Persons associated with Grindlay Peerless

The following are key individuals associated with the creation, development and successes of the Grindlay Peerless company and its motorcycle machines.

Grindlay Family

Alfred Robert Grindlay

The Right Worshipful The Mayor of Coventry Alfred Robert Grindlay CBE, OBE, JP was born in Coventry in 1876, the son of William Grindlay (1843-1881) an established watch artisan. Upon leaving school, Alfred joined a local cycle firm and began learning the skills he would employ to great effect later in his career and by 1901 be was working at Riley Cycle Company, one of the major firms in the Coventry. Grindlay progressed steadily within the company, until 1911, while working as a foreman at Riley Cycle Company, he applied for a patent (24,683) regarding 'improved means for carrying spare wheels' for motorcars. That same year Alfred left Riley Cycle Company and took over the Coventry Motor & Sundries business, establishing Grindlay Sidecars.[1]

During WWI he combined forces with Thomas Edward Musson (b.1875) founding Musson & Grindlay, specialising in Sidecar production. However, parting ways with Musson in 1923, Alfred established Grindlay Peerless.

By the late 1920s, Alfred's two sons, Reginald Robert Grindlay (b.1900), and Alfred Stephen Grindlay (b.1910) had joined the company and begun to take greater responsibilities including assisting their father to develop a two-seater sports car based on the original Morris 8 light car. Multiple versions were available and in several colours. Production lasted around two years, and the company reverted to general motor body building and engineering, lasting through to 1996.[2]

In addition to his contribution to the British motor industry, Grindlay was a prominent Coventry City Council member. In 1943, he was made an Officer of the British Empire for his work as Chairman of the Coventry Saving Committee.[3][4]

During the WWII, in 1941, Alfred was appointed Mayor of Coventry. He presided over Coventry during the notorious period of the Coventry Blitz and led work to rebuild the city afterwards, for which he was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1946, for his service to the nation and was personally commended for his efforts by King George VI.[5][6] The formal investiture took place on Tuesday the 20th of May 1947 at Buckingham Palace.

Having been a Coventry City Councillor for nearly 39 years, Grindlay was award the Freedom of the City on the 15th of November 1962.[7][8] His award is described by Coventry City Council as being "In recognition of his eminent and devoted service to the city during a period of unprecedented municipal development and as a token of public esteem".[7]

Alfred died in Coventry in 1965 aged 89 years.[9]

Reginald Robert Grindlay

Reginald Robert Grindlay was born in Foleshill, in Warwickshire in 1899. In the late 1920s he followed his father into the family automotive business helping to develop the Grindlay Peerless racing brand. A noteworthy Freemason, Reginald was a co-founder and officer designate of Stivichall Lodge No. 5799, in Coventry, United Kingdom.[10] Reginald spent much of his life at his primary residence, Derwent Island House in Cumbria, dying in nearby Cockermouth in 1965, aged 66.[11]

Racing

Bill Lacey

CWG 'Bill' Lacey, along with the likes of Francis Beart, Bert Le Vack, ECE 'Ted' Barragwanath, Joe Potts and Steve Lancefield was one of the great motorcycle tuners or 'racing motorcycle engineers' of the 20th century, highly successful Brooklands racer and world record holder.[12][13]

Born around the turn of the 20th century, Lacey first started racing at Brooklands in 1922 on a 499cc Rudge Multi. in 1924 be won his first race, a 500cc Junior Handicap race, reaching speeds of 81.91 mph on a 344cc Cotton-JAP. This was the beginning of a long and successful career in motorsport, that saw Lacey become internationally renowned for his achievements in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Meticulous in both his dress and motorcycle preparation, the tough but light Lacey was the ideal racer, weighing in at only 8.5 stone. Winning his coveted Brooklands Gold Star (awarded for a rider's first 100 mph and over lap in a given class) in 1927 on his 498cc Grindlay Peerless, he hit the headlines again in 1928 by becoming the first rider to cover over 100 miles in a single hour, riding a 500 on British soil, again at Brooklands.[14] The personnally modified 498cc Grindlay Peerless (Lacey fashioned his own pushrods, their tubes, cams, rocker gear and rocker box castings and utilised an experimental Brampton front-fork which utilised progressive friction dampening [15]) covered 103.9 miles in the hour for a Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) world record.

In 1929 at Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry, France, Bert Denly broke Lacey's record on an AJS motorcycle. However Lacey took back the record only a week later covering 105.78 mph at Montlhéry. In 1931, Lacey broke the record for a third time covering 111.45 mph, again at Montlhéry, but this time on a Norton motorcycle.[16][17]

After his retirement from racing, Lacey based himself in Slough to focused on managing his successful precision engineering business where he tuned and modified both cars and motorcycles for customers and friends. Lacey retired from business in the 1950s, but in 1959 was persuaded to tune Norton motorcycle engines for John Hartle and Stan Hailwood's son, Mike Hailwood.[13] The culmination of this partnership was Mike Hailwood's 1961 Senior TT win. Following this success, Bill Lacey again retired from motorcycling, to concentrate on race car engine preparation, particularly GP units.[16]

Aged 85, ever enthusiastic for new challenges, Bill learnt to fly a microlight before his death in November 1989 aged 88 years.[16]

Edmond Tubb

Edmond Joseph 'Boy' Tubb was a 1930s motorcycle enthusiast and racer.[18][19] Following Bill Lacey's record in 1928, an number of replicas of his machine - the Brooklands 'Hundred Model' were produced, however only a handful, believed to be no more than five or six machines were ever made. Only two of these are known to have survived to this day; one first owned by Brooklands and Manx Grand Prix competitor Joe Potts, the other which belonged to prominent VMCC member, the late Edmond Joseph ‘Boy’ Tubb, who won his Brooklands ‘Gold Star’ aboard the Grindlay.

Tubb bought his Grindlay in November 1935 from a fellow Brooklands competitor named McClure. Results were disappointing at first, the best lap speed being around 88 mph, and so the engine was despatched to E C E 'Ted' Baragwanath, the famous Brooklands rider/tuner and JAP agent, for upgrading. Baragwanath fitted a longer con-rod (raising the cylinder barrel to compensate), swapped the twin-port cylinder head for a single-port version, and installed cams developed by Bert Le Vack. He also helped sort out the handling, screwing the Grindlay’s steering damper down tight, which cured it of a tendency to ‘wobble’ at high speed. The result was the coveted ‘Gold Star’ at over 102 mph and Tubb went onto achieve numerous successes with the revitalised Grindlay, including his fastest Brooklands lap on 30 June 1937 at over 105 mph.

With the costs of racing the Grindlay becoming prohibitive, Baragwanath had to rebuild the engine twice, on the second occasion following a major blow-up in 1937, Tubb retired the bike and after WW2 its use was confined to sprinting. When the Brooklands Museum opened in the late 1980s, he offered the Grindlay, which had been restored in the 1970s, for display there. Cared for by John Bottomley and the Museum’s voluntary motorcycle group, the Tubb Grindlay-Peerless was tested for The Classic MotorCycle by Roy Poynting in 2006, and in recent years has been used by the Brooklands Museum on numerous demonstration runs.[19]

In 2012, the restored 1929 Grindlay Peerless 498cc Brooklands Hundred Model sold at auction for £67,580.[19][20][21]

Pip Harris

Pip Harris was a British motorcycle racer specialising in the sidecar class. Harris won his first grass-tracking event in 1945 on a modified pre war Grindlay Peerless, the aptly nicknamed Grindlay ‘Bitza’.[22]

References

  1. ↑ "www.gracesuide.co.uk".
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ "www.thegazette.co.uk".
  4. ↑ Gould, Jeremy. Coventry Planned. The Architecture of the Plan for Coventry (1940 to 1978). Jeremy and Carline Gould Architects.
  5. ↑ McGrory, David. Coventry's Blitz. Amberley Publishing Limited.
  6. ↑ Kimberley, Damien (2012). Coventry's Motorcar Heritage. History Press Limited.
  7. 1 2 "www.coventry.gov.uk".
  8. ↑ "The National Archives".
  9. ↑ "Roots Web".
  10. ↑ "www.stivichall-lodge.org.uk".
  11. ↑ "Roots Webb".
  12. ↑ "Motorsport Magazine - Archives".
  13. 1 2 "Speed at the TT Races".
  14. ↑ Walker, Mick (2004). The BSA Gold Star. Redline Books.
  15. ↑ "www.realclassic.co.uk".
  16. 1 2 3 "VMCC Warwickshire (Extract)" (PDF).
  17. ↑ "www.nortonownersclub.org".
  18. ↑ "www.bonhams.com".
  19. 1 2 3 "Grindlay Peerless: a real blast from the past".
  20. ↑ "www.thetimes.co.uk".
  21. ↑ "www.sumpmagazine.com".
  22. ↑ "Tributes paid after sidecar champion Pip Harris dies". Retrieved 30 September 2014.

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