The First Carburetters

Over the next few years, Thomas Carlyle Skinner (known as Carl), who was Herbert's younger brother and who had a practical ability, had begun to try some of his brothers concepts on a Star motorcar that he then owned. The idea was to place the fuel jet in an air channel that could be varied in size, in accordance with the demand of the engine, thereby giving a constant depression and air velocity. Herbert was granted a full patent (no. 3257) for this device in January 1906. At this stage a tapered metering needle, to vary the flow of petrol, had not been thought of. The two brothers continued to work together and their first carburetters were made at the premises of George Wailes & Co. at Euston Road, London, where Carl became a partner with George Waile's son. In 1908 Herbert was granted another patent (no. 26,178) for a carburetter having a 'collapsable chamber' and a 'fuel needle valve', which was located in an adjustable block (i.e. a jet). Herbert's inventive genius had therefore devised the basic principles of the later 'constant vacuum' S.U carburetter. In August 1910, 'The S.U. Company Ltd' (S.U being a contraction of 'Skinners Union') was formed and some time later moved onto premises at 154 Prince of Wales Road, Kentish Town, London. By 1913 the company's accounts showed that they were supplying 'Sloper' carburetters (so called because the suction chamber and needle assembly was positioned at an angle from vertical, in order to reduce the fluctuations of the chamber when driving over the rough, unmetaled, roads of the period) to Wolseley Motors and the Rover Co.