page_title: Robey & Co
section_title: Robey traction engines
hierarchical_section_title: Robey & Co / Robey’s Engineering Products / Robey traction engines
caption_attribution_description: Robey 'Express' steam tractor with the Robey pistol boiler. Steam rally, North West England (Kendal?), 1970s. Here named 'Pendle Knight', as part of the Tom Varley collection. Now re-named as 'Kernow Knight' [1]
context_page_description: Robey and Co. was an engineering company based in Lincoln, England which can be traced back to at least 1849.
  In 1854 Watkinson and Robey Engineers and Millwrights were manufacturing Portable Engines and machinery of every description in Rumbold Street, Lincoln. They were joined by George Lamb Scott, but in 1855 Watkinson, who had previously worked for Clayton & Shuttleworth of Lincoln, left the company. The business then became Robey and Scott and moved their premises by 1856 to Canwick Road, Lincoln. Another partner, Thomas Gamble, joined the firm and Scott resigned in September 1856 to found his own manufacturing company in Manchester. The company then became Gamble & Robey, but by 1868 was known as Robey & Co Ltd.
  Robert Robey died in 1876 and the firm continued as a partnership led by John Richardson. In 1893 Robey & Co became a limited company. By 1913 Robeys were makers of steam motor wagons, tractors and ploughs and in the First World War manufactured aircraft. The company was purchased by Babcock International in 1984.
context_section_description: Robeys were in the forefront of traction engine development. The idea that a portable engine could be converted to drive itself under its own power evolved around 1859. The traction engine, in the form recognisable today, developed partly from an experiment in 1859 when Thomas Aveling modified a Clayton & Shuttleworth portable to become self-propelled by fitting a long driving chain between the crankshaft and the rear axle. Lincoln manufacturers rapidly developed this idea. Robey's first design was to develop a traction engine steered by a man in front of the boiler. This was displayed at the International Exhibition of 1862 and the illustration shows the traction engine towing a thrashing machine. At the same Exhibition Benjamin Dutton Taplin who had an iron foundry by St Peter at Gowts in Lincoln, showed a traction engine of the form that became standard. Also in May that year a Traction engine described as Taplin, Robey and Co. was exhibited at the Bath and West Show. Taplin, who appears to have been too ambitious in the development of his business, had become insolvent at the end of May  and it seems likely  that  Robey had acquired  his stock in trade. Robeys continued to produce traction engines that could be steered by a man at the front and a traction engine of this type was exhibited by Robeys at Manchester in 1869. 
  By 1875  the Traction engine exhibited  at the Smithfield show was of the more conventional type and around 1879 Robey's made a number of Box's Patent Traction engines. Box's Patent engines had an ingenious device to raise the rear driving wheel  of the traction engine and these engines were used particularly for longer distance road transport. Robeys continued traction engine and steam tractor manufacturing well into the 20th. century.
caption: Robey steam tractor, Pendle Knight
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