Dennis and Dennis Eagle

Dennis Brothers was founded in 1895 by brothers John Cawsey Dennis and Herbert Raymond Dennis, to make Speed King bicycles, followed by automobile production from 1901.

 

1902 Dennis rear entrance tonneau – John Frost

 

The four-floor Dennis factory in Guildford was the first purpose-built motor vehicle factory in Britain and so the range of cars was quickly extended to 12hp, 14hp, 16hp and 20hp chassis fitted with tourer, town car and limousine bodies. Larger models followed and a 35hp 1906 model was powered by a White and Poppe engine. This power unit was soon fitted to all their vehicles, including the company’s first bus and commercial van.

 

1906 Dennis two-ton van

 

Dennis Brothers developed and patented a reliable worm drive into a differential mounted on the back axle, in contrast to the common chain drive of the period.

 

1916 Dennis B-type – MilbourneOne

 

Dennis made its first fire engine in 1908, for the Bradford Council Fire Department and the company was later best known for its fire engines.

The last Dennis car was made in 1913, after the brothers saw there was less competition in the commercial vehicle market.

Regular expansions of production capacity couldn’t keep pace with increased orders, so in 1913 Dennis Brothers moved their main operations to a much larger building of almost four acres. The original premises were used solely for repairs. 

In March 1913 Dennis Brothers’ offer of shares to the public was substantially over-subscribed and Dennis Brothers Limited became a publicly listed company.

 

Dennis owned by Australian Richard Blundell (right) – Mike Thompson

 

Rising international tensions precipitated a major contract for supply of 1000 three-ton ‘subsidy’ lorries to private buyers on terms set by the British War Office. (The subsidy terms of purchase obliged the buyer to release the vehicle to the War Office in time of war.) 

However, no contract lorries had been sold, before the outbreak of WWI and some 7000 such vehicles were subsequently supplied directly to the War Office, along with Dennis fire engines. Factory expansion allowed Dennis to produce munitions as well.

Following 1918’s armistice there was a glut of war-surplus vehicles and a consequent collapse in demand for new trucks.  To compensate for the drop in demand for conventional trucks, Dennis developed specialised municipal vehicles, including refuse collectors, street cleaning vehicles, sewage tankers and pumps, for which there was constant demand. Motor mowers were added in 1922!

 

Dennis motor mower – Derek Barrett

 

In April 1919, Dennis Brothers and its engine supplier, White and Poppe, agreed to an exchange of shares, giving Dennis Brothers a controlling interest in White and Poppe. 

Initially, one chassis type was used lorries and buses, but in the 1920s Dennis built lower ride-height chassis for its buses and forward control buses followed.

Pneumatic tyres were introduced and some export markets were developed, including Hong Kong and Australia.

 

GWR fire brigade truck – Bazza Da Rambler

 

The decade began with the Great Depression and that created a demand for more economical diesel engines in commercial vehicles and buses. Dennis began trials of ‘crude oil’ engines.

In 1932, Dennis’ group profits had fallen by more than 40-percent – typical of many companies in that era – but there were sufficient reserves to maintain shareholder dividends. 

 

1931 Dennis – Charles01

 

However, in-house engine developments ceased and it was announced that Dennis would fit diesel engines made by Armstrong-Saurer Commercial Vehicles of Newcastle upon Tyne, which produced Swiss Saurer products under licence. Dennis had sole rights for the fitting of these products to passenger-carrying vehicles.

White and Poppe ceased operations on 28 March 1933.

New Dennis buses were a double-deck Lance and single-deck Lancet. The Dennis Ace, a smaller 20-seater bus was brought into production in 1933, using the chassis of Dennis’s small truck. The Arrow Minor followed in 1935 and a new Falcon chassis in 1938.

 

Entwhistle of Morecambe Dennis bus – John’s pics

 

John and Raymond Dennis had built 223 houses for their workers – mainly in an estate that was called Dennisville – but both brothers died in 1939.

During the Second World War the Ministry of Supply restricted Dennis to trucks, military vehicles and munitions, and allocated bus production to Daimler and Guy.

Over that period Dennis built around 3000 six-to-eight-ton capacity Max and 1500 Pax three-ton lorries, assembled 700 Churchill tanks, 17,000 engines for landing craft, 7000 fire pumps, 750,000 bombs and 3000 infantry carriers. Also, municipal vehicles were built for military bases.The Dennis plant operated around the clock and the number of workers doubled to 4000.

After WWII, a virtually bankrupt Great Britain decided that nationalisation of transport, including road haulage, would be a good idea. It was, of course, a total disaster and one of the major causes of Britain’s truck-manufacturing decline.

The new nationalised transport company, British Road Services, Britain’s state-owned road haulage operator, didn’t buy any trucks from Dennis, despite the development of new products. 

 

Dennis Pax flatbed with Perkins engine badge – Les Chatfield

 

The suppliers to BRS – Leyland, AEC and Foden – scored all the heavy commercial business and only Dennis’s light Pax trucks sold well to businesses that were still permitted to run short-distance transport. Dennis’s buses and fire engines remained in demand and the 1940s and 1950s were Dennis’s best years.^.

In 1950 came the Dennis Dominant passenger chassis, with a semi-automatic transmission and a horizontally-mounted diesel engine and the Paxit, all-enclosed mechanical rear-loading refuse-collection vehicle. Rolls-Royce diesel engines replaced Dennis petrol engines in the fire engines during 1951. 

 

1953 Cheshire County Fire Brigade Dennis – Richard Ash

 

Show vehicles in 1952 included a 5.5-litre Centaur chassis with platform body, a Pax chassis with tipping gear and a lightweight body and the Stork chassis.

The AV1, a new diesel ambulance chassis, returned ambulances to the Dennis product line-up in 1954. The next year an updated heavy fire engine chassis received Rolls-Royce fully automatic gearboxes.

 

 

The Dennis Loline model double-deck bus came at the end of 1956. Built with Dennis components it used a Bristol Lodekka chassis, but the Dennis version was for the independent, non-regulated section of the market Bristol was unable to supply.

In the late 1950s, domestic and export demand for commercial vehicles slumped, so diversification became important. In May 1962, Dennis bought the fire appliance division of Hawker Siddeley Group’s Alfred Miles.

 

1956 Dennis Pax with Perkins power – J Thomas

 

In 1964, Dennis purchased the industrial tractor manufacturer Mercury Truck & Tractor Company; Mercury Airfield Equipment, who manufactured airport tugs, baggage trailers and ground units; and Mercury Snow Control. Dennis ended bus manufacture in 1965.

A shareholder revolt in late 1965 resulted in major changes to management and to the board and that had some positive short-term effect, but the decline in earnings continued.

 

1971 Dennis Dominant – Mr Choppers

 

In 1972, the Vehicle Division of Hestair Engineering made a successful takeover bid for Dennis Motor Holdings. Hestair already owned street-sweeper bodybuilder Yorkshire Vehicles and refuse-collection bodybuilder Eagle Engineering in 1971.

Dennis Motor Holdings was renamed Dennis Motors Limited and with Eagle and Yorkshire Vehicles, managed as the Vehicle Division of Hestair Engineering.

In June 1972 the manufacture of trucks for haulage ceased and Hestair sold Dennis’ Mercury towing tractors and motor mowers to Marshalls (Halifax).

Non-specialist truck production for general haulage resumed in 1974 after a break of two years. New rear-engined single-decker and double-decker buses were announced in August 1977, after a bus-building break of 11 years.

The first new bus was the Dominator, with a double-deck body, followed by Jubilant, Dorchester, Lancet and Falcon. All these names belonged to previous successful Dennis models.

A new range of fire appliances, the R series, went into production in 1976. 

On 31 December 1977 Dennis Motors Limited was renamed Hestair Dennis Limited.^[33]

In February 1980, John Smith, the managing director of Hestair Dennis, was jailed in Baghdad for paying: ‘huge amounts for commercial deals and secret information’. He was not released until February 1988.

Phoenix was added as a brand name to Dennis Eagle refuse collectors in 1978, followed by the launch of the Delta 1600 series, middleweight 16 tonne vehicles for tipper and haulage applications.

 

1982 Mainline Dennis Dominator – Murgatroyd

 

In February 1983, Hestair Dennis purchased Duple Coachbuilders, allowing the production of Duple-developed integrated body-chassis units.

In late 1985, a large Dennis Eagle plant opened, taking over the building of Dennis municipal vehicle chassis and matching Eagle bodies. At the October 1986 Commercial Motor Show Dennis introduced its Javelin design, using a six-cylinder Cummins engine, where previous models had used Gardner engines.

Although it was one of Europe’s largest builders of fire appliance chassis, Dennis Specialist Vehicles was running at a loss.The fire engineering division was closed. John Dennis of the founders’ family, previously coach and truck sales manager, left and set up John Dennis Coachbuilders, to build complete fire engine bodies.

The remaining business was the manufacture of chassis for fire appliances and public service vehicles.

At the October 1988 Motor Show Dennis and Duple displayed their new Dennis Dart midibus.

In 1989, Trinity Holdings, the management of the Vehicle Division of Hestair Engineering, with the backing of banking institutions, bought Dennis from Hestair and Hestair Specialist Vehicles Limited was renamed Specialist Vehicles Limited.

 

Dennis Dart in Canberra, Australia – Bidgee

 

Duple Coachbuilders was closed down in July 1989 and at the end of 1989 Dart minibus bodywork production moved to Birmingham. The Dart was followed by the Lance, which used independent front suspension to allow a low floor halfway down the vehicle.

Carmichael Fire, a rival manufacturer of a range extending from Land Rover based fire tenders up to 8×8 airfield crash tenders, was rescued from its parent’s receiver in 1992.

Trinity Holdings was successfully floated in 1992, when it was described as a group of famous motor engineering names, including Dennis fire engines, buses and refuse collectors, Duple bus kits and Reliance Mercury airport tenders. Dennis held 40 percent of the British fire engine market and the Dart mid-sized bus was Britain’s biggest seller.

In October 1997 Trinity rebranded itself as the Dennis Group. Then corporate things got really, really messy.

Finally, the whole conglomerate of Dennis Motors, Hestair Dennis, Dennis Specialist Vehicles, Hestair Specialist Vehicles, Specialist Vehicles and Transbus International was dissolved on 19 June 2018, after several times being restored from dissolution since 2008.

 

Dennis Eagle

 

The Dennis and Dennis Eagle business histories are complicated. Dennis Brothers Limited made specialised vehicles from the 1920s and Eagle Engineering started making engines in 1907. The two brands were combined in 1971.

Dennis Eagle was formed in 1971, when the Hestair Group bought Yorkshire Vehicles Limited, Eagle Engineering Co and Dennis Motor Holdings, managing the businesses as the Vehicle Division of Hestair Engineering. Municipal bodies were made by Hestair Eagle, incorporating Yorkshire Vehicles and municipal chassis were made by Dennis.

By the early 1990s, environmental vehicles, branded Dennis Eagle, represented around one-third of Hestair’s Vehicle Division. There were several ownership changes throughout the early 2000s, culminating in 2016, when Netherlands-based Terberg BV took over Dennis Eagle.

Notable product launches included the Phoenix 1 body in 1979 and the Elite 1 chassis, the UK’s first low entry cab, in 1992. Further developments led to the introduction of the Phoenix 2 in 2001 and the 8×4 Elite 2 in 2003. 

Built on a 4850 mm wheelbase and with Cummins power and dual controls, the Elite 2 featured a one-step entry and exit cab, tall and wide door openings, true flat floors, walk-through cabin and a high-visibility mirror package.

In 2010, Western Star Trucks Australia – now Penske Commercial Vehicles – began importing Dennis Eagle refuse collection trucks to Australia. 

The Australian product line was based on the Elite 2 chassis and enjoyed instant success Australian marketplace. Cleanaway took its first truck in 2011 and its 500^th unit in 2019.