Garrard & Blumfield

Engineers Charles Riley Garrard and Thomas William Blumfield collaborated on improvements to electric motor carriages, securing patents dated 14 December 1893 and 31 March 1894. Their Garrard & Blumfield—also written Blumfield & Garrard—venture emerged as an English electric-car maker in 1894. Taylor, Cooper and Bednell of Coventry constructed the vehicles for them. The Cyclist and The Engineer published details of an 1894 carriage equipped with exceptionally broad four-inch pneumatic tyres and described as neat and well fitted. Garrard and Blumfield paid the ten-franc entry for Le Petit Journal's pioneering Paris–Rouen horseless-carriage competition, but their electric vehicle did not appear for the July qualification trials. Surviving sources use the plural for their carriages but preserve neither individual model names nor a reliable production total; the catalog therefore uses one collective Electric Carriage family for the complete known output. In 1896 Harry J. Lawson's Great Horseless Carriage Company absorbed the venture as part of its effort to aggregate British and continental vehicle patents. The partners then followed separate careers. Blumfield supervised Humber's experimental Pennington-engined motorcycle and much later operated the independent Blumfield motorcycle and engine concern; Garrard built Clément-Garrard motor cycles and worked on Clément-Talbot automobiles. Those later products are not retroactively assigned to Garrard & Blumfield. The marque is also distinct from the 1903 and 1910–14 Blumfield two-wheel business despite the common founder.

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