Jowett Mentions in the Commercial Motor Archives

[PJGD]

I really like it when magazines and periodicals that have been around for decades take the time and effort to digitize their past copies and make them available on the internet, and most importantly make them searchable. Flight International is one such periodical but another that I have just discovered is the trade magazine Commercial Motor which goes back to circa 1909, and their archive (still in beta form) is available here: http://archive.commercialmotor.com/

Commercial Motor, for those who don't know, is a weekly trade magazine for the trucking industry in the UK. Since it covers anything to do with commercial vehicles, it must also have crossed paths with Jowett who manufactured light commercial vehicles before the war and also in the form of the Bradford after the war. Sure enough, when I did a search on Jowett, I had several hits which extended from 2005 all the way back to 1909. The 2005 article covers a Christmas issue "fun" road test of a 1932 Jowett panel van from the Brooklands Museum, while the 1909 reference is to a 2-ton chassis.

In the case of the CM archive, they have scanned all the pages, and then run them through text recognition software and it is this latter "clean" version that can be downloaded although the original is still available for viewing. The problem with this is that any dirt or blemishes on the original page show up as apostrophes, commas, or other extraneous character and thus the resulting file can require some heavy editing. Additionally, the photos and other graphics are not transferred, thus in some cases it is still necessary to look at the original page.

To make your job easier, I have downloaded the bulk of the Jowett references (there may be some that I missed) and, after editing, have compiled them in chronological order into a 32 page document attached here, and also in my Gallery here: TOPIC

[Forumadmin]

Thanks Philip. All we need to do now is digitize the Jowetteers from 1923!

[NoelStokoe]

Hi Philip,

What a great job you have done! I have spent several hours reading these articles, most of which I have not seen before.

Noel Stokoe
Press Officer & Librarian