years later. They named their new firm Humber, Marriott & Cooper. Their staff of 80 or so needed more factory space so they built them a new works at Beeston. Change partners It seemed Thomas's technical abilities were not matched by his business acumen. Cooper and Marriott left the firm in 1885 but he let them have equal rights to the name Humber. He also let them use the old partnership's patents. They set themselves up as cycle wholesalers but later they got Rudge of Coventry to make the cycles for them. Now free, Thomas Humber got the backing of Nottingham lace bleacher dyer and finisher, T Harrison Lambert, and took charge of the whole business and its Beeston works. Lambert, father of A. J. Alan, was a cycle-racing friend building a reputation as a successful company promoter. Humber and Lambert opened a factory in Coventry in 1886. By 1887 the cycle industry was consolidating and Humber and company promoter Lambert sold their business to investors who added a number of other substantial cycle manufacturers and then floated the new combine on the stock exchange. Such was the public's recognition of Humber products and their high quality and reliability the whole new organisation was named Humber & Co Limited though Humber's was not the largest component. Thomas Humber agreed to manage the whole enterprise with its works in Coventry and Wolverhampton as well as Beeston. Thomas Humber retired in 1892 at the end of his 5-year contract. Following financial difficulties, an outcome of the slump of 1898-1899, Humber & Co Limited's business was transferred to a new incorporation named Humber Limited. Retirement Thomas Humber then involved himself in the development of the pneumatic tyre and floated Beeston Pneumatic Tyre Company Limited. With Lambert he had other business interests. His old company took him to court in 1896 after his involvement in British Motor Syndicate Limited became public insisting on enforcing his agreement to not become a director of a business in a related field. Lambert remained a director of Humber and its foreign subsidiaries and joined boards of industrial businesses including Watney breweries, by then the largest brewer in London, and Watney subsidiaries in USA. However Lambert's dealings in cycle company shares brought him into association with Ernest Terah Hooley and into bankruptcy in 1900. Thomas's wife had unsuccessfully petitioned for divorce in 1886. Emma died on 8 August 1903.