Pagefield

Pagefield Vehicles manufactured trucks, buses, tipping gear and skip-hauling trucks from the Walker Brothers’ engineering factory in Wigan, Lancashire and was in business from 1904 to 1966.

Made in Wigan Archive

Walker Brothers started building petrol trucks using the ‘Pagefield’ name in 1907. At the Manchester Commercial Vehicle show of 1908 their 30-40cwt (hundredweight) truck was the only petrol-driven commercial vehicle, at a time when steam dominated the truck scene. (Steam powered trucks hung on until the 1930s.)

In 1911 came three new Pagefield new models, 40 cwt, 50 cwt and three-ton. (In UK parlance trucks were rated by their payload capacity, not their gross vehicle mass.)

All the trucks had in-house, four-cylinder petrol engines and chain drive rear axles. 

Made in Wigan Archive

In 1913, Pagefield revealed a truck that had been designed to meet the requirements of the War Office Subsidy Scheme. It was powered by a Dorman 4JO engine and had a propshaft-driven rear axle, not chain drive. This meant Pagefield was able to provide the War Office with approved vehicles which they provided from 1914 onwards.

In 1920 Pagefield launched a specific motor-coach chassis, using a Dorman Subsidy engine. The advertising blurb for this vehicle read: “You don’t put Passengers on Freight Under-Carriages”, alluding to the common practice of selling the same commercial chassis for carrying either freight or passengers.

Walker Bros Wigan

Walkers became involved in refuse collection from the early 1920s and an interesting new vehicle at the 1923 commercial vehicle show was a 3.5-ton Pagefield, with forward control and a wheelbase of only 8 ft 2in (2.5m).

They were also developing specialised refuse-collection wagons in 1923/1924, whereby horse-drawn, wheeled containers collected refuse from houses and were loaded onto Pagefield trucks – not the horses – which took them to the local tip and returned for the next container. (We’ve described this Pagefield System in detail in Truck Features.)

The 4th November, 1924, issue of Commercial Motor carried an article on the Pagefield System and can be read in that magazine’s archive.

In 1930 Pagefield introduced a six-ton NG truck, powered by a 5.6 litre, four-cylinder Gardner diesel engine.

Launched in 1932, the Pagefield Prodigy was a refuse truck with forward control and a crew-cab. It was available with a Gardner diesel engine or a Meadows petrol engine. 

Walkers produced a 12-ton, six-wheeler from 1933, called the Pegasix, using the Gardner 5LW diesel engine.

The Prodigy body design owed much input to Country Commercials Cars Ltd and in 1947 both companies formalised their long-standing business arrangement by forming Walkers and County Cars Ltd. Walker Bros dropped the use of the Pagefield trademark about this time.

In the post-War years, a near-bankrupt Great Britain adopted an ‘export or perish’ policy and Walkers responded with a five-ton truck, powered by a Perkins P6 diesel engine, followed by the Walker six-ton crane truck.

In 1949 Walker Bros became part of the Walmsleys (Bury) Group and specialised in mining, lifting and haulage machinery.