Accles & Pollock

Accles & Pollock is a British tube manipulation company based in Oldbury, West Midlands.

The company started out life at Holford Mill in Birmingham and later moved to near by Oldbury and always listed itself as being in 'Oldbury, Birmingham'.

A&P was Britains other lightweight bicycle tubing manufacturer with the more famous Reynolds, of 531 renown. Many leading bike builders in the UK during the 1930s, 40s and 50s preferred to use A&P as it was air hardening, unlike the maganese based Reynolds product which was not. Air-hardening tubesets actually become stronger when brazed, unlike the normal steel tubing sets, such as 531, which are weakened by heating. Air hardening products were not introduced by Reynolds until well into the late 90s and are now being marketed to cyclists as the latest thing in steel. Accles and Pollock Kromo tubing was used by Hobbs of Barbican, Rattrays of Glasgow "The Flying Scot" and Thanet in their "Silverlight" model.

External links

• Company website
• Hobbs of Barbican A&P endorsement
• Hobbs of Barbican: The Strength is in the Spine on MyByk

History

• 1901 The general engineering company of James George Accles was renamed Accles & Pollock after receiving financial backing from Thomas Pollock
• 1901 Pollock Engineering Company acquire the rights to make the Accles-Turrell car.
• 1910 Accles & Pollock built the world's first all-metal aircraft, the Mayfly, in their Oldbury factory, using a steel tubing structure
• 1913 Accles & Pollock granted a patent for seamless tapered steel golf shafts.
• 1919 The company was purchased by Tube Investments (TI)
• 1987 Golf club shaft manufacturing becomes a separate subsidiary, TI Apollo.
• 1996 TI sold the company to the Hay Hall Group
• 1998 Sold to the Senior Engineering Group
• 1999 Acquired by Tyco International
• 2001 Ceased tube manufacturing
• 2004 Acquired by Caparo