Filling in the Armis story

The report on Ian Alexander’s Armis in OBM, June 2021, is of great interest to followers of the Calthorpe post-First World War motorcycle manufacturing world.

The Armis was announced in The Motor Cycle in January 1920 to be fitted with a Precision 350cc two-stroke engine. The names behind the business were Harrison and Baker, two people long associated with the commercial side of the Calthorpe motorcycle. Confusingly, this Baker was not FE Baker of Precision but a Mr A Baker.

Calthorpe had announced a machine fitted with this Precision engine early in 1919 and a prototype was used by one H Greaves to win the May 1919 Levis Cup (he was subsequently disqualified on a technicality, but Calthorpe continued to use this win in correspondence for some time afterwards). Production was painfully slow though, machines ordered in ones and twos in mid-1919 were still trickling out of the works in January 1920. Calthorpe evidently thought this scenario unacceptable and, by November 1919, had acquired the rights to the 350 two-stroke Peco (ex-Pearson and Coles) engine. We think it likely that they still had contracts with Precision for engines and also would have had no wish to market two 350 two-strokes so Messrs Harrison and Baker were perhaps sent forth to set up another company, Armis – supposedly named after the Armistice – to absorb these Precision engines.

The frames of the two known Armis bikes appear to have been supplied by Calthorpe, though Saxon forks were fitted in place of the Druids normally fitted to Calthorpes.

Several models were offered by Armis in 1921 and 1922, powered by JAP, Precision and MAG engines, but the postwar slump was biting and, early in 1923, the London Gazette announced that, by reason of its liabilities, the Armis company was to be voluntarily wound up. So ended a short venture which had perhaps outlived its usefulness in the eyes of its founders, Messrs Harrison and Baker.

Only two Armis machines are known to survive so if Ian Alexander would like to contact us via the enquiry email address on our website www.calthorpe.info, we would be interested to have more details of his bike, particularly as many parts appear common to the contemporary Calthorpe.

Dick Weekes