Sir John Carden, 6th Baronet

Sir John Carden, Bt
Carden-Baynes
Sir John Carden, Bt Carden-Baynes
Significant design	Carden Loyd tankette

Sir John Valentine Carden, 6th Baronet

Templemore, County Tipperary, from 1931.^[1]

Work

Born in London, Carden was a talented, self-taught engineer,^{[citation needed]} with an ability to put his ideas to practical use. From 1914 to 1916, he ran a company that manufactured light passenger-cars under the brand Carden. The company's first model was a cyclecar, with seating only for the driver.

During the

First World War, Carden served in the Army Service Corps and gained the rank of captain, acquiring experience with vehicles such as tracked Holt tractors

.

After the war, he returned to car manufacturing but sold his original design and factory to Ward and Avey who renamed it the

King Alfonso XIII of Spain ^[1] before selling the company to new owners in 1922 who renamed it the New Carden

.

Two or three years later, Carden met car-designer

Carden-Loyd, working on light, tracked vehicles for military use. Carden was reportedly described as an "introvert engineering genius", while Loyd was conversely described as an "extrovert engineer-salesman".^{[citation needed}

]

What brought the pair real success was a tankette design: the first Carden-Loyd One-Man Tankette, which was designed in 1925. In the next two years, it was developed into Marks I, II and III, and later, two-man tankette models Mark IV and Mark V. All were built in small numbers but were very promising, and, as a result, Carden-Loyd was bought by Vickers-Armstrongs in March 1928. Carden himself was employed by Vickers as the technical director. The pair continued developing their tankette model, eventually creating their best-known design, the Mark VI. It became the first successful design for that vehicle type in the world,^{[citation needed]} and a classic one, several hundred being produced and exported to 16 countries. Many foreign tankette models developed later were said to be inspired by the Mark VI.^{[citation needed]}

Carden and Loyd also designed

Vickers E

tank model.

Aside from tanks, Carden and Loyd also developed several light

L.E. Baynes led to the founding of Carden Baynes Aircraft Ltd., which produced gliders

of Baynes' design fitted with auxiliary engines.

John Carden was killed in an air crash near Tatsfield, Surrey on 10 December 1935, while flying on a Sabena airliner.^[2]