THE ELLIS JOURNEY
The story of a Veteran lawbreaker
THE HAMPSHIRE HAMLET of Micheldever Station is hardly a prominent point on the map – indeed, it was the most remote railway station on the London & Southampton Railway line, built three miles from the village it’s supposed to serve because the local squire (who was also chairman of the railway’s board) lived nearby and did not want the line to be within sight or sound of his home. Paradoxically, this out-ofthe-way railway station has an important place in motoring history, for it was from Micheldever Station that the first long-distance motor-car drive in Britain started on 5 July 1895.
The car, a 3½hp Panhard & Levassor, belonged to the Honourable Evelyn Ellis, the fifth son of Lord Howard de Walden, who had taken delivery at the Panhard works in Paris a couple of weeks earlier. Probably the first Briton to actually buy a motor car rather than build one himself, Ellis planned the trip of some 43 miles to his home beside the Thames at Datchet as a protest against a law that restricted ‘self-propelled vehicles’ to a speed of 4mph and compelled them to have a man, usually carrying a red flag, walking in front to warn of their approach. Realising that this law, introduced in the 1860s to curb the speed of steam traction engines, restricted development of light, manoeuvrable petrol cars, Ellis was prepared to go to court to prove its stupidity, and his pioneering drive was intended to provoke the police into prosecuting him.
There were no such foolish restrictions in France, and Ellis had already driven the car 125 miles from Paris to Le Havre to catch the crossChannel ferry. Whether he had driven from Southampton to Micheldever Station or put the car on a train for the 25-mile journey remains a mystery, as indeed does the choice of Micheldever Station as a meeting point with his friend Frederick R Simms, who was to accompany him on his journey.
The Panhard chuffed steadily down the long lane leading from the station to join the old coach road to London – today’s A33/A30 – on which steady overnight rain had laid the dust normally raised from the untarred surface by the solid iron tyres of passing carriages, ‘and thus,’ said Simms, ‘we had every prospect of an enjoyable journey.’
Nobody knew how horses would react to this strange and noisy new rival, and Simms made careful notes as the little Panhard rolled onwards under cloudy skies. ‘Out of 133 horses we passed on the road,’ he recalled with relief, ‘only two little ponies did not seem to appreciate the innovation.
‘In every place we passed through, we were not unnaturally the object of a great deal of curiosity. Whole villages turned out to behold, open-mouthed, the new marvel of locomotion. The departure of coaches was delayed to enable their passengers to have a look at our horseless vehicle, while cyclists would stop to gaze enviously at us as we surmounted with ease some long and (to them) tiring hill.’
At 5.40pm, the Panhard came to a halt in front of Ellis’s house in Datchet, ‘thus’, wrote Simms, ‘completing our most enjoyable journey of fifty-six [sic] miles – the first ever made by a petroleum motor-carriage in this country – in 5hr 32min exclusive of stoppages. The average speed we attained was 9.84 miles per hour, the usual travelling speed being from eight to twelve miles per hour.’
Nevertheless, Ellis had failed in his objective of making an ass of the law, for, while the whole trip had been wildly illegal, the police had completely ignored the Panhard’s progress.
Fast-forward over 120 years: the enterprising De Dion Bouton Club – International Club of the Year 2016 – realises that Ellis’s pioneering run has never been properly celebrated, unlike the 1896 Emancipation Day Run to Brighton that marked the raising of the speed limit to 12 mph and is remembered each year by the November Veteran Car Run, and decides it’s time to rectify the omission. There had been a commemoration run in 1995, but that only went as far as Blackbushe, less than half the distance covered by Ellis’s Panhard. Open to Brighton Run-eligible, pre-1905 cars, the De Dion Bouton Club event would go the whole distance, following Ellis’s route as closely as is possible today.
Preliminary enquiries by the Club revealed that the village of Datchet – proud of its motoring history – would welcome the event.
‘ELLIS WAS PREPARED TO GO TO COURT TO PROVE THE LAW’S STUPIDITY, AND HIS PIONEERING DRIVE WAS INTENDED TO PROVOKE HIS PROSECUTION’