The Motor Car Diaries
Mark Rudall delves into the day-to-day life of a gentleman motorist
Ayoung journalist’s discovery of a battered suitcase abandoned in her first house could hardly be expected to throw light on a social revolution. It contained a weathered chauffer’s uniform and four leatherbound motor journals, meticulously handwritten. But while merely noting apparently mundane car journeys between 1905 and 1938, they also introduced an extremely wealthy socialite, Ivor Andrew Benyon Ferguson, and the changing world he inhabited.
Eton-educated Ferguson was just 31 and a confirmed bachelor when he started his journals. He lived with his dowager mother at 92 Eaton Square, Westminster and would remain there after her death in 1928. Close by, at No 9, lived his brother, Brigadier General Algernon Ferguson, the greatgrandfather of Sarah, Duchess of York.
The finder of the books died in
2023, having cherished a desire to do “something” with them for 40 years. Bequeathed to me with a note that said: “Over to you!” I began with cars, the reason for the journals. However, Ferguson himself had written them, not his chauffeurs, so while starting to unravel his scratchily inked comments it was Ferguson who came more into focus.
Not interested in driving,
Ferguson’s first car was chosen for maximum passenger comfort. It was a “landaulette” with bodywork designed to be versatile. Buying “off the shelf ” gave him immediate delivery and avoided the usual complexity of choosing a chassis and specifying a body style for assembly by a coachbuilder.
He writes: “I purchased my motor car on Thursday May 18 1905. A Benz car, 28 horsepower weighing one ton, 10cwts and 19lbs. [It is] painted cream, lined and upholstered in dark blue leather and silk, seating four inside and two out including chauffeur. [There are] nine windows of glass and a door at the back. The whole top is removable at will thus making it into an ordinary open car. There is an electric communicator which flashes orders to the driver, and also a speaking trumpet with whistle. All fittings, lamps etc, are of brass which I had done in February 1906 when I had the whole car done up and repainted and overhauled by Messrs Barker of Chandos Street. It has four lamps to the front, two oil, the usual taillight and an electric lamp in the interior.”
He is describing a Mercedes-simplex model 28/32hp. It was available from 1904, solid but not particularly advanced for its time. Sadly, the only
picture of it has been damaged by patterning from the marbled endpaper of the first journal.
Trying the vehicle out on the previous day he logged: “May 17 1905 Eaton Square to Balls Park, Hertford and back via Finchley and Hatfield, accompanied by Lionel. Distance 40 miles, one hour 30 mins going and one hour 25 mins returning. My trial trip. Car went splendidly, very hot day, no adventures, a professional driver (Hayley) from Hewetson of 251 Tottenham Court
Road, the Benz agents.”
Hayley would drive him again on his next trip some weeks later on 10 June. There was good reason for the gap between trips: “Driven by Hayley, the professional, lost our way twice, tropical rain and gray [sic] with dust. All went very well. Herbert (my chauffeur) not yet competent.” I visualise Herbert seated nervously beside Hayley watching the professional nursing the crash gearbox and fighting the steering on granite setts, greasy tramway junctions and other hazards of London’s Edwardian roads.
He went next to Teddington for a river trip aboard the Valiant. We know nothing of the Valiant but can guess it was an Edwardian cabin launch: all varnish, bevelled glass and velvet upholstery. Joined by some friends, the Valiant was taken upriver, turning at Boulter’s Lock: “A perfect day.”
On 8 July, Herbert came along “to learn” under the watchful eye of Hayley and drove his employer for the first time alone on 14 July: just “a turn around the park”. A trip on 15 July saw horn trouble. It must have been essential because Ferguson says cryptically: “Horn went wrong: borrowed one”, suggesting it was a bulb horn of the sort beloved by Toad of Toad Hall.
Herbert evidently used it a lot. Pedestrian and equestrian casualties were alarming as motoring gathered pace and Ferguson tells us in a later entry on 1 December that he “bought a four-tone horn”. It might have commanded some authority but just 14 days later, on 15 December, he writes: “Bought two new brass lamps and a new brass horn….” Perhaps the four-tone horn was a disappointment.
Accident statistics show that a few years later, in 1913, 33.38 people died for every 10,000 vehicles on the roads. By then motoring was “normal” with nearly 106,000 motor vehicles registered for road use in the UK. By 2021, just 1.66 people died per 10,000 vehicles, a 95% improvement despite now hideously crowded roads. Roadcraft for car drivers and pedestrians was still horse focused in 1905, so Ferguson provided the very best horn available.
Four-tone horn or not, the 26 July entry takes no prisoners: “Broke down at Kingston, repaired at Esher, went badly, Herbert incompetent.” This was further underlined by the entry for 30 July: “A trip to Ham House, Petersham, near Richmond. Arrived well but home by [via] Esher, broke down in Putney, want of petrol: this detour took us miles round and his ignorance prevented him from filling tank full enough. Dull.”
Poor Herbert. Ferguson moved out to a country retreat in Ditton Park in August, then a one-line entry tells us: “Was able to get read [sic] of Herbert (chauffeur) on September 18 through his absence on Sunday without leave. So glad.”
The next one-line entry records: “F Sharp came to me as chauffeur on Monday October 2.” We know Sharp came to be regarded as “my excellent chauffeur” and would stay until forced to leave through ill health in July 1908. He died in January 1911. Maybe operaloving Ferguson was reassured that a chauffeur with a name like that would not be troubled by flats.
One of Sharp’s early duties was to take the master into London on 14 November. With a footman: “A wet afternoon attended a wedding (horrid) Pearson and Spencer Churchill. Home at 6.” We will never know what he found so unpleasant about the wedding of 24-year-old Agnes Spencer-churchill, a daughter of Lord Edward Spencerchurchill and a granddaughter of the Duke of Marlborough. Marriage would elevate her to become Viscountess Cowdray in 1927 but evidently our man was not a fan. He could have been kinder and we can hope he at least shook the
Ferguson’s life was revolutionised by the purchase of his first motor car.
hand of young Winston Churchill who would certainly have been present.
As 1905 rolled towards its end, Ferguson notes a need to consult with his coachman “to see after carriages at 92”, evidently sure the time has come to move on from horses. There were regular short runs to lunch and to spend time with many titled luminaries who can all be found in Burke’s Peerage, but no adventures apart from a: “Bad skid in Brentford on Dec 8: bent a lamp.”
Then 29 December saw a daring winter drive, Ferguson’s longest yet, from his mother’s country house: “Polebrook to Buckminster Park and back, via Stamford, 55 miles. Left home 10.45, home 4.25. Pouring wet and foggy, purchased wine at Stamford, car ran splendidly, the Gt North Road, hideous house.” Never one to hold back on his opinions, he treated his motor journals rather like a personal diary.
This brief account merely represents Ferguson’s motor journal record for 1905 with 28 years to go. His handwriting is challenging, deteriorating as his languid decades meander along until his demise aged just 64 in July 1938, leaving an estate equivalent to about £11m today.
Ferguson died just five days after his last entry in the final motor journal, recording a visit to Kensington Gardens with his nurse “to catch the fresh air”.
All that is a long way ahead. Already, in just over seven months, Ivor Ferguson’s life has been revolutionised by the purchase of his first motor car giving freedom to travel further and faster than his coaches ever could, and his confidence has grown in the car as a social tool with endless possibilities. By the end of 1905, the age of the motor car, for Ivor Ferguson, was here to stay.