One-year wonder

Like so many early British motorcycle marques, Sunbeam’s antecedents date back to its origins as a bicycle manufacturer. Twice Mayor of Wolverhampton, John Marston was a pillar of Victorian England’s civic society as owner of the largest japanning factory in the Black Country, a local speciality comprising a form of Oriental-inspired metal finishing then popular for all kinds of household utensils and other metalwork, before it was replaced by enamelling and, later, electroplating. Marston was a keen cyclist, so almost inevitably he began building his own bicycles using his firm’s japanning treatment to impart a finished lustre to them. Apparently his wife Ellen saw one of his early bikes leaning against a wall with its polished frame glinting in the sunshine, leading her to suggest he called his bicycle The Sunbeam.

The name stuck, so Marston’s factory was renamed Sunbeamland, and in 1877 he began making bicycles commercially. Though expensive, they were very successful, and a second component factory was duly opened nearby to make pedals and other parts for Sunbeam bicycles. From 1912 onwards it manufactured an ever-wider range of two-stroke motors under the Villiers name which powered the products of many other motorcycle companies. In 1956 Villiers Engineering produced its two millionth engine, and presented it to the Science Museum in London, and the following year purchased J.A. Prestwich Industries, makers of four-stroke J.A.P. engines. Marston disliked motorcycles, and originally diversified into cars, before becoming uneasy at the