BTH Magnetos, 1949

Until I read this ad, I didn't know what BTH stood for.  In the context of this 1949 ad, BTH competed against Lucas to sell devices to deliver a reliable spark to a motorcycle engine. 

British Thomson-Houston was actually created from a British subsidiary of General Electric, whose focus was on heavy industry, mostly generators, motors, steam turbines and later locomotives, even jet engines. The magnetos were obviously a minor sideline.

 Noting the bottom line of the ad, in 1928 they were part of an amalgamation with Metropolitan Vickers, becoming part of Associated Electrical Industries.

A much nicer logo than BTH...

 If this was a business blog we could go into an analysis of the issues that company had with duplicate management structures selling competing products and finally settling in 1960 on selling product under the AEI banner, which was an unknown name, causing a large decline in sales... as well as almost universal resentment within the company. The company was soon acquired by the General Electric Company.

But more importantly to us, it may come as a shock that a company with the BTH logo is again supplying electrical components for the same old motorcycles.