Gladiator Cycle Company
The Gladiator Cycle Company, Clément-Gladiator (from 1896), was a French manufacturer of bicycles, motorcycles and cars based in Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Seine.
Throughout its productive life from 1891 until its demise in 1920 the company was variously owned by: the founders Alexandre Darracq and Paul Aucoq; from 1896 by Adolphe Clément, Lord Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury, and fraudster Harry John Lawson; from 1906 by 'Vinot et Deguingand'.
Cycle manufacture
Gladiator cycles
The cycle manufacturer was founded at Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Seine north east of Paris by Alexandre Darracq and Paul Aucoq in 1891.
Clément-Gladiator cycles
In 1896 Adolphe Clément was associated with Lord Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and (yet to be convicted) fraudster Harry John Lawson of the British Automobile Commercial Syndicate Ltd (BACS), which would be the first of many of Lawson's ventures to collapse in 1897. They bought the Gladiator Cycle Company, and merged it into a major bicycle manufacturing conglomerate of Clement, Gladiator & Humber (France) Ltd. Clément remained a director after the collapse of BACS. The range of cycles was expanded with tricycles, quadricycles, and in 1902 a motorised bicycle, then cars and motorcycles.
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