Lawson tricars were produced from 1900 to 1901, and built by the Crypto works. Few, perhaps only two, machines were built. They were built to a design purchased from Pennington for the vast sum of £100,000. This had the engine positioned behind the rear Wheel, which was driven by belt.
In 1901, another machine was presented which had the engine on one side of the front fork and the flywheel on the other. Neither were successful.
Harry J. Lawson was also involved with Coventry-Motette, the Great Horseless Carriage Company, Daimler and New Beeston.
| Two young ladies driving and riding in a Lawson’s Motor Wheel of 1902, published in “The Motor Car in the First Decade of the Twentieth Century A Souvenir And A Historical Survey of Mechanical Road Locomotion in England from Early Times to the Present Day” in London, circa 1908. |
1899 Motor Show, Islington
LAWSON’S SAFETY MOTOR, 40, Holborn Viaduct, on the same stand, finds us with somewhat of a novelty, in the shape of a motor of the De Dion type built into the driving wheel of a bicycle, with the motor on one side of wheel, the flywheel on the other, and driving the wheel through a Crypto-geared hub. This construction is shown in various forms of combination, first fitted to lady's and gentleman's safety bicycles of the ordinary type, then fitted to the rear driving wheel of an Olympia tandem tricycle, and again with the wheel fitted in a fork, and used as the steering as well as the driving wheel of a carrier tricycle. One of the new Humber motor quadricycles, a very well built machine with excellent spring arrangement to the front seat, is also shown, as well as Mr. Jarrott's racing De Dion tricycle.
N.B. Harry J. Lawson has been described as a “British bicycle designer, racing cyclist, Motor industry pioneer, and fraudster.”
On Tuesday, 1 December 1896, the Pall Mall Gazette gave a list of twelve reasons why the investor should not put his money into the British Motor Syndicate, the twelfth being that it was “under the auspices of Mr. Harry J. Lawson”.
