Bosch UK’s first store
Laying down roots
In his letters, Robert Bosch wrote that he wished to have “a foothold in Great Britain”. It was 125 years ago, in March 1898, that Bosch began to find this foothold by opening the Magnetos Simms-Bosch sales office in Store Street, London. The opening of this sales office sparked a series of openings in Europe and the beginning of Bosch’s global ventures.
This week marks the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Store Street office and offers a moment to look at the product that sowed the seeds of Bosch UK – the magneto.
In the late 1800s the UK played a pioneering role in the automotive industry and the new manufacturers needed reliable ignition systems. None were as reliable or as effective as the Bosch magneto. The sales office on Store Street ensured the distribution of the magneto throughout the country and helped to keep the UK at the forefront of the evolving global automotive industry.
Why was the Bosch magneto so important?
In the late 1800s it was a high-tech piece of equipment. It was designed for stationary engines in 1887 and soon early car manufacturers started to use it. But car engines required a magneto that could operate at higher speed because they were smaller engines, and so in 1897 Bosch engineered an improved system that was originally for a tricycle.
Previously, the electrical energy had been generated through the rotation or oscillation of an armature wound in copper within a magnetic field. The technology was capable of providing ignition at 100 rpm, but was insufficient in smaller, faster vehicle motors that operated at up to 1,000 rpm. The new magneto had a lightweight metallic sleeve surrounding the armature, which would rotate or oscillate instead, enabling a large number of ignition processes.
The effect was to make cars a mode of transport that could be relied upon to be used every day. When Bosch and Simms parted ways, the company continued to operate on Store Street as Bosch Magneto Co. before moving to a new location and eventually growing into what we now recognise as Bosch UK.
