User:Peter Trevelyan-Johnson/Sir Edmund Crane

New article name is Sir Edmund Crane Edmund Frank Crane (1886-1957) was the eldest of two sons in a family of six. His family sold and repaired bicycles in Birmingham. After his father Jack's bankruptcy in 1906 his mother registered the Petros Motor and Cycle Company Limited which acquired and sold bicycles at prices that undercut existing manufacturers and suppliers. This competitive approach upset the local bicycle traders whose reaction led to the demise of the Petros Motor and Cycle Company. Out of the ashes of this first endeavour rose the Hercules Cycle and Motor Company started with £25 capital by Edmund and Harry Crane, his brother, in 1910. The established formula of combining high build quality with low retail price matched the market requirement for a bicycle that working people could use for travelling to and from work.

Production started with 25 bicycles a week and expanded to seven hundred a week by 1922 and 60,000 a week by 1938.