White and Poppe

White and Poppe Limited owned a Coventry proprietary engine building and gearbox manufacturing business established in 1899. Many early motor vehicle manufacturers making only a small number of vehicles bought in their major components and White and Poppe soon had a large customer base and by 1914 a staff of around 350 people. By then the number of these customers, once as high as 15 or more, had fallen away though not the production volume leaving Dennis Brothers, always an important customer, taking much of their output.

Negotiations begun in 1914 culminated in the purchase of White and Poppe by Dennis Brothers in 1919. White and Poppe remained a distinct entity but during the Great Depression Dennis Brothers elected to reduce overheads by manufacturing its own engines in their Surrey works and source Diesel engines elsewhere and closed White and Poppe's operation, finally disposing of their Coventry buildings and unwanted plant and machinery in mid 1933.

This business was established in 1899 by Coventry-born Alfred James White (1870-) and Norwegian Peter August Poppe (1870-1933). They had met in Austria at a weapons factory where Poppe was on secondment from his job in Norway with Kongsberg weapons factory. White was the son of a retired watchmaker, supplier of chronometers to The Admiralty and director of White and Poppe customers Swift and Singer. White's family provided most of the capital for this new business and initially White looked after the accounts and called himself general manager. Poppe, an engineer, took charge of design and together they produced precision components for the automotive industry. Though Peter Poppe went to Rover in 1923 and a younger son left before the company closed its doors Alfred White and Poppe's eldest son Erling remained with the business until they had completed the transfer of operations to Guildford.

White's partner, Peter August Poppe was designer and chief engineer. He and White and Poppe Limited jointly held many patents for inventions made by him.

Prior to World War I they served the booming motor industry with their engines in such high demand that at the 1906 British International Motor Exhibition 15 different firms displayed automobiles with White and Poppe engines.