Portfolio Rumbling On: The Story of a Car

This is the history of a Morris 10/4 two-seat tourer with dicky seat, registration AYC 819, 1935 model although manufactured in 1934. (A)

The car has a 10 horse power, side-valve engine of fourcylinders with a capacity of 1292cc. Its chassis number is 35/TN.49244 and its engine number is 44318.

According to its dashboard badge, the car was first sold by Wheller & Bristow, motor agents, of Yeovil, Somerset. The firm operated from the Hendford Motor Garage, situated at the corner of Hendford and Manor Road on a site now occupied by the Homeville House sheltered apartments block. During the 1920s the firm appear to have been coachbuilders as well as motor agents. (B)

The car was first purchased (presumably for the original advertised price of £165) by or for Everard (Evy) Bingham Hambro (1916-71) (C) the 18 year old son of the late Mjr Gen Sir Percival (Percy) Otway Hambro, KBE, CB, CMG (1870-1931) and Lady Marjorie Henrietta Hambro nee Bingham (1890-1965), of Queen Camel House, Queen Camel, Somerset, some 7 miles north of Yeovil.

During the winter months of 1934/35 Mr Hambro had accompanied his widowed mother and two elder sisters on a voyage to Australia, staying in Sydney with Lady Hambro’s brother-in law. On their return, he acquired this car and his mother acquired the larger 2062cc Morris Oxford 16, registration AYC 820. Both vehicles were registered with the Somerset County Council at Taunton, Somerset, in 1935 May 14. (D)


The Tatler for 1935 June 26 (issue no 1774, page 609) carries a photograph (reproduced here, colorised)

Entitled In London Town: Mr E Hambro & Miss Rosemary Potter seated together at one of the more fashionable haunts of smart London. Miss Potter, also then aged 18, was later the countess of Darnley. Mr Hambro’s son identifies the venue as the 400 Club, 28a Leicester Square WC2. Rosemary Potter may well have been a passenger in Mr Hambro’s car. His son suggests that he may also have had as a passenger another of his girlfriends, the American-born singer and actress Frances Day (1908-84), celebrated in the 1920s and ’30s as the first of Britain’s blonde bombshells.

Mr Hambro senior never mentioned his first car to his sons, and the family has no existing photograph of it. It is possible that he kept the car for less than a year, for on page 3 of the Western Daily Press and Bristol Mirror for Friday 1936 Apr 3, there appeared, under Bristol and West Motor Sales the following advertisement by Wheller & Bristow, Morris Distributors, Yeovil: MORRIS Ten/Four Two-seater (May, 1935); perfect – £105


In the event, the car was acquired by William George Davis (1902-78) who was born and married (in 1933) at Chippenham, Wiltshire, and before WWII was residing at Yeovil with his wife, Dorothy May Davis nee Tabor (1904-80). In 1939 he was working as a foreman mason (stone machinist), and presumably the car was laid up during the war years of 1939-45 because of petrol-rationing. Although Mrs Davis was born in Buckinghamshire, her parents were born and married at Ryde on the Isle of Wight (IOW), and her mother was living there between 1939 and 1955 (when she died). The Davises themselves apparently moved to the IOW in 1947, for the car was on March 3 of that year registered with the Isle of Wight County Council in the name of William George Davis at The Bungalow, Lushington Hill, Wootton, IW, some three miles west of Ryde. That is the earliest entry in the surviving buff registration book, in which the car is described as then colored black. Mr Davis was subsequently a mink farmer on the island.

David (Dave) George Perkis, a young car sales employee born in 1946 on the Isle of Wight, often saw the car driven on the island and yearned to own it. In later years the car failed the annual MOT test and remained unused because of difficulty in obtaining spare parts. Early in 1969 Mr Perkis asked Mr Davis if he might buy the car. Mr Davis was at first reluctant to sell, but eventually agreed to part with it for £15 after Mr Perkis promised not to have it broken up for scrap. Mr Perkis and his 21 years old fiancee, Doreen Gunn, a bank clerk of Station Road, St Helen’s, spent most Sundays and many weekday evenings over a period of six months renovating the car at Mr Perkis’s home, 8 Chapel Road, Binstead, IOW. Mr Perkis’s employment at a Fishbourne garage proved invaluable in the search for spares. An account of their endeavors was published in the Portsmouth Evening News, Tuesday 26 August 1969,
page 5, under the title Doreen has a brush with the past; it included the accompanying photograph (here colorised) showing Doreen, Dave and (behind the wheel) his young nephew. (E)

The side-valve engine and the braking and steering systems required extensive repairs. The bodywork was rusty and the upholstery required attention: Miss Gunn attended to those items and also repainted the bodywork, yellow with black wings. (The car was formally registered in Mr Pekis’s name on August 13.)


In the following year (1970) Mr Perkis and Miss Gunn were married, and in order to raise the deposit on the purchase of their new home they sold the car to a local antiques dealer. He was apparently Neil Russell Gibbs (1943- ) of Ventnor IOW, who at that time was trading in both antiques and used cars, although his many and varied business ventures in subsequent years have effectively obliterated his memory of this particular vehicle. The car was in fact registered on October 2 in the name of his sister-in-law, Alice Christine (Tina) Gibbs (1942- ) of Hunters Way, Hunts Road, St Lawrence, Ventnor, IOW, but she was then in Singapore where her husband was working, and she knew nothing of the vehicle.

Subsequently, the car was sold to Ronald (Ron) John Muriss (1934-2008) of Silverwood, Chorleywood Road, Rickmansworth, WD3 4EW (and later of Chalfont St Giles, Bucks). Mr Muriss was a partner in the solicitors’ firm of Worsdell & Vintner, Northwood, Middlesex. By February 1985 the original registration (AYC 819) had been sold separately from the car, which had been registered under a new number (CSV 252), an available Kinross-shire registration number of the same era as the original. By the same month the bodywork had been repainted maroon with black wings.
In 1985 February 1 the car was acquired by Peter Glyn Jones (1939-2012), a company director (Hunting Marine Services Ltd) of Galleon Cottage, Ham, Sidlesham, Chichester, Sussex PO20 7NX, and was registered in his name on March 25. His wife Mandy (Amanda J Jones) recalls the broad grin on his face when he came home with the car they knew as Rumble.

In 1992 Mr Jones sold the car to the twin brother of his neighbor, Michael A Ridley, and on March 4, it was registered in the name of David Malcolm Ridley (1947-2013) of 49 Watergate Road, Newport, IOW PO30 1XP. Mr Ridley was a surgeon and consultant in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, St Mary’s Hospital, Newport, IOW. David and his first wife, Susan Michaela Lupton (1969- ), took the car on the Claret & Classics Bordeaux-Saumur classic car rally of 1992 June 27 – July 3. (F)

They travelled in convoy with Michael A Ridley and his wife Marjie (Christine Marjorie Ridley), and with Peter Glyn Jones and his wife Mandy. The two photographs below were taken by Marjie. The first is at their usual breakfast stop, le Bras d’Or, in Lieurey. In the foreground is David and Sue Ridley’s car (reg CSV 252), with Michael and Marjie Ridley’s 1926 Model T Ford (reg PF 1077) next on the left, and Peter and Mandy Jones’s 1937 Austin 7 Opal tourer (reg DAF 30) to the left of that. Behind the cars (from left to right) are Peter, Michael, Mandy, and David. La Place de la Mairie, Lieurey, Haute-Normandie Quai Charles Guinot, Amboise, Indre-et-Loire


David Ridley and Dr Mike Howell of Chale Green, IOW, took the car on the Claret & Classics Bordeaux-Saumur classic car rally the following year, 1993 July 3-9; Sue stayed at home as she was expecting the Ridleys’ first son. In 1993 November 8, Mr Ridley was able to procure re-registration of the car under its original number (AYC 819).

According to an original display placard retained with the car, it participated in 2004 March 27 as no 44 in a re-enactment by the VSCC Light Car & Edwardian Section of one of the tours taken in the 1924 RAC small car trials in mid and north Wales. The route taken during the weekend of March 27/28 was from Llandrindod Wells to Bala and back to Llandrindod, traversing Bwlch y Groes, the highest of the Welsh passes.

In 2005 Mr Ridley was married for the second time, to Nicola (Nicky) Christine Orchard, in North Devon. In 2007 he carried out some restoration of the car including: overhaul of the brakes, installation of a partial new wiring loom and new clutch, and replacement of the hood and sidescreens. In 2012 Mr & Mrs Ridley moved to Manor Mill House, Mill Head, Bampton, Tiverton EX16 9LP, and it was there that he died in 2013 January 1.

Following Mr Ridley’s death the car was sold by his executors (his wife Nicola & sister-in-law Marjie) to Bernard (Bernie) Adrian Bagley (1957- ) of Trevales Lodge, Stithians, Truro TR3 7DA, in whose name it was registered in 2013 January 29. He was the managing director and chairman of Falmouth Boat
Construction Ltd, engaged in boat building. On February 4 he acquired for the car, from The Complete Automobilist of North Walsham, Norfolk, its current winged Boyce Moto Meter. Mr Bagley and his wife Elizabeth Rose Bagley had the car’s bodywork renovated and repainted for participation in the wedding between their younger daughter Holly Elizabeth Bagley and Benjamin Cunningham Russell. The marriage took place in 2013 August 3 at Heartlands, Robinson’s Shaft, Dudnance Lane, Pool, Redruth, Cornwall TR15 3QY. The accompanying photograph shows the wedding car in front of the pumping-engine house which served the South Crofty Mine (extracting tin and copper). After the wedding, the car was stored in a barn.

In 2014 August 8, Mr Bagley disposed of the car to the Panorama Bay Motor Company of 36 Panorama Road, Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset BH13 7RD. On September 17, the car was offered for sale by auction through Charterhouse Auctioneers & Valuers at The Royal Bath and West Showground, Shepton
Mallet, Somerset, BA4 6QN, and was sold to Cross Keys Garage of Norton Fitzwarren, Taunton, Somerset TA2 6NR at the price of £12,096, including buyer’s premium.
In October 2014 the car was sold for £13,950 or thereabouts to Michael J B Povall (1938- ), a retired police officer of Minehead, Somerset, although because of delays in the paperwork, the car was never registered or taxed in Mr Povall’s name. In February 2016 Mr Povall part exchanged
the car for another vintage Morris sold by Cross Keys Garage. In 2016 April 11 the car was acquired by Anthony Michael (Michael) Dancer, a retired solicitor of Gosberton, Spalding, Lincolnshire.

NOTES
(A)
I am grateful to the following for assistance in preparing this account: Somerset Archives & Local Studies,Taunton, Som.; Mr Peter Hambro of Belgravia, London; Mr Dave Perkis of Ryde, IOW; Mr Neil Gibbs and Mrs Tina Stone, both of Ventnor, IOW; Mrs Marjie Ridley of Sidlesham, West Sussex; and Mr
Mike Povall of Minehead, Som.
(B)
The business was started by Alfred Ernest Wheller (1870-1923) who is described in Collins’ directory of 1907 as A C (sic) Wheller Electrical & General Engineer, Hendford, Yeovil, and in an advertisement in Whitby’s Yeovil Almanack Adviser of 1913 as A E Wheller, Electrical & Motor Engineer, 64 Hendford,
Yeovil, agent for Bedford cars. In the 1960s the business was known as Wheller Motors Ltd. (A 1926 Morris Cowley bullnose tourer, registration KS 2255, has two-door coachwork by Wheller & Bristow Yeovil.)
(C)
Everard Bingham Hambro (1916-71), Lt Col of the 15/19 The King’s Royal Hussars, fought in WWII with the Royal Armoured Corps and was married early in 1944; in the same year, as a Captain (temporary Major) in Italy, he was mentioned in dispatches and invested as MBE. His great grandfather was the founder of the merchant bank, Hambros (C J Hambro & Son), and he himself was a director of the merchant bank, Samuel Montagu & Co Ltd.
(D)
Mr Peter Hambro has a good story his father was wont to tell about his grandmother’s car. It appears that she was stopped outside her home county by a police constable on the grounds that she was driving too fast. “Excuse me madam”, he said, “but in view of the fact you were exceeding the speed limit, I shall have to see your driving licence and have your name and address.” His grandmother, not unreasonably and in the stern tones she generally used to admonish the lower orders, replied: “Lady Hambro, Queen Camel, Somerset. And I do not have my driving licence with me”. A look of astonishment came over the constable’s face and he exclaimed, “Madam, if you are Queen Camel, I am King Farouk! Drive on and don’t go so fast in future!”
(E)

Mr & Mrs Perkis subsequently founded Staddlestones Garage at Ryde, IOW, originally Ford dealers but subsequently the island’s Nissan and Peugeot dealers, and still run by the family. Mr Perkis is Assistant Provincial Grand Master of the province of Hampshire and Isle of Wight.
(F)
This was an annual event held through continental vineyards during the period 1984-2009; it was organised by Roger M Deeley (1944-), a professional artist and journalist, and wine and classic car enthusiast, of Weston super Mare, Avon.

Submitted by: Michael Dancer

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