Hawleys Tyres

The company was founded in 1910 by Mr. Ernest Hawley, the grandfather of the present Chairman, and is now the oldest tyre retail and wholesale business in the British Isles, still under the control of the same founding family. Mr. Ernest Hawley was a person who always had an interest in motorcars, and was one of the few who pioneered motoring in it... s early days. An engineer by profession, he was foreman engineer at Oughtibridge Silica Works, until he started a motor taxi service from outside a shop that the family owned in Wadsley Lane, in the Owlerton district of Sheffield. The taxi side of the business thrived and Mr. Hawley became known for doing a lot of his own repairs. This include the mending of punctures, which were numerous in the early days, and the fitting of his own new tyres that he obtained, Gradually, other owners of cars came to him for help, when they had punctures, and even brought tyres that they had bought elsewhere to him for fitting. Never one to pass up an opportunity, he began to stock a few tyres to sell to others, and so the tyre business began.Read More