Wm Armstrong

In 1927 William Armstrong, a farm labourer, acquired a 25 acre smallholding at Newtown, Irthington near Brampton and so founded his haulage firm. Today, the third generation of the Armstrong family is running the business. Livestock lorries based at the Longtown depot can carry 35 cows compared with William Armstrong's original Model T Ford that could only carry one cow and a co-operative one at that! While he was never to make his fortune moving single cows he saw the opportunity for retailing coal brought from the nearly Hallbankgate drift mine which he sold for around the equivalent of 6p a cwt.

It was the arrival of the Nestle and Angle Swiss Condensed Milk Company in Carlisle in 1928 that really established the business. The 1928 agreement was that Armstrongs would bring nine churns of milk into the dairy every day - for the sum of 10 shillings (50p) and William received a cheque for £15 for the loads carried in September 1928 with which he opened a bank account. The photo is courtesy of and copyrighted to Andrew Burton.

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