Arthur Lyon & Co.

About Arthur Lyon & Co., the manufacturer of the Alco Firefly. (Note: this page requires additional research and expansion.)

Arthur Lyon

Arthur Lyon & Co. was founded by Arthur Anderson Lyon (1876-1962) circa 1912. In 1915, the company merged with Wrench Manufacturing Company and became Arthur Lyon & Wrench Limited. That arrangement lasted until 1920. Following the liquidation of the original company, Arthur Lyon & Co. was reestablished.

Products manufactured by Arthur Lyon & Co. included signalling lamps, searchlights, pumps, and generators. During World War II, the company focused on producing military generators. These were predominantly gasoline powered.

NEWAGE Engineers acquired Arthur Lyon & Co. in 1948. Arthur Lyon & Co. was combined into Newage Lyon Ltd in 1965, later NEWAGE-Stamford-AvK, which is now part of Cummins Generator Technologies.

There were a number of acquisitions and name changes that Arthur Lyon & Co. was a part of following World War II. Works Manager Ian Bradley recalled the name N.C.K. Products Ltd. in the 1991 article Swords Into… in Model Engineer magazine. (Was this a subsidiary or an interim renaming?)

Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on Arthur Lyon & Co. Some information provided there is clearly incorrect – the Alco Firefly was NOT oil fired!

There is a timeline on the Stamford-AvK website as well as a brochure, which is where the photo of Arthur Lyon was sourced. (An archive of a revision from 2020 is here.)