The Humber TT cars outside the factory. Tuck’s car is on the right, number 13.
The 100mph Short Handicap trophy.
to his formidable collection of other trophies. He lived in lodgings in Coventry at the time and kept all his possessions and trophies in his room there. 3rd August was the last day of racing at Brooklands for a long time as the next day saw the start of the Great War. Shortly afterwards Bill disappeared, leaving his landlady with his posses- sions and she did not know where he had gone or what had happened to him. We now know that he enlisted in the Army Service Corps as a military driver and after the war lived in Boulogne-sur-Mer in France, where he died in 1952.
What happened to the car that he drove has also been a bit of a puzzle for motoring historians. AA 8444 was the post-World War One registra- tion it had when in private ownership and it was raced at Brooklands in 1920. After that it passed through various ownerships and was believed to have been broken up in Durham in 1939. Bill Tuck’s trophies were assumed lost – until recently.
Last year, out of the blue, the Humber Register (the club for pre-1931 Humbers) was contacted by a gentleman who said he had a trophy engraved ‘First Prize 18th 100mph Short Handi- cap 3rd August 1914’ and ‘BARC’. This was in- deed an amazing and exciting surprise. Tuck had been a lodger with a relation of the gentleman’s mother-in-law and, so the story goes, Tuck just did not return one day and left all his belongings behind. The silverware had been passed down through her family and the desire was now to return this particular trophy to Brooklands, on loan, as part of the motoring history held at the Museum.
20
Pre-World War One trophies are very rare and those that are not in the Museum have been assumed lost or melted down, so the return of one after over 100 years is very welcome. The Museum is very grateful to the family who own it for so generously allowing it to be displayed as a splendid reminder of the glory days of racing at Brooklands.
Anthony Saunders, Historian of the Humber Register
The trophy being presented by John Plews (left), the current owner, to Andrew Lewis as a loan to the Museum, with Anthony Saunders’ 1927 Humber in the background.
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