Bentley

[SL]

This is aimed mainly at TimD, but there was a question in the Sunday Times sports section asking "who were the Bentley Boys".

My knowledge is, Kidson, Birkin, Benjafield, Barnato, Rubin, Howe & Davies. All of whom raced at LM.

The question then is, was 'Bentley Boys' a generic applied to Gentleman of Means much like YUPPIE today or was it a set club with race meets and social gatherings et al.

Answers to posted here and perhaps the Sunday Times if anyone knows.

Simon

[TimD]

Wow! How big do you want the answer to this?!

This is the story that I was brought up on. Never mind knights of old or slaying of dragons - on my Grandfather's knee I was told about Captain Birkin, and his blown 4 and-a-half, and Woolf Barnato and the car that beat the Blue Train!

First off, the term "Bentley Boys" was I think a popular - probably Brooklands originated - term for the works drivers, or those whose cars got the tacit support of the factory. It wasn't a generic term for all Bentley drivers, nor of a particular social set at the time. Plenty of Bentleys, solid, dependable motor cars that they were, were clad in formal saloon bodies, and ferried country doctors and magistrates about their daily business. Equally, if you had the money for a decent sports car, you could just as easily have gone for a Lagonda, a 30/98 Vauxhall, or (perish the thought) an Invicta.

This is not to say that the Bentley Boys did not socialise together. They did - and how! But they were from all sorts of walks of life, and all sorts of backgrounds. It would be wrong to characterise them all as of wealth and privilege.

The full list of works or works supported drivers is as follows:

Capt Woolf Barnato - South African diamond magnate
Dr J Dudley Benjafield - Harley Street surgeon
Sir Henry "Tim" Birkin, Bt - textiles heir
Leslie Callingham
Jean Chassagne - French WW1 pilot and Indianapolis racer
Frank Clement - Bentley works engineer
Baron d'Erlanger
SCH "Sammy" Davis - Autocar journalist
John Duff - car dealer, latterly a Bentley distributor
George Duller
Jack Dunfee - motor technician
Clive Gallop
Lord Francis Howe
Bertie Kensington-Moir
Lt.Cdr. Glen Kidston, RN - naval officer
Giulio Ramponi
Bernard Rubin
Tom "Scrap" Thistlethwayte
Richard Watney

And I would have to add the following privateers:
Humphrey Cook
Sir Ronald Gunter, Bt
Beris Harcourt-Wood
William "Bummer" Scott

There were many others who raced Bentleys at the time, but these were the ones that people meant when they referred to the "Bentley Boys".

Oh, and it is worth noting that as all boys need a guiding influence, so these men also had one thing in common. They raced cars for the man who created them. Walter Owen Bentley. And WO himself was known by many as the "Headmaster"!

[SL]

Thank you for a detailed and rapid reply. It was a question that stumped me.

Presumably then the drivers at this years Le Mans could, at a push, call themselves 'Bentley Boys' although sadly not under the leadership of the great WO.

Simon

[Ray Bell]

The outstanding memory I have from WO's book (apart from not understanding how the cam drive worked!) was his statement about those highly-charged and well-heeled Bentley Boys, of whose way of living he wrote something like:

"My means were such that if I would, I could not; their life was such that if I could, I would not!"

He also elaborated on the cost of their parties etc...