KINGSLAND | 1902 | UK :
The Kingsland takes its name from the north London district in which it was built, and survives in the historical record as a single description of a machine that appeared at the 1902 Stanley Show and then disappeared.
The London Machinists Co. of Kingsland exhibited at the 1902 Stanley Show under the name Royal Sovereign motor-bicycle, built throughout in their factory at Kingsland. The engine, which was vertical, was contained in a horizontal loop to which it was securely bolted. The forward part of the loop was brazed to the main down tube, whilst the back part formed the bottom bracket. A surface carburettor was fitted, there was a silent exhaust, and one lever controlled the valve lifter and advance sparking. The wheel base was extra long, and a very steady machine was thus secured.
The Kingsland machine described separately in the historical record belongs to the same north London address and period. It was a typical primitive, fitted with a vertical automatic inlet valve engine and single-speed belt drive. Its frame was distinguished by a characteristic geometry: curved down-tubes and seat-tubes followed the line of the wheels, and the lower frame-tube ran forward from the crankcase front, at crankshaft level, past the pedal shaft to the rear wheel in a straight line. The rigid forks completed a configuration that was unremarkable in its mechanical specification but somewhat unusual in the framing, which shows at least some thought applied to integration of engine and chassis rather than simple attachment of a proprietary engine to a standard bicycle frame.
The London Machinists Co. is cross-referenced in the British marques index to the Royal Sovereign marque. Whether the Kingsland and Royal Sovereign names refer to the same machine sold under two identities, or to two distinct models produced at the same Kingsland Road address, the documentary record does not clearly resolve. What is established is that a factory in Kingsland, north-east London was producing motorcycles in 1902 under at least one of these names, that the machines used a vertical single-cylinder engine in an integrated frame layout, and that neither name survived long enough to establish a commercial presence in the rapidly consolidating British motorcycle industry of the early 1900s.
