Harringtons Coachbuilders
Thomas Harrington (1859-1928) originally had a coachbuilding business on Church Street, Brighton (1897-), building lightweight horsedrawn vehicles, and the company opened showrooms on King Street at around the turn of the century.
Evolution
With the rise of the motor vehicle, the business migrated to producing bodywork for up-market cars, and for coaches. There was a big difference between building trucks and transport vehicles for the army and producing nice buses and coaches ... while a motor company might produce the basic engine and chassis for a coach, often a variation on an existing commercial vehicle design for a truck – an area where where their technical expertise and standardisation was a strength – creating the seating and bodyshell was often better left to an outside coachbuilding company that had the relevant skills and knew the coach market better.
A new factory was then built in 1930 at Sackville Works, Old Shoreham Road, Hove ("Thomas Harrington Ltd., Motor Coach Builders and Automotive Engineers")
Legacy
The company closed in 1966, but is still fondly remembered for some of its classic car and bus bodyshell designs, including work for Southdown Buses, and the bodysheells for some of Ernie Johnstone's midget coaches at Peter Pan's Playground.
External links
- Harrington Coachwork History (thcoachwork.co.uk)
- Thomas Harrington Coachbuilders (simoncars.co.uk)
- Restorations (southeastcoachworks.com)
- The Sunbeam Harrington Alpine and Le Mans (harringtonalpine.org)
- The Harrington Gallery (transport-art-collections.co.uk)
- Johnstone's coaches in the 1940s, by Dennis Parrett (mybrightonandhove.org.uk)
- HARRINGTON, Thomas Reuben (1882-1963) (brightonhistory.org.uk)
- Thomas Harrington Limited (wikipedia.org)
