9:58am Monday 3rd November 2008
By Mike Pryce
IT’S a touch ironic that in a new book about the history of Morgan cars, the “Well I Never”
moment doesn’t concern anything that has come out of the famous factory in Pickersleigh Road, Malvern Link.
It comes in the revelation, to me anyway, that while Britain’s first four-wheeled internal combustion car was indeed made in the hillside town, it wasn’t by Morgan but by its rivals and friends, the Santler brothers.
Twenty years before Harry Morgan – colloquially known by his initials HFS – put Malvern on the motoring map, Charles and Walter Santler, also working from a little engineering workshop in Malvern Link, produced their car. It was originally powered by steam and then a gas engine but by 1894 it had a single cylinder petrol engine.
However, Charles and Walter didn’t have the entrepreneurial zeal of the clergyman’s son from Stoke Lacy and they stopped making cars in 1922.
While Santler might have had the power, the glory definitely went to HFS and his subsequent generations.
All this is described in fascinating, although at times very technical detail, in Morgan, Malvern and Motoring (Crowood Press £29.95) by Martyn Webb, who grew up a stone’s throw from the Morgan works and has been transfixed by the racy cars ever since they used to zip past his childhood home on test runs.
That was in the early 1960s but the beauty of this book is that it covers test runs a lot longer ago than that.
For as well as relating the Morgan story – which has been told several times before and is due to be again soon when current head of the family Charles Morgan has his own publication out – it also describes the pioneering era of motoring in the Malvern area.
It would be easy to assume the motor car was invented and it was driven.
But, of course, it wasn’t that simple.
Earth roadways used to the hooves of horses were in no great nick and the sudden appearance of a rumbling, bumbling horseless carriage creating clouds of dust caused consternation. New fangled motorists were not the most popular bunnies in the burrow. The Old Bill came down hard on them, as HFS himself found out. In October 1905, he was up before the Beak for the seventh time for a motoring offence.
Quite some going, considering motoring was in its infancy.
On this occasion it was Worcester City Police Court, where he was summoned for “driving a motor car on Severn Bridge on September 27, at a speed dangerous to the public”.
PC Gregory told the court: “The car was going at a terrific rate, a good 20mph. Having regard to the number of vehicles on the bridge there might easily have been a smash-up.”
HFS claimed he was only doing 12mph and pretty much accused the Worcester police of a vendetta against Malvern motorists. But it cut no ice. He was fined £10 and ordered to pay costs. He also had his licence endorsed. Again something that might appear unusual for the year.
Martyn has unearthed a whole series of amusing anecdotes about early motoring in and around Malvern to run alongside the technical development of the Morgan car and I loved the story about Martin Harper from Cambridgeshire, who used his skills as a blacksmith to build his own automobile and then decided to visit Malvern in it.
His pretty companion’s dress “was considered suitable for a lady autocarist and much thought had gone into its choosing”. Possibly more than had gone into the car’s braking system, for after tootling around the flat lanes of Worcestershire, the brakes failed as he drove down the steep Wyche Road into Great Malvern.
Try as he might, young Martin couldn’t stop. “My lady’s veil was fluttering as I had never seen it before and the ends of the bow that had looked so charming under her chin were streaming over her shoulder.”
After careering for the best part of a mile out of control, he managed to turn the car uphill into Foley Terrace, where it rolled to a halt. “Never before or since have I been so glad to see a steep hill in front of me.”
As Martin gathered his breath to apologise for nearly killing her, his companion turned to him and said:”Darling, wasn’t that a lovely run.” Then she saw his ashen face.
“In a trice she was up and around cherishing my face in her two gloved hands as she knelt on the seat,” he added. “What went on for the next few minutes can be regarded as quite private and I do not remember if there were any witnesses.”
The first motor trader in Malvern was William Henry Mayo, who had a shop in Church Street. He began in 1897 by selling cycles and motorcycles but soon moved into cars. Several years later, he offered a reporter on the Malvern Gazette a ride in one.
“It was so high, one needed a ladder to reach the seat beside the driver,” wrote the newshound. “We set off down Church Street and in turning into Graham Road just missed Davis’ shop by inches. It was a queer sensation having no horses in front.”
All went well until the vehicle reached Hanley Swan where it encountered a flock of sheep in the road. Among them was a ram, which promptly charged the car and became stuck underneath. Half the village turned out to help remove the stricken animal, a task that took more than half an hour. After which it trotted off unscathed.
“The incident did not lead to police court proceedings,” said the passenger. “For there was no constable at hand when it occurred.”
I can’t end this without reference to the gentleman Alfie Hales.
Mr Hales, described by a writer at the time as “a scraggy figure in a bowler hat with a prominent nose”, was Morgan’s factory manager in the years leading up to the First World War. It was his job to put HFS’s ideas into practice, which he did very successfully and the pair enjoyed an excellent working relationship.
Hales was a bit of a character and popular among the workers but had a fearsome temper when annoyed.
Unusually for the time, he disapproved of smoking in the workplace and when some of the men began disappearing to the toilets for a crafty fag, Hales solved the problem in a trice. He had the cubicle doors removed.
It wasn’t only motoring that was open air in the early days of Morgan.
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