John R kindly sent this photograph over, recently discovered in a family album. It features a line-up of Police motor vehicles, including a pair of Albion lorries. The righthand lorry appears to have a wire mesh fitted over the screen area, an early example of riot protection perhaps? The photo probably dates to the 1920s, although the lorries could be a little earlier - the overall shape looks similar to a c1917 A10 model I've seen on the Albion Register website. John adds:
"The photograph shows the Staffs County Police MT fleet, maybe all of it for all I know, and looks to be in the 1920s and maybe was taken in The Friars in Stafford, but that's a guess.
The vehicle with four wheels is an Albion lorry, what I think is another Albion lorry with screens up to prevent damage from thrown objects, and a Model T Ford. Another ex-Staffs copper I know said that the police used to live in "tied cottages" or single men in the barracks at that time, and that the lorries were used for moving the furniture and effects of policemen who were transferred to different locations, and often the first thing that the man knew about his transfer was when the lorry turned up to move him! I don't know if that's 100%, and the gear on the right hand lorry suggests that it was used to move squads of policemen about into scenes of disturbance.
I have seen similarly equipped cars and trucks in old photos of the general strike in 1926, and bearing in mind the number of coal mines in Staffordshire then that could be why E6736 is so fitted."
Two original letters issued by the Albion Motor Car Company Ltd in 1929 can be found on this page, within the motoring collectables section of OCC.
Albion lorry & PSV photo collection.
A wide selection of Albion photos, featuring vehicles of the early 1910s through to the 1970s, are to be found in the following photo video.
Pre-war lorries photo collection.
In the following collection, 80 photos of mainly preserved pre-war lorries (British, American etc) are to be found. In addition to vehicles spotted in recent years, I've included a number of vintage b&w photos from the early days of lorry driving.
Custom Search
Old Classic Car (C) R. Jones 2023. Content not to be reproduced elsewhere.
