Talbot Ledgers Archive Work

Staff in the archive section of the Museum have been working their way steadily through the piles of books, photographs, invoices and drawings. Occasionally something out of the ordinary turns up, and such a find was made recently. Four large ledgers were discovered in a pile of paperwork and although they were thought to be from the old Hillman factory, there were no obvious clues to their origin. However, a bit of detective work in checking the model types listed revealed them to be records of production from the Talbot Motor Company which was taken over by the Rootes Group in 1935.

Talbot started by importing French-built Clément-Bayard cars into Britain in 1902. In late 1904 the factory at Barlby Road, North Kensington, was finished and the company assembled cars from French made components. The first all-British Talbot appeared in 1906, and by 1910 the factory employed 600 men and could turn out between 50 and 60 cars per month. The fortunes of the company varied over the next thirty years, culminating in receivership in 1935 and subsequent takeover by Rootes.

The ledgers are a record of every car produced by Talbot between 1905 and 1938, and list each car in chassis number order together with brief details. These include engine number, wheelbase, wheel size, type of body, coachbuilder, date delivered and purchaser. Each of the entries (over 30,000) is handwritten and by only a small number of individuals – in fact the 7,000 plus entries in the fourth volume have been written by the same person.

Even more interesting are the histories behind some of the cars. Chassis number 5000 is one of the few cars to have no details listed, but in the notes column there is the pencilled comment “Competition Brooklands Racer”, and the date of building given as 7th November 1912. Could this be the 4½ litre Talbot in which Percy Lambert was the first person ever to cover a distance of 100 miles in an hour at Brooklands on 15th February 1913? And chassis numbers 31051 to 31054 are the famous cars raced so successfully by the Fox & Nicholl team in the early 1930s.

No less interesting is the social history. In the early days of production many cars were sold direct to individual customers, many of whom were titled, but even before 1914 most cars were being sold to dealers for onward sale. These dealers include names familiar a hundred years later, such as Mann Egerton and Caffyns, but also more exotic sounding names such as the Bombay Cycle Agency, the Oriental Motor Company and the Madras Stable Company. A number of chassis were exported to Australia. And although some customers were optimistically taking delivery of their new cars as late as 1915, production had been turned over to the war effort by that time. Whole production runs are shown as being delivered to the War Office or the Admiralty, many chassis being delivered for fitting with ambulance bodies. A large number of vehicles were destined for Russia, some fitted with the mysterious sounding “Hot Air Attachment”.

Unfortunately over a hundred years of use have taken their toll on the ledgers and they are too fragile to allow access for research purposes. But they are a significant addition to the Museum’s resources and work will continue to identify and catalogue more such information.

An 'Ace' Special Visitor

Last week we were delighted to be visited by Courtney Edenborough, son of Vick Edenborough who was the original owner of the Ace Cafe in London, on which our current exhibition Coming Of Age At The Ace Cafe is based.

Courtney was good enough to spend time sharing his recollections of the Ace in the 50s and 60s with staff at the museum, as well as being interviewed about his experiences for the Vic Minett show on BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire that afternoon.

We were fascinated to hear Courtney’s stories about life at the Ace – whilst he and his father were never hugely involved in the running of the cafe, which was one of five catering establishments owned by the family, Courtney’s weekly visits to collect the takings and have a meal were enough to provide him with a wealth of interesting tales from behind the counter.

It was great to hear that for many years the Ace’s best seller was the humble cup of tea – made in huge gallon tea pots and costing a ha’penny a cup when the cafe first opened, Courtney remembers the outcry from their loyal lorry driver customers each time the price of tea was raised. “They always came back in the end though” he told us.

But as we know it wasn’t all tea and sympathy at the cafe – whilst it was never intentionally promoted as a ‘bikers cafe’, over the years the Ace became a meeting place for young men and their bikes, and with them came some perhaps less desirable clientele. Courtney regaled us with stories of some of London’s criminal underworld who would come to the Ace for a celebratory meal after pulling off a big ‘job’ – but the police soon got wise to this and would come looking for them at the cafe!

Courtney himself was never a biker, in fact he told us about the one occasion he had ridden pillion on an AJS owned by one of the cafe’s customers and had the fright of his life as they burned off up the North Circular. Fortunately he was brought back to the Ace unharmed, but he was less lucky on the night he was coshed by a robber as he left with the week’s takings, causing injuries that have left him partially deaf later in life.

But there were loads of good times too, perhaps because the cafe was started in such a gentlemanly manner; Courtney’s father Vic sealed the deal to build the cafe on a handshake – no paperwork changed hands with the builder, no contracts were raised, but on this ‘gentlemans agreement’ one of the most iconic cafes in the UK was built and so began the fascinating story of the Ace.

When we asked Courtney what he thought of our Coming Of Age At The Ace Cafe exhibition he was extremely complimentary, saying that he thought we had captured the atmosphere and feeling of the old cafe perfectly – we couldn’t ask for higher praise than that.

Coming Of Age At The Ace Cafe, our exhibition which tells the story of the iconic cafe and its customers, is at Coventry Transport Museum until Sunday 2 October 2011. Full details and ticket prices here.