Early Stuart I.C. engine

I came across this in the tea room of the Sammy MIller motorcycle museum:

Although described as an apprentice piece (they obviously want it to be a motorcycle engine), I noticed that "STUART" was stamped on a couple of the items.

It looks like one half of this air cooled AE twin (image from MEN)

It seems they were produced as singles or twins, water or air cooled.

Rod

The AE30 and AE 60 were the single and twin variants of that one but the engine does not look like the AE30. it's quite different to that

What parts had Stuart on them? The one you show is the cover to the carb float chamber so could just be a bought in carb.

This is the other catalogue page and some photos of an aircooled AE30

Edited By JasonB on 08/11/2022 06:58:23

On the Miller engine, the plate on the side of the crankcase with the oiler attached is also stamped "STUART". It looks like the AE evolved. My copy of the TEE reproduction of Caunter's " Model Petrol Engines" shows a twin AE with top end similar to the single pics that Jason has posted

However, the " On the Wire" website has a picture of an earlier air cooled AE twin which shows an automatic inlet valve and the same cylinder head and cooling fans as the MIller example

The image data suggests this is from 1910. The picture below seems to be an early water cooled AE single with the same cylinder head and auto inlet valve

The next question is: Did Stuart actually make any or were they all supplied as kits? I guess early issues of ME may supply some adverts but my collection only goes back to the mid 30s

Rod

Quite possibly apprentice built but seems unlikely as an exam piece. Far too much work in it for a one-day exam etc. More likely as a combined term project etc.

Is that 4 cylinder 50cc engine still on display at the museum ?

I think it may be the 43cc engine of 1910 vuntage shown at the bottom of this page which apart from being a water cooled version looks almost identical

I wonder if the earlier engines were of a larger capacity which was reduced at some time to get them within the 30cc class limit but I'm not sure when that came into use.

Edited By JasonB on 08/11/2022 16:50:11