150th anniversary of the Crossley brothers' Otto Crossley Patent Engine

Motion Text

That this House on the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Otto Crossley Patent Engine of 1876 recognises the ground-breaking achievements of County Antrim pioneering engineering brothers Francis, Frank, William Crossley, 1839 – 1897, and Sir William John Crossley, 1844 – 1911, 1st Baronet, late hon. Member for Altrincham; notes that Frank Crossley a genius innovator perfected the laboratory ideas and technical concepts of the compressed charge four-stroke internal combustion engine of Nicolaus Otto, and with brother Sir William John Crossley mass produced the engines on assembly lines they pioneered at their Crossley Brothers Company factory, Manchester from 1876; further notes that introducing the engine by the tens of thousands to global markets popularised and commercialised the engine; and acknowledges that today this revolutionary engine is celebrated as the first true modern engine that formed the foundational basis for practical power units as the power source for global transport on land, sea and air and industrial power over the last one hundred and fifty years.