Crane Makers to the World 1939 - 1959

Coincidentally, the history of the Steel Group (now called the Coles Cranes Group), of which Henry J. Coles Limited became part in 1939, dates back like Coles to 1879. In that year Lancelot Steel established a builder's merchant's business in Sunderland. The company grew rapidly so that by the turn of the century it was one of the largest concerns of its kind in northern England. During the first half of the present century the company continued its growth, expanding into heating and ventilation engineering and, in the 1930s, into industrial catering equipment.

By then the company was being run by John Eric Steel and his brother James, grandsons of the founder. In 1937 Steel and Co. became a public company with an issued share capital of 1220,000.

It was John Eric Steel's stated intention to bring to Sunderland heavy engineering which was not connected with shipbuilding. In 1939 the first steps towards the achievement of this aim were taken with the acquisition of Henry J. Coles Limited and, almost immediately afterwards, with the purchase of the Egis shipyard on the banks of the River Wear at Pallion, Sunderland. The shipyard was renamed Crown Works (in deference to the amount of Government work which the expanded group was under- taking) and crane manufacture began almost immediately.

Crown Works has grown in the years since 1939 to become the biggest crane manufacturing plant in Europe. However, in the early years cranes shared manufacturing facilities with a veritable cornucopia of manufactured products, including catering equipment, overhead cranes and pulley blocks, fireplaces, batteries, neon lights, electric vehicles, agricultural machinery, snowploughs, anchors and anchor chains, screw jacks and heating and ventilating equipment!

In 1943 most of these products were joined under an umbrella company, Steels Engineering Products Limited. The Coles product name was retained (although there was a suggestion, rapidly rejected, to rename the products `Steel Cranes') but Henry J. Coles Limited disappeared as a separate entity.

Through the success of the EMA orders obtained during the late 1930s, the British forces came to standardise on Coles cranes throughout the Second World War. Production grew at an enormous rate so that by 1945 some months saw the output of close on 100 cranes leaving the Sunderland factory. These were almost all EMA superstructures mounted on a variety of proprietary chassis including Austin, AEC, Leyland, Crossley, Diamond T, Ford and, perhaps most famous of all, Thorneycroft. These chassis were supplied by the War Department and the workforce at Crown Works strengthened and adapted them before mounting the superstructures.

This success was not, however, without its penalties. For one thing, the standardisation (which in 1943, was formalised in a government directive) in the design of the cranes prevented any development which was not completely in keeping with military requirements. Thus it was possible in 1942 to develop probably the world's first crash recovery crane, but it was not possible to extend the capacity range beyond the 6-tons which was the limit of military requirements. Apart from projects related to military work, developments were largely limited to improved manu featuring techniques and materials, developments which instilled into the fabric of the crane making organisation characteristics which it retains to this day.

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