The Lancashire Automobile Club Ltd

This story, as most stories do, started quite simply. Paul Roberts of Feniscowles, the proud owner of a very smart 1967 Triumph Dolomite was out with the family and ‘stumbled onto’ our St George’s Day Rally back in March. He subsequently discovered our Web Page, thought things through and downloaded the membership application form. Seeing that my address was close to his own he arrived on my doorstep one day; application form and cheque in hand, and asked if he could join the Lancashire Automobile Club. With my typically characteristic ‘nod’ the answer was of course, “Yes certainly; step inside and we’ll sort out the paperwork straight away”.

Later he produced a large mounted photograph and three smaller postcard size photos and asked if I might be interested in them. Now anybody who has had a close association with the LAC for a long time would recognise the large photograph immediately. It has featured many times down the years and shows a meeting of car-owners paraded outside the Blackburn Town Hall in 1902. Various secondary copies are in existence but the one that Paul handed across was a genuine photographic original – the real McCoy. Only one other is known to exist and that is in the Blackburn Museum. Was I interested ? You bet your sweet life I was.

Now somebody who really has had a long association with the LAC is, of course, Ray Clarke. Not only has he grown up with the Club, he has virtually grown up with the picture of the parade at the Blackburn Town Hall and can identify all manner of people, the cars and can even relate some anecdotes about them. “Easy,” he says, “There’s a little Miss Lord, held in her father’s arms, standing just behind the third car from the left - unfortunately the car refused to start when it was time for the ‘Off’’ – so maybe she and her father had to go home by horse and carriage”.

One of the other smaller pictures was a postcard, posted in September 1914, showing a young lady in, we believe, a ‘Vulcan Car’. The postcard carried a handwritten message from ‘Auntie’ to Miss H Lord at Inglemere School for Girls, Arnside. So, the same Miss Lord had now grown up into a young lady. We next hear of Miss Lord when she married Robert Mottershead, a local man who, in his earlier life, sold motorcars on commission. He went on to run the dental business that they inherited from her father.

Alderman Mottershead, as he became, was one of the leading lights in Blackburn in the 1960’s when the centre of the town was gutted and redeveloped into, what at that time, was rated to be the finest town shopping centre in the UK. Incidentally, ‘Lord Square’ in the re-vamped town centre is probably named after Lord, the car owner mentioned above in the picture. On the back of the picture mount is the name R Lord and the address ‘Tontine Street’; a street that due to town centre development, has now virtually disappeared – it all adds up.

Back to our new member Paul Roberts. Several years ago he was present when the late Alderman Mottershead’s effects were being cleared out from a house in Mellor and he rescued these photographs from the bonfire just in time. The family members doing the clearance had removed them from the frames, which they kept, but discarded the photos. Actions like this take place day in and day out and so valuable historical artefacts are lost. And so would these have been lost except that an enthusiastic classic-car owner had spotted them, taken an interest – and although he had no idea of their background or connection to the LAC – had put them in a place of safety. By some strange fortune, several years later, he produced them to somebody who recognised their association with the Club. The remaining two small photographs have yet to be identified.

It was good to talk to you this morning, and thanks for your time and your kind offer of help with my investigation into my grandfather's career. He gained his driving licence in 1905 when he was 19 years old, and worked as a chauffeur for several families in Blackburn area until he retired in 1957. His name was James Payton. His name appears in the list of holders of driving licences dating from the early 1900s, that is held in Blackburn library. (Dr Marmaduke Bannister, his first employer, also appears here, in 1903.)

Dates	Employer	Cars driven
1905 – 1911	Dr Marmaduke Bannister, Preston New Road	Swift – reg no. CB 20 Stanley Steamer Rover Ford
1911 – 1915	?	Renault landaulette
1915 – 1918	(War – Flanders)	Ammunition lorry
1919 – 1928	Mrs Ada Thwaites, Troy

1928 – 1935	Mr T G Forrest, The Meins, Meins Road	Armstrong Siddeley MG Rover

1935 – 1957	Mr and Mrs T Rowntree, Beechwood, East Park Road	Rover Chrysler 2½ litre Daimler

James Payton, Blackburn chauffeur, 1886–1957