1925 Wooler factory machine

Thanks to David Kenny for forwarding these images taken at the Wooler premises (either Alperton or Wembley) circa 1925. The images were given to David by a former Wooler employee and the ladies on the bike were apparently also Wooler employees.

Please note that I have put a blog logo on the images in order to limit reproduction of them and track. This does not imply any ownership of the images which remains with David and I am grateful for his permission to post.

Miss Fell astride a Wooler which I believe to
be a 1925 ohv model and would have
presumably been a factory hack.

Miss Self on the the same Wooler machine.

The Wooler Spring Frame Bicycle

A hearty thank you to David Kenny for sending in this c1920 advert for a Wooler bicycle for publication.

I had never heard that Wooler had any bicycle interests before and this is apparently the only reference to the cycle that David has ever seen. As with many Wooler designs it could well be that it never reached production, or even existed in more than drawing form. John Wooler was an enthusiastic promoter of his designs and was never shy of publicising machines that were only at drawing board stage. I know little about him but it seems that he had a creative mind for two wheel design; many of his designs were mechanically ambitious and expensive to produce and I suppose he derived pleasure from showing the world ideas he had come up with.

I do hope that the Wooler bicycle design was made metal as it is a lovely looking thing. Very characteristically a Wooler with its sliding pillar front and rear suspension. If anyone knows any more of the story of Wooler bicycles please do get in touch.

Advert for the Wooler Spring Frame Bicycle.

Wooler 1949 catalogue

Here's the brochure for the 1949 Wooler motorcycle, a machine that never made it beyond prototype stage. Whether it was ever meant for production even is not clear.

Engineer John Wooler entered the motorcycle trade in 1909 and right up until his death in 1956 continued to come up with unusual designs that never met with commercial success, or were even perhaps intended to be commercially viable. It seems rather that he was a gentleman who enjoyed creating motorcycles that tended towards the unusual in both styling and engineering. Some worked well and others didn't. His first postwar design as pictured in this brochure is sadly one of those that didn't. A pity as it could have been magnificent - a flat four with an unusual rocking beam arrangement for the crankshaft, shaft drive and plunger box front suspension.

I suspect Wooler enjoyed the attention that his creations drew as he seemingly did not shy from publicity and liked to make a splash at shows with new designs and plenty of brochures to give away for machines that were not production ready. This 1949 machine was developed but never to any success and in '54 Wooler exhibited at the Earls Court show with a completely new design of flat four of which apparently five were built.

Wooler brochure page 1.

Wooler brochure page 2.

Wooler brochure page 3.

Wooler brochure page 4.

Wooler brochure page 5.

Wooler brochure page 6.