Deaths: Harry Lumb, British native who established U.S. business

Electrical Apparatus, Jul 2004

Harry Lumb, 82, a native of England who founded an electric motor business in the U.S. in 1983, died May 4 in Irvine, Calif.

Mr. Lumb was born March 26, 1922, in Huddersfield, England, where he left school at 14 to become an apprentice boilermaker with the W.C. Holmes Co. In World War II, he joined the British Army, reaching the rank of Sergeant in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.

After the war, then with his wife and young child, he taught at a technical school in Sheffield, England, until 1948, when he joined Brook Motors, then headquartered in Huddersfield. He remained with Brook for the next 25 years, when he was moved to Leeds and then to Canada, and later the U.S., to head a new subsidiary. he ran Brook operations in Chicago in 1963 until the company was acquired by Hawker-Siddeley and closed its U.S. operations.

Offered a director position in England, Mr. Lumb elected to stay in the U.S., continuing as a representative of Brook Motors and several other manufacturers, as Harry Lumb and Associates in Irvine. Death followed a heart attack. Mr. Lumb had suffered from Alzheimer's for several years. A son, David, survives him.