DIFFLOCKEDTHE REGISTRY

Herbert Lomas Ltd

Manchester wheelwright turned ambulance specialist, incorporated in 1913 and based for most of its life at Handforth near Wilmslow, Cheshire. Lomas bodied ambulances on Austin, Bedford, Morris and Ford chassis for British and overseas services, and from the late 1950s built the four-stretcher Land Rover 109 ambulance used by county services and the Army; the company's last accounts were filed for 1981.

History

Herbert Lomas appears in the 1901 census as a wheelwright in Salford, and in Manchester directories of 1903 to 1911 as a coach and carriage builder at City Road, Hulme. Herbert Lomas Ambulances Ltd was incorporated as a private company on 8 December 1913, and an Altrincham accident ambulance of the 1910s carries the firm's City Road address. The business later settled at Handforth, near Wilmslow in Cheshire, where Aubrey Lomas and his sons carried it on, and it became one of the recognised British ambulance coachbuilders alongside Wadhams and Dennis, bodying Austin Sheerlines and Princesses, Bedford K, CA and J types, Morris LDs and J2s and, at the end, Ford Transits and Cortina estates. A trade profile of 1960 recorded that over twenty years it had exported ambulances to eighty countries.

The Land Rover work began in the late 1950s: a 1958 Series II conversion is recorded as the first Lomas Land Rover ambulance, and from 1965 the firm offered a purpose-built body on the 109-inch chassis with a raised roof giving full headroom and room for four stretchers, sold to county ambulance services, the Army and export customers — Lomas advertised a version for hot climates. A 1972 Range Rover ambulance for Somerset shows the same body adapted to the newer chassis. The company's final accounts were made up to 31 December 1981, and a Transit bodied that year is thought to be among the last vehicles it built. Restored Lomas Land Rovers survive with the Ambulance Heritage Society and in private hands.

Vehicles in this registry (2)

Sources & citations

Maker record updated 2026-09-11T08:59:45.398Z · status: researched