Reg Weatherell was an inventor,
manufacturer and motor cycle rider who made bikes in Kilburn in the 1920s. He had
a very charismatic personality, and was described in court as having a ‘mesmeric’
effect on women. Although he was only in Kilburn for a few years we think
readers will find his wider story interesting.
Born in Hunslet, near Leeds in 1896,
by the time of the 1911 census the family had moved to Middlesbrough,
where 15 year old Reg was helping his father who had a shop selling fruit and
sweets. But Reg’s passion was motor cycles: he owned an old de-Dion bike by the
time he was 13, and took up an apprenticeship with an engineering firm. He was also
a keen boxer and between 1913 and 1916 he had 27 professional fights to earn extra
money. On 3 July 1914, a
local Middlesbrough paper announced that evening at the Stockton Hippodrome, ‘Mademoiselle
Carpenter, champion lady boxer of the world will spar three rounds with Reg
Weatherell, the champion fly weight of Cleveland.’
In 1915 he married Mary Woodward,
but sadly she died just three years later. During the First World War, Reg worked
as a mechanic for the Army repairing motorcycles. After marrying his second
wife Allieen Dorothy Dixon in 1918, he took the name ‘Reginald Dixon Weatherell.’
He and Dorothy had three children.
Making Motorcycles
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| Reg on a racing version of one of his Scout Motorcycles |
The couple moved to Billericay in Essex and Reg
set up a small workshop and second hand car business on the High Street. In
July 1919 he used his life savings of £2,000 to buy land in South Green, about
a mile south of Billericay, where he built a small bungalow and a workshop to
manufacture his own ‘RW Scout’ motorcycles. Prices ranged from 60 to 100
guineas. Reg advertised in magazines and claimed he couldn’t keep up with
demand, employing four men in the workshop with the same number on the road as
salesmen. But in October 1921 he appeared in the Chelmsford bankruptcy court where he denied offering a bailiff money
to burn down the workshop so he could claim on the insurance. He applied for
discharge from bankruptcy in 1922 and left Billericay.
In the 1920s Reg began racing his
bikes in major events at the Brooklands track in Surrey and
the Isle of Man TT races. In 1922 he won a 100 mile race at Brooklands. Other riders
also used his bikes in competitions. Billericay historian Ian Fuller, after
talking with Roland Shelley, Reg’s mechanic who raced in a sidecar with him, believes
that a motorcycle was left on the Isle
of Man and is probably the only
remaining model in existence.
Following the bankruptcy hearings,
Reg set up the ‘Terrace Works’ in Kilburn and made motorcycles there from 1922
to 1923. The bikes were now branded as ‘Weatherell’. The works were in a small
road called The Terrace off the High Road on the Willesden side. It was next to
the larger Palmerston Works, as shown on the map. This was first John Allen’s
Builders yard and then became the factory of the Central Aircraft Company who
made their Centuar planes there from 1917 to 1927.
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| Kilburn in 1912 showing Palmerston Works |
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Both the Palmerston Works
and the site of Weatherell’s factory were swept away in 1937 when Gaumont Super
Cinemas Ltd bought the land and built the enormous 4,000 seat Kilburn State cinema.
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| 1922 Advert showing the Kilburn address |
Reg didn’t stay long in Kilburn
and by 1923 he was living in Grosvenor Road in Chiswick, later moving to Bolton Road. He was selling cars and motor cycles in Dover in 1924. Shown at Savoy Mansions,
Savoy Street WC2, he’s also listed at nearby 392 Strand in the
phonebook from 1926 to 1931, presumably his office.
Always keen to try out new ideas,
in February 1926 he patented a portable baby carriage. Rather bizarrely, this
was fitted to the end of a walking stick as the illustration shows.
By 1931 Reg had moved from riding
motorcycles to power boats and he won the International Outboard World’s
Championship on the Thames.
The Court Case
In March 1935 Reg became headline
news when Ursula Lloyd, a young millionaires, took him to court to reclaim a
letter of agreement they had signed.
Ursula was born in Blackburn in
1912, the daughter of a house painter. After working in shops and offices in London, her looks and vivacity secured her a few small film parts.
Ursula married Charles Reginald Francis Hanson, the only son of Sir Francis
Stanhope Hanson in 1932. But seven months later he was drowned in a boating
accident at Sunbury on 30 May 1933.
He and a friend, Peter Reid, the son of the licensee of the Weir Hotel, were attempting
to cross the Thames late at night, to get to the hotel. The inquest jury decided
that the accident was caused when Ursula’s dog ‘Spider’ jumped into the boat
and upset it. Charles was trapped under the boat and drowned. Although Ursula inherited
her husband’s large estate estimated to be worth £120,000, at first she was
only paid an allowance.
She soon met Captain Charles Lloyd,
a retired Army captain and air survey pilot. On 2 October 1933, the couple were lucky to survive an air crash. Shortly
after taking off from Jersey, the plane piloted by Captain Lloyd, crashed into a fence
on a racecourse and burst into flames. Ursula escaped with slight burns and
bruises, while Lloyd walked away with just a cut over his eye. She told a
reporter that she was going to buy another plane and fly to India where she wanted to stage several air pageants to further
British aviation in the East. Ursula and Charles married a few weeks later on 27 October 1933 and they lived at 10 Richmond Mansions, East Twickenham.
That month, Weatherell and his
wife Dorothy were introduced to the Lloyds at the Waldorf Hotel. Sharing
similar interests in racing cars, motorcycles and aeroplanes, they quickly became
friends and socialised, going to the pictures and playing cards together.
Weatherell told the Lloyds that he was a consulting engineer and a financial
adviser. He offered to help Ursula with her inheritance and the claim to her
first husband’s estate. Late one night at the Lloyds flat they agreed terms and
Reg typed up a document dated the 14 November 1933. Weatherell’s address at the time was 28 Bolton Road, Chiswick. Ursula agreed to pay Reg £520 a year for up to
ten years, and £5,000, £10,000 or £15,000, depending on the amount of money he
could obtain from her first husband’s estate.
The Lloyds also agreed to set up a
company called Technical Trust with Weatherell, each holding a third of the
shares. The company would buy and build racing cars, motor boats and aeroplanes
to enter in competitions, aiming for a speed record. Having thought better of
it, on 29 November the Lloyds asked for the letter back, but Weatherell refused.
Captain Lloyd said they’d sue him and the bad publicity would finish his racing
career. Weatherell replied; ‘Do your damndest. I will fight you to the bitter
end.’
In court, Weatherell was described
as having a mesmeric effect on women; the agreement had been signed just weeks
after he met the Lloyds for the first time. The rival lawyers attempted to
blacken the character of both Ursula and Reg. Much was made of an incident on
23 November when Weatherell drove Ursula in her new car to see her parents in Blackburn. They
dined in Manchester and Ursula claimed that Reg asked her to spend the night
with him. She refused, saying she was not ‘that sort of woman’. In his defence
Reg said, ‘the boot was entirely on the other leg’. Ursula had suggested the
idea; she was very lively and she often pounced and physically wrestled with
him.
Reg’s lawyer asked Ursula about
her statement that she wasn’t ‘that sort of woman’. She was handed pieces of
paper with the names of three men, including Peter Reid who had been in the
boat when her first husband drowned. She denied she had sexual relationships
with any of them but broke down under questioning, crying ‘leave me alone.’ The
Judge ordered a short adjournment and when the case resumed, Ursula claimed she’d
been ill when she signed the contract with Reg. Reg said this was ‘absolute
bunkum’ while his wife Dorothy Weatherell told the court Ursula was full of fun
and used to dance around the living room. The hearing lasted three days and
after just 15 minutes deliberation, the jury returned, having found in Ursula’s
favour. Weatherell was told the agreement wasn’t binding and he must return the
letter. He also had to pay costs. After winning the court case, Ursula applied
for bankruptcy against Reg in August 1935. He obviously had continuing
financial problems and in 1948 he was still only able to pay his creditors
small dividends.
The Lloyds continued with their
exciting lifestyle. On Christmas Day 1935 she and Charles were flying their
plane in Abyssinia when they crashed in a remote area. They told reporters
how kind the local people were to them. They were taken by mule and Ursula was
carried by stretcher on the difficult 50 mile journey to Addis Abba. Once again
this shows the dangers of flying in early aircraft and how lucky they were to
survive. Charles, Ursula and Reg were all thrill seekers and they clearly loved
the danger.
In the 1930s and 1940s Ursula
travelled widely to New
York, Sydney and Bombay. But she and Charles seemed to have separated and she had
returned to her home town of Blackburn. Ursula died in Nairobi in 1956.
After the 1935 court case Reg
doesn’t appear in the newspapers again. In 1945 the Weatherell’s were living in
Birmingham. Then from 1959 to 1963 they were at 70 Delancey Street in Camden Town. Reg died on 18 April 1963 when he was living at Barton Green House, Worcestershire. Despite
going bankrupt several times, he must have done quite well because he left
£44,119 to his wife and daughter. (Today, this is worth about £760,000).
Knowledge about Reg Weatherell’s
time in Billericay is drawn from an excellent article written in 1991 by Ian
Fuller a local historian, who has kindly given us permission to use his work.
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