Motor rally pioneers

THE TOWN HAS a distinguished association with international racing and the manufacture of fast cars but some of the early motorists were also keen rally drivers.

It is therefore appropriate that rallying through the ages will be featured at this year's Bourne Classic Car and Bike Show due to be held this summer.

Foremost among these pioneers was a Bourne family doctor, John Gilpin (1864-1943). Motoring was his great passion and he became a familiar figure around town at the wheel of his Peugeot, later a French Gregoire, sometimes with his wife or another companion in the front passenger seat, and occasionally the family nanny, Jessie Moore, a local girl in her early twenties.

Dr Gilpin joined the Lincolnshire Automobile Club, an organisation that had been formed in 1900 and had 91 members within two years and by 1914 the figure had risen to 322, one in every six of them being a doctor, professional men who could afford such a luxury. In 1904, he read a paper to the club on the economics of motoring giving some facts concerning car ownership based on his own experience.

He estimated that if £25 a year were spent on tyres, 6,000 miles of motoring would be possible in that period. Allowing for 15 shillings (75p) as a weekly wage for a man to look after the car and also to do the work in the garden and various other odd jobs, then reckoning the further expense of petrol, clothes, accumulators, licences and repairs, he estimated the cost of his motoring worked out at 3½ pence a mile [92p by today's values]. This contrasted very favourably with horse transport for in earlier days, when the doctor had relied on that, it had cost him sixpence a mile.

He had paid £200 for the vehicle itself and in his opinion, each year would see more uniformity in the types of cars while depreciation would be limited to the wear and tear of tyres. He was right about the proliferation of the different car models although motoring expenses overall appear to be much higher today.

Dr Gilpin was also a keen competitor, winning a silver medal in 1905 for completing a 100-mile non-stop run in one of the first Peugeot cars. The event was organised by the Lincolnshire Automobile Club which is still in existence as the Lincolnshire Louth Motor Club after amalgamation in 1976. The medal was recently offered to them by a collector in Hampshire and was purchased by officials who have retained it as part of their archives.

The doctor, who lived at Brook Lodge in South Street, was a close friend of Thomas William Mays (1856-1934) who was also an early car owner and it was this enthusiasm that influenced his son Raymond who went on to establish the internationally famous BRM company with workshops in Eastgate where the car which became the first all-British model to win the World Champion in 1962 was designed and built.

Mays and Gilpin were the owners of the first two cars in Bourne and from the age of five or six Raymond accompanied his father on business trips by car and later to the hill climbs and speed trials in which his father competed. The two men were also frequent competitors in local motoring events and were successful in the Lincolnshire Automobile Club speed trials held at Grimsthorpe Park in March 1910 when Mr Mays won the Newsum Challenge Cup for the third time and therefore the trophy became his property. He was driving a De Dion and Dr Gilpin took second place with his Gregoire.

Another, lesser known, rally enthusiast was Richard Boaler Gibson (1879-1958), a local corn merchant best known for building The Croft in 1922, the large and imposing mansion surrounded by meadowland in North Road, now due to be converted into a complex of retirement flats.

He was also a pioneer motor cyclist and motorist in the early years of the 20th century and among the family souvenirs is a certificate from the Motor Cycle Club of Great Britain stating that Richard Gibson completed a 100-mile non stop run on northern roads on the 3rd of June 1905 and it is signed by the secretary and official timekeeper.

The club allowed motor cars to enter its trials from 1904, thus starting the first big car rally events in Great Britain, and around 1908, Richard Gibson was among 300 competitors who took part in the London to Edinburgh run and although only six of them finished the course, he was one of them.

However, he did not encourage his son, also Richard, to take an interest in cars but the lad was already following the activities of Raymond Mays and the BRM and was soon captivated. Then after moving to Barnstaple in North Devon, where he became owner of a garage business, he did start a racing career himself later competing in many prestigious events around the world including the Cape and Rand Grand Prixs in South Africa.

In 1954, he also competed in the Goodwood Nine-Hour Event and after taking second place with just two hours to go, he hit an oil patch, spun round and collided with a Porsche driven by Stirling Moss and both cars had to be taken out of the race. Richard died in Spain in December 2010, aged 92.

The classic car and bike show will be staged by the Bourne Motor Racing Club at the Wellhead Field on Sunday 12th June. The rallying display will show a cross section of iconic cars from the late 1950s through to the present day. The organisers are currently working to secure between 15 and 20 vehicles demonstrating the development of the sport which has taken everyday cars and turned them into wonders of motor engineering and the entries are expected to include the mighty Mini Cooper from the 1960s, the Ford Escort from the 1970s and the incredible Metro 6R4 from the 1980s.