Photo: Kary Jiggle
VR: What was your first interest in motor vehicles? Was this when you were a lad, or later life?
DK: As a boy, I was always fascinated with cars. I built up my own collection of toy cars, like most boys do. I was always good at identifying the makes of cars; even at night I developed an ability to identify a car simply by the shape and position of the headlights. Even so, at that point I hadn’t envisaged a career engaged with motor vehicles it was just a hobby, something many young boys did at the time.
My ultimate career, or rather where I am now, came almost by chance. I was always interested in history and the heritage of my own locality, which led to my going to University and studying Art History and the History of Architecture—the latter being a passion of mine as well. After succeeding in these I went on to do a Masters Degree in the History of Archaeology and Heritage Management.
Toward the end of the Heritage Management course, I chose the Coventry Transport Museum on a work placement. Initially, I was to spend around six weeks at the museum, but they wanted someone to trace and research the history of the motorcycle industry in the Coventry area. I really enjoyed the task and there was talk of them keeping me, but that didn’t materialize at that stage. I stayed on as a volunteer and carried on with the research. I eventually left and went into the “wilderness” until I got the call to return. That was in 2005, when they received some new funding from the British Motorcycle Trust and needed someone to continue the research into the motorcycle industry, which I had already started work on. My contract was to stay here on a two-year contract, and to produce a publication within that time—which I did.
VR: Hence the book, Coventry’s Motor Cycle Heritage?
DK: Yes, I discovered very early on that it wasn’t a “cut-and-dry” thing and not always constricted to motorcycles. Many of the pedal-cycle companies had attached motors to their frames, which ultimately brought them loosely into the sphere of the industry, some even made motor cars too. So, it was a three-way list. When the book was complete it was only natural to continue and research further into Coventry’s Motor Heritage—the name of my second book.[pullquote]
“I hadn`t envisaged a career engaged with motor vehicles it was just a hobby.”
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VR: Let’s have a look at the roots of the Coventry Transport Museum, I believe it, too, started with cycles and motorcycles?
DK: Looking back, Coventry was—believe it or not—the world’s leading or principal bicycle-making center, particularly during the late 19th Century. A group of local Councillors thought it would be a good idea to have a museum in the center of Coventry to celebrate this. Nothing really happened until the 1930s when a chap called Samuel Bartleet, a cycle collector and historian, realized the significance of Coventry in the manufacturing of pedal-cycles. He gifted the City of Coventry his entire collection for public display, but there wasn’t an available building big enough to house the collection, so it was stored in a number of locations around the city. Plans were considered for a purpose-built building to display the collection, but politics and the war intervened. So, nothing happened. In 1960, the collection was finally put on display in the Herbert Art Gallery, perhaps not entirely ideal, but at last the public could view the Bartleet Collection of cycles.
Collections of Coventry-manufactured cars were then being sourced, but again space to show these was lacking. Although it wasn’t entirely adequate to house them in the Art Gallery, they were displayed there too, but on a rotational system as there wasn’t the room for the whole collection. Then, in the early 1980s, a fledgling Transport Museum building was created on the site we have here today, but in a much smaller and different guise. It was used to house many of the cycles and cars collected over the years, and although the Herbert Art Gallery of course continued, there was a definite split between the two buildings and organizations. Today, however, ties between the Herbert and the Transport Museum are strengthening as they join to become a single Trust. I think it’s possibly due to the times of austerity we now live in and partly cultural. From the public’s point of view, it has to be good news as the future of the two bodies working together will ensure Coventry’s place in the automotive and cycle industries will be on show for generations to come.
VR: Let me ask you, people see the term Curator, I understand you are one of a team of Curators for the Coventry Transport Museum. Exactly, what does your job entail?
DK: There are four recognized Curators within my department and a Head of Collections, too. One of them is a technician who looks after the bicycles, another looks after the archive for small objects and the other is responsible for the vehicle collection. My position is the responsibility for research and any enquiries, which come to the museum. For major and temporary exhibitions within the museum we all get together to ensure we put on the best display possible, each of us working to our individual strengths, but as one team. We are all involved in the redevelopment of the site of the museum too. We have just been awarded a grant that will allow us to reinterpret Coventry’s story in terms of cycle and motor production, and to display more Coventry-based vehicles.
VR: How would you describe the social history of the car industry in Coventry? What have you gleaned from your research?
Photo: Haydn Bailey
DK: Interestingly, when the automotive industry started in Coventry, circa 1896, it was a city of bicycle makers. There really wasn’t the engineering capability to produce motor vehicles at that time. So, from the census done in 1891 to the census in 1901, we see an influx of people from all places around the UK, like Crewe, where there was a background in producing locomotives. We can even see the influx of foreign labor from Belgium, France and Germany, again from engineering backgrounds, offering their services and expertise. Not too different from today, Coventry was becoming a real multicultural city. Before the automotive industry there were ribbon makers, watch makers and sewing machine makers when many came from Ireland into the city to work. The real multicultural revolution in Coventry, however, was the start of the 20th Century, which coincided with the birth of the automotive industry. The population grew at a massive rate too, from 60-70,000 in the early 1900s to over 250,000 by the outbreak of WWII. We can trace too, patents and copyrights from other European countries and they became British designs in the automotive world.
VR: I have to laugh, as I remember when Japanese motor cars, such as Toyota and Datsun, came to the UK they we described as “sewing machines” and ridiculed. If we look back to our own history that’s how we evolved too?
DK: No, we should realize the Eastern Asian companies had to go through change and development just as we did. Of course, we are selective when it comes to memory.
VR: You’ve done extensive research on the subject, so, just how many car manufacturers can Coventry boast to having?
DK: I don’t think I can give you a definitive answer to that question, but it’s safe to say there were over 130 individual car manufacturers in the city. What I found in my research was the local trade directories were quite good in identifying these companies, but there were those who listed, say, a radiator manufacturer as a motor manufacturing company—which obviously isn’t the case. So, delving into the history of each of these companies revealed some interesting results. My figure of 130 would be a “safe bet,” but I could say it could be as many as 150.
VR: Could you say that Coventry was possibly one of the densest areas of motor manufacturers in the UK?
DK: Per head of population and being concentrated around the city center, yes. There would have been more in, say, Birmingham over time, but Birmingham is much larger and had many more inhabitants.
VR: Can I ask, who was the first car manufacturer in Coventry?
DK: Yes, basically it was Harry Lawson, who had acquired the rights to build Daimler motor cars in the UK. He had bought the rights from F. R. Simms to produce copies of the car from Daimler’s headquarters in Germany. He tried to monopolize things in this country. He chose Coventry because he had worked here from around 1879, initially as a bicycle machinist, and decided upon an old disused cotton factory at Draper’s Field, which after being fitted out, became the “Motor Mills.”
VR: I have to go to the other end of the scale now, with the demise of the industry in the area, who were the last?
DK: We have one manufacturer still left in Coventry and that is the London Taxi Company which still makes taxi cabs today. The last major manufacturer to leave was Peugeot-Citroën, which finished in 2005. Just prior to that Jaguar and Massey-Ferguson (tractor makers) went too. What we do still have is a tremendous amount of supporting trades to the motor industry. There are many small works that produce engine parts, trimming or electrical bits and pieces, but none really produces a finished car that could consider them as being classed as a motor manufacturer.
VR: Going back to the museum, it does give that sense of history and heritage of what Coventry once meant to the automotive industry. Where does the museum go now, what’s the future?
DK: As I said, with the merger with the Herbert Museum we are now looking at “Culture Coventry” as a theme. We can utilize each of our unique resources to convey this to the public. As museums we have been working separately for far too long, and it’s good to see us unite under on banner.
VR: Can I ask about significant exhibits you have in the museum, which are the top five standout models?
DK: I would say the 1888 model of the Rover Safety Bicycle, it’s not one of the prettiest of things but, very significant in the overall history of cycle engineering. It was created in Coventry by John Kemp Starley from the mid-1880s. When it was first built it was very different to any other cycle that had been built before, yet it looks, by and large, like the cycles we ride today. It has a diamond construction frame and also has a chain that drives the rear wheel —the front and rear wheels being of equal size. From this point onward, all cycle makers made cycles based on this design because it was far safer and far more accessible, and so became popular with all riders.
The next is one of the first cars, the Daimler Wagonette, when the design of the early car was based on a carriage previously pulled by a horse or horses. It’s one of the oldest cars to have been built in Coventry, a year after the Daimler Company was founded. It was made at a factory in the Drapers Field area of Coventry and would have cost around £373—so, about £25,000 today. The body is made of wood and the style is a “Phaeton.” Phaeton was a God in Greek mythology, who drove the “chariot of the sun” too fast. So Zeus, the king of Greek Gods, struck him with a lightning bolt to stop him setting the world on fire. Phaeton-style carriages are seen as sporty and meant to be driven fast.
The third would be the Triumph Speed twin motorcycle. The Triumph Cycle Company began as cycle manufacturers at Much Park Street, Coventry, in 1889, yet the origins began in London four years earlier when two Germans, Siegfried Bettmann and Mauritz Schulte, began selling British-built cycles abroad under the ‘Triumph” name. After some early developmental work, it was in 1902 that Triumph marketed its first motorcycles from a new works at Priory Street, Coventry. It was the manufacture of motorcycles that would make Triumph a household name. The 1938 Triumph Speed Twin was one of the most influential motorcycle designs in history. It was designed by Edward Turner and was revolutionary in terms of the engineering behind it. It was compact, neat, weighed very little and was cheap to manufacture.
My penultimate choice would be the Alvis. Alvis was a motorcar manufacturer that began at Holyhead Road in 1919, established by T. G. John, a former works manager at the Siddeley-Deasy Motor Company. Alvis soon found a reputation for making quality sports and touring models, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s, including the 14/40, the 12/50 sports, the “Silver Eagle,” the “Crested Eagle” and the “Speed” series. In 1920, they became the first British car manufacturers to offer a front-wheel-drive model. During WWII they became more and more active in military projects, and in 1965 were taken over by the Rover Company. My favorite model is the TE21, which is one of the last models to be manufactured by the company. Unfortunately, like many Coventry independent motor companies, they were swallowed up by the now-defunct British Leyland company.
Lastly, you have to be impressed with the Thrust SSC land speed record car, a car—loosely speaking—without wings.
VR: Is there a favorite exhibit with a particular story to tell?
Photo: Kary Jiggle
DK: There are many of those, but my favorite has to be the Rudge motorcycle and sidecar ridden by Stanley Glanfield. Rudge was a company that started in Wolverhampton in the late 1860s, but was later transferred to Coventry in 1880 when Dan Rudge died. Glanfield was a former motorcycle sales agent who took part in a successful world tour on a Rudge combination in the late 1920s.
On July 2, 1927, Stanley T. Glanfield, along with Flight Sergeant S. W. Sparkes, set off from London with the aim or riding their 3.5-hp Rudge motorcycles around the world in just 120 days. The journey would take them through 22 countries and cover 17,000 miles.
The project was sponsored by the Board of Trade to demonstrate the reliability of standard British motorcycle combinations and British engineering, while also studying trade conditions overseas with regard to the motorcycle industry.
The journey first took them through France, Germany and Hungary, then on to Austria and Bulgaria. By August 19th they had reached Constantinople, and then made their way through Basra to Bombay. They faced many hazards and perils along the way, both through a range of primitive road surfaces, and in some cases having to make swift escapes from hostile natives.
Sparkes had not been well, so he left for home from Bombay leaving Glanfield to finish the rest of the trip alone. Glanfield reached Calcutta on October 10th, after covering 1,800 miles in Monsoon conditions in just six days. After being shipped to Australia he went from Darwin to Sydney, covering 3,700 miles across the central Australian Desert—the first motorist ever to complete the journey alone.
Once in America he crossed the continent in 13 days, covering a further 3,700 miles, joining up again with Sparkes in London on March 4, 1928.
Today, people look at the recent exploits of Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman and think that is remarkable, but what must it have been like for Glanfield back in those days. A truly heroic achievement.
