J. A. Lawton and Sons from 1865 join South Australia builders of car bodies – plus buses, trams and fire engines
J. A. Lawton and Sons premises on the west corner of Fenn Place (in the 1920s and 1930s building) in Adelaide city, were backed by plants in Adelaide's western suburbs. At left from top: The firm's adaptable range of manufacturing included Boer War covered wagons, H1 Class trams, Adelaide fire engines and trolley buses.
Including images from State Library of South Australia and St Kilda Tramways Museum.
The business that started as J. A. Lawton and Sons in Adelaide in 1865 became another of South Australia’s adaptable manufactures in transport, from making covered wagons for the Boer War to Beaufighter plane parts in for World War II as well as car bodies, trams, buses and fire engines.
The firm was started in 1865 by J. A. Lawton, when he left as manager of the South Australian Carrying Co. to set up a coach and trolley building shop on North Terrace, Adelaide city. He trained six of his nine sons in each branch of the business. Among the sons, Frank was sent to England to train in a steel foundry before returning in 1902, Edward took on engineering, Howard electrical work, Bob office work and Eustace vehicle body building.
Servicing war requirements became a staple for the Lawton business, starting with covered wagons that went with the Imperial Contingent No.1 South Australia to South Africa for the Boer war (1899-1902). In World War I, the firm was Australia’s sole axle manufacturer, also making water tanks, general service wagons, and other horse-drawn vehicles for Australian soldiers overseas. For War World II, its output included Beaufighter plane parts, motor trucks and trailers for all the armed services.
J.A. Lawton made its first motor vehicle bodies in the early 1920s and its last horse-drawn vehicle about 10 years after that. Its motor vehicle bodies were manufactured for overseas companies, including the British Morris Minor sold in Australia’s the Morris 8/40.
In 1937, J.A. Lawton and Sons built 30 doubleck trolleybus for the MTT (Metropolitan Tramways Trust) to service Tusmore, Port Adelaide, Semaphore and Largs Bay. Lawton also made the bodies for Adelaide's fire appliances from 1936 to 1940. The appliances were fitted with a chassis supplied by Adelaide’s Commercial Motors from Chicago’s Diamond-T Motor Company, makers of the “Cadillac of trucks”, and one of Lawton's vehicle bodies.
Two of the Lawton sons, Frank and John, retired in 1945, leaving only Eustace and his son Max as director in the business. In 1954, J. A. Lawton and Sons was reported as about to produce a Jeep-type four-wheel-drive motor vehicle in South Australia. At least £600,000 was to be involved in the project on a nine-acres site Junction Road, Wingfield, according to N.H. Peel, managing director of Freighters Ltd who had bought control of Lawtons. There was no record of the vehicle and its target of 2,000 vehicles a year being built.
J.A. Lawton and Sons did construct the last tram, H1 class, to go into service before the main tramway system in Adelaide closed in 1958. In the 1960s, it was merged as Freighter-Lawton Industries and, by 1966, Freighter Industries that was building buses at the Adelaide western suburb of Seaton. The merged company was taken over by Pressed Metal Corp, then by Leyland Australia in 1975 and rebranded as PMCSA and moved to a new plant at Royal Park further west.
In 1991, after Pressed Metal Corporation closed in Sydney with operations consolidated in Adelaide, PMCSA was renamed PMC Australia. PMCSA was included in the sale of Leyland Australia's (now renamed JRA Limited) bus businesses to Clifford Corporation in 1996. After Clifford collapsed, the Adelaide plant was sold in 1999 to a consortium of Custom Coaches, Jim Bosnjak amd John Hewson. Custom Coaches assumed full ownership in 2000.