Carl Breeden, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetCarl Breeden
English industrialist and cricketer
Date of Birth: 10-Feb-1891
Date of Death: 02-Nov-1951
Profession: cricketer
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Aquarius 
About Carl Breeden
- Carl Louis "Charles" Breeden (10 February 1891 – 2 November 1951) was an English automotive industry engineer and entrepreneur and a first-class cricketer.
- He was born in Moseley, Birmingham and died at Claverdon, Warwickshire. Breeden was a Lucas employee who acquired an interest in the Wilmot company, a long-established Birmingham silversmiths, which accounts for the name.
- Wilmot stayed with the company until 1949 at least, and the title was hyphenated until the early fifties.
- By the time of Breeden's death in 1951 it employed more than 5,000 people.
- Breeden had brought back from the United States the concept of attached metal bumpers or fenders.
- Breeden was approached by William Morris, probably in 1928, and asked to supply bumpers for the new Morris Minor.
- With very little in the way of facilities he delivered the first batch within three months of commencement.
- He subsequently began supplying Austin, Wolseley, and eventually almost every UK vehicle maker.
- The Wilmot part of the business concentrated upon smaller parts, developing new techniques of pressure die casting and chromium plating which made them market leaders.
- By 1931 the company had issued a catalogue which contained many other types of automotive components including door locks.
- It is one of the direct antecedents of the current Inteva Products international components group.
- He was well-connected within the automotive industry in other ways too.
- In 1914, he married Hilda, the daughter of Harry Lucas, son of the founder of Lucas Industries and the head of that company; in 1951, just six months before he died, his younger son married a daughter of Leonard Lord, the head of the Austin Motor Company and the architect of the British Motor Corporation.
- Before the First World War, Breeden had worked with Oliver Lucas of the Lucas Industries group to develop the dynamo for use on motorcycles, which were a fast-growing industry in Birmingham. Breeden was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham where he was captain of the cricket team in 1909, and he played a few matches for Warwickshire County Cricket Club's second eleven in that year too.
- He was a middle-order right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pace bowler.
- In 1910, he appeared in five first-class cricket matches for the Warwickshire first team in a three-week period in mid-summer.
- He was not a success, and his highest score was 27, which he made in the course of an innings defeat by Leicestershire.
- Though his bowling had proved occasionally useful in second eleven matches, he bowled only seven overs in first-class cricket and did not take a wicket.
- He did not play any more first-class cricket after this season, though he continued to appear in minor games up to 1930. Breeden was a significantly wealthy man when he died, and death duties on his estate amounted to more than £500,000.
- The annual general meeting of the company the year after his death was told that he had arranged for his two sons to be joint managing directors of the Wilmot-Breeden group and for his elder son to be chairman as well.
Read more at Wikipedia