By 1913 Charles Ralph Townsend and business partner Robert Charles Turner were designing belt sanding machines intended for metalworking use. The two men were doing business as Townsend & Co. There seems little doubt that they were planning to manufacture their belt sander but World War I likely delayed things. In mid-1920 a trade journal article mentioned that Townsend & Co. was developing a new belt grinding machine and promised a follow-up article with illustration, once the machine's design was completed. We have not found any such article, nor have we found any other evidence that the machine made it to production. Thus, this entry in the Manufacturers Index is mainly to preserve the negative results of our research.

Townsend continued working variously as a consulting engineer, a machinery reseller, and an auctioneer. He was not conspicuously successful in any of these efforts and went bankrupt at least twice.

Information Sources

• 1918-12-16 Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Journal page 783, small text ad. "Consulting Engineer. Charles Ralph Townsend, Caxton House, Gt. Charles St., Birm."
• 1920-06-10 Machinery page 315.

  Townsend & Co., 57 and 58, Great Charles Street, Birmingham, are developing a new type of vertical continuous belt grinding machine, which is named the "Auto Fin." The machine should prove of great service in a wide variety of uses. It has a compound table, and is screw operated to and from the grinding belt, while a suitable hand lever is provided to apply cross traverse to the work-holding table, thus moving the work across the belt face. Dead stops are provided to limit the table travel in any direction, the arrangements are very convenient for adapting the machine as a templet jig for work of a repetition character. The machine will be illustrated in these pages when completed.

• 1924-02-01 The Machinery Market page 36.

  Mr. C. Ralph Townsend informs us that he had commenced business at 312, Bradford-street, Birmingham, as an auctioneer and machinery valuer. Mr. Townsend, who has had over twenty years' experience as a consulting and manufacturing engineer, will hold monthly sales by auction of surplus machinery at the address stated, where he has ample room for handling stock, the premises being served by a 7-ton crane. Mr. Townsend will also undertake sales of machinery in any part of the country.

• 1924-02-08 The London Gazette page 1216.

  Notice is hereby given, that the Partnership heretofore subsisting between, the undersigned Walter Pearson and Charles Ralph Townsend, carrying on business as Auctioneers and Machinery Valuers, at 312, Bradford-street, in the city of Birmingham, under the style or firm of PEARSON & TOWNSEND, has been dissolved by mutual consent as and from the 31st day of January, 1924—Dated this 4th day of February, 1924.
  W. Pearson
  C. Ralph Townsend

• 1929 issue of Hardwareman, Ironmongers' Chronicle and Builders' Merchant, Volume 16 page 315.

  Debtor C. R. Townsend acquired the business of an engineer in 1902, formerly carried on by his fater at Wilton Road, Handsworth. In 1915 he removed to Great Charles Street, and the following year commenced business as a hardware merchant under the name of the National Manufacturing Co. In 1919, with others, he promoted a company, now in voluntary liquidation, being appointed managing director at £1,500 a year. He stated that the company acquired his engineering business, but not the hardware concern. In October, 1921, he executed a deed of assignment to a trustee for the benefit of his creditors, his unsecured liabilities being returned £5,000, and preferential claims at £300. The assets realised £811, and after payment of cost, expenses, and preferential claims, there was no balance available for payment of any dividend. at With regard to the winding-up of the limited company, the Official Receiver stated that he was unable to obtain any definite information, but debtor stated the creditors received 8s. 14d. in the £.

  The business of the National Manufacturing Company was then acquired by Skinner, who had a capital at that time of about £100, and he borrowed £200 and £100. In March, 1923, was joined in partner-ship by another, and in September, 1925, a fire occurred on the premises, the compensation received amounting to £1,018. In February, 1926, the partnership was dissolved and Townsend then became a partner. In March, 1926, they promoted a company formed for the purpose of manufacturing advertising devices and signs, but only experimental work was done, and the company ceased trading a few months from its inception. F. E. Bendall, of 3, Warwick Passage, Birmingham, was appointed trustee with a committee of inquiry.

• 1930 issue of Hardwareman, Ironmongers' Chronicle and Builders' Merchant, page 62, in the "Bankruptcy" notices. "RALPH TOWNSEND AND JOSEPH GEORGE SKINNER, engineers, trading as National Manufacturing Co., 20, Charlotte Street, Birmingham."
• 1995 book, Scooters, by Eric Dregni, page 7, in a chapter on "Scooter History". "...The English Autoglider De Luxe appeared in 1919, created by Charles Ralph Townsend at Townsend Engineering Company of Birmingham with a 269-cc Villiers engine mounted on a 16-inch front wheel." The same sentence appeared on page 305 of the 2022 book The Scooter Bible
by the same author.