Machine Tool Manuals Catalogues Belts Books Accessories
G. & A. Harvey Machine Tools
G & A Harvey continued on Page 2
Founded in 1857, G.& A. Harvey were based at the Albion Works in Woodville Street, Govan, Glasgow. They specialised in large machine tools, many intended for the local shipbuilding trade but also with numbers exported world wide. Although the Company always had a variety of their standard range in continuous production, their stated aim was to provide machines specifically adapted to a customer's particular requirements. While most of their output appears to have consisted of very large lathes to suit a wide variety of requirements, they also offered standard and duplex horizontal borers, horizontal drilling, tapping and stud inserting machines, slotters, large circular and elliptical hole cutters and turbine boring and facing machines. In addition they advertised their ability to modify standard designs and manufacture one-off machine tools for specialised trades.
In 1937 the Company joined three other Scottish-based engineering concerns - Loudon Bros Ltd., Craig & Donald Ltd. and James Allan Senior & Sons Ltd. - to form the Scottish Machine Tool Corporation Ltd. Although a joint catalogue was produced each Company retained its separate identify and continued to brand their own products. By the late 1960s the group had become an associate of forging-equipment makers Wilkins-Mitchell - but by 1982 was bankrupt.
An excellent book charting the rise and fall of heavy engineering in the West of Scotland is: Workshop of the British Empire: Engineering and Shipbuilding in the West of Scotland - a search on abebooks.co.uk will usually turn up a copy. Further detailed information on G. & A. Harvey (and many other Scottish engineering companies) is held by the University of Glasgow in their Archive Section.
Below is a selection of G. & A. Harvey machine tools as advertised during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Pictures continued on Page 2