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The Coles Brothers began making cranes in the workshop of Appleby Bros after Appleby they moved to larger premises, this was in Sumner Street, Southwark, London. Here they built many different types of crane most were steam rail cranes. The business expanded and needing more space moved to a new site adjoining the Great Northern Railway in Derby. Here they made a variety of rail cranes some reaching a lift capacity of 40 tons.

In 1913 came Coles first petrol driven rail crane followed by the first fully mobile crane in 1922. This was a two toner mounted on a Tilling-Stevens petrol-electric chassis

In 1936 the Air Ministry ordered a couple of mobile slewing cranes then in 1937 the ministry awarded Coles an order for 82 more. More government orders followed and continued through the war years. This basic crane unit was fitted to many different lorry chassis. By this time Coles had moved to Sunderland and the bugger Crown works where they a hundred of the EMA units a month.

With the end of the war Coles did not have any cranes big enough for civilian use, also hundreds of EMA units were sold off by the military. Coles began to develop bigger cranes. A twenty toner was available in 1950 using AEC components wherever possible followed by the 41 ton Colossus in 1954, the largest truck crane in the world, on Coles' own 8 X 4 chassis.

With the end of the war Coles did not have any cranes big enough for civilian use, also hundreds of EMA units were sold off by the military. Coles began to develop bigger cranes. A twenty toner was available in 1950 using AEC components wherever possible followed by the 41 ton Colossus in 1954, the largest truck crane in the world, on Coles' own 8 X 4 chassis.

In 1959 Coles took over F.Taylor and R.H.Neal. Taylors had developed a hydraulic crane, using the experience of these two companies and with their own design team Coles came up with a small 7 ton hydraulic crane. This was such a success they quickly followed up with designs for 17 and 30 ton hydraulic cranes.

In 1963 Coles, still developing the heavy lift strut cranes broke the 100 ton barrier with the Centurion. This was followed in 1971 by the 250 ton Colossus.

In 1972 the Acrow Group bought out the Coles crane business along with Priestmans of Hull. The crane division was was invested in and millions of pounds was put into new facilities. 1978 saw the launch of the new general purpose Hydramobile 911 made at a new factory in Darlington.

Competition was building from overseas however and by 1984 Receivers were called in as Acro went into bankruptcy. This was due to problems with Acro investments however and not lack of sales in the crane division.

Grove cranes of America took over the crane division from Acro and re named the group Grove Coles. They began to slim down the whole operation. Despite the fact that the Coles name still appeared on some of the latest cranes until the eighties it was in fact in name only the Coles era was over.

Grove itself was taken over and what was left of Coles was sold several more times untill in 1998 the final 670 employees were laid off from the Crown works at Sunderland.

The Coles name in cranes was finally lost.

For the full story of Coles see the `Coles 100 years' section in the history menu.