From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Copy of a letter from Mr. P.M. Stewart providing a testimonial for Duckham's oils, detailing experiences from 1904 onwards.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 145\3\ scan0054 | |
| Date | 6th November 1936 | |
| Copy of letter from Mr. P.M. Stewart. THE ASSOCIATED PORTLAND CEMENT MANUFACTURERS LTD. Portland House, Tothill Street, Westminster, London, S.W. 1. Ref: PMS/OJN. 6th November, 1936. A.F. Sidgreaves, Esq., Messrs. Bentley Motors (1931) Ltd., 16, Conduit Street, W.1. Dear Mr. Sidgreaves, My old friend Alec Duckham has asked me to write you a word with regard to my experience of his oils, and I so do with pleasure. Your Service and Technical people know that I have never used any other oil in my Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars from the old days when I first purchased these. However, my experience of Duckham's oil goes back even beyond this time to thirty years ago when I was running MERCEDES and afterwards NAPIER cars. It may interest you to hear the story of the occasion when I first decided to adopt Duckham's oils. It was right back in 1904 when the London Brick Company was running at its largest works two of the National Gas Engines Company's big Z.E.2., type of suction gas engine. Old Mr. Bickerton, the Chairman, said I was the first manufacturer to run these successfully day and night on coke. We were having considerable difficulties with stops due to carbonisation and I had heard that Duckham, with his technical chemical knowledge, had got over acute lubrication difficulties for another firm and, therefore, decided to see what his oils would do for us. I had the pistons of both these engines cleaned and then one engine was run on Duckham's oil and the other on the oil already being used, which was supplied by one of the best known American firms in the country. Both oils were delivered in plain barrels especially marked, their origin only known to myself and our Chief Engineer. After a month the engines were opened up on a Saturday afternoon in the presence of myself, the Chief Engineer and the engine drivers. The results were really extraordinary; the rings and piston heads of one engine were full of hardish carbonacious matter and in the case of the other, which had been fed with Duckham's oil, there was a perfectly clean film of | ||