| Introduction The
source of these pages, which were produced in 2001, is an
historical account of Tractor Spares Limited, written by
the late Charles Weight, mainly as notes for his family. There are a
number of reasons why the company is historically important.
Firstly, it is an engineering company which has survived and
prospered when many other similar companies have long disappeared.
Secondly, it illustrates how a company can prosper due to the dynamism and
entrepreneurial ability of its leaders. Thirdly, before it became
Tractor Spares in 1940 it was the
Briton Motor Car Company, and is therefore the inheritor of an
important part of Wolverhampton’s motor industry. And finally, the company acquired
areas of industrial wasteland in Wolverhampton, and re-developed
them as new industrial estates, which
provided homes for Tractor Spares, and many
other companies.
Tractor Spares Limited is the company which represents the core
business of the Weight enterprises, which includes or included many
other wholly or partly owned companies, and many associated
companies. One of them, for example, was SEBCO.
The tractors with which the company is mainly concerned,
include, in a minor way, agricultural tractors; but by far
the greatest part of the company’s concern is with tracked
vehicles, often, if not correctly, known as caterpillar
tractors. These vehicles, for the most part very large and
very expensive, are vital to the construction and
development industry.
The story is told in the
following parts:
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