internal combustion-engined vehicle owned by Archer Cowley & Co. An ex-army and ex-Great War (1914-1918) lorry, converted for civilian use, or perhaps just made and purchased new for such use, in 1922, four years after the war ended. 1922 was three years after William GR Archer (WGRA) joined his uncle James in the business, in 1919, and joined also Uncle James’s partners, Messrs Cowley and Rippington. And 1922 was four years before my dad, Fred Archer (FGBA) joined in 1926 his father in the Archer Cowley & Co business, age 21, from Mr George Blake’s house-furnishing shop, in which they both had been working. So this vehicle (and, I suspect) several others similar or identical to it, though that awaits further investigation, was probably the ‘work-horse’ of the business for some years from 1922 until the first more modern design vehicle (eg with ‘cab-over-engine’ layout), perhaps from Messrs Dennis, was purchased in the 1930s or 1940s. There are numerous other vehicle shots in this album which will fill that gap.
It looks as though this shot was taken in Park End Place, the short cut-de-sac alongside the Park End Street offices, at the west end (nearest the GWR station) of the Archer Cowley premises there. And the van is on solid rubber tyres, like the steam Foden lorry that it replaced, no doubt in accordance with WW1 practice, with no accommodation for comfort or cushioning, and everything being directed towards durability and reliability, in line with steam and railway technical design, which had, until now, led the way in terms of transport system progress and design advance.
Visually, it is clear that it was this van had design features in common with the vans which were photographed hard at work at a customer’s premises in one or two graphics already on this website, presumably in the 1920s or 1930s. Click here to go to one of those shots. They were clearly updates of this design with, inter-alia, pneumatic tyres.