A-Z of British Motorcycles KENILWORTH
And so we reach the letter K, which, it must be confessed, we thought we would zoom through and probably add in a few Ls for good measure. Far from it – and we had to leave out the likes of Kings Own, Kitto, Kumfort and Kyrle, about whom so little history has survived.
KD
Throughout the history of motorcycling – and, indeed, of automobiles – certain models have been rebadged with the name of a different marque. In the early years of the industry, this was frequently British manufacturers allowing their wares to be licensed under other names by foreign companies, but occasionally the trade was the other way. The KD is one such instance.
The story starts in Lyon, France, in 1905 when Albert Keller-Dorian started building eponymously named machines with 170cc and 216cc engines; he took out patents on both his engine and his carburettor in 1906. He had trained as a printmaker in Manchester, so already had connections with this country.
History gets a little sketchy here, but what is known is that in 1902, Keller-Dorian’s fellow countryman Leo Ripault started up in business in Poland Street, London, selling Oleo spark plugs and then, in 1907, assembling KellerDorians but selling them under the KD name. The first models were basically marketed in France, consisting of a bicycle attachment that fitted within the main frame and drove the rear wheel. However, its front suspension was different to the French machines; in 1907 The Motor Cycle reported that “the principal novelty in connection with the engine is the fitting of the valves one within the other, the inlet being concentric with the exhaust.”
The KD was only listed for two years but, unlike so many of its contemporaries, Ripault’s remained in business, concentrating on electrical equipment for the car and airplane industries, with Ripault also being involved in the Petre monoplane of 1910.
Leo Ripault died in 1926 but the company continued in business for decades to come, only closing in the mid-1980s. Keller-Dorian himself was clearly a man of many talents; in 1908 he developed a process for colour photography and film-making which became a forerunner of Technicolor. In fact, his patents were used by Technicolor, Kodak and Paramount when the company was sold in 1930 and his name is still remembered as a pioneer of colour cinematography.
As we have previously found, the gentlemen – and it was almost exclusively chaps – behind some of these obscure marques were equally as interesting as the machines they produced. Another such man was Captain George Thomas Smith-Clarke who was born in Bewdley, Worcestershire, and joined the Great Western Railway engineering department at the age of 18, later becoming a bus driver for the GWR in Leamington Spa.
During the First World
War he was seconded to the Aeronautical Inspection Department where he developed the Standard
Jet Tester machine which resolved problems with the sizing of carburettor jets in aircraft engines. In his memoirs, colleague George Purvis Bulman would describe Smith-Clarke as a “quaint, unprepossessing but ardent soul who had no thought for himself but only of maximum service for others.”
Commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps in August 1916, he attained the rank of captain the following April and upon discharge became the assistant works manager at Daimler.
In 1919, he designed and built a motorcycle for his wife, Mary, and it clearly proved a success for it went into production, first by Booth Brothers of Bishop Street, Coventry, and then by Norman, which supplied the engine.
Cpt Smith-Clarke then went onto to build a cyclecar for himself and, by 1922, he was the chief engineer of Alvis cars, which were manufactured by Booth Brothers. However, that desire to help others drove him and in 1926 he took out a patent for a loudspeaking telephone to assist those with hearing loss and also provided his local hospital with a system to help children with hearing problems (although neither of his two marriages – he remarried to Elsie Richards, a nurse, in 1947 following the death of Mary – produced children).
In 1950 he retired from
Alvis but wasn’t ready for his pipe and slippers just yet. In 1952 he joined a Birmingham hospital committee to investigate the efficacy of mechanical ventilators. Smith-Clarke was horrified at how distressed patients became in the existing ‘iron lungs’ of the time, used primarily to treat those with polio, and redesigned every aspect of the breathing machine. He backed a number of former Alvis employees to set up the Cape Engineering Company, which produced parts to modify the existing unpleasant iron lungs into something less frightening for patients (the company continued in various forms until recently.)
As well as that, Cpt SmithClarke developed equipment for the astronomy and radio fields, but it is with the motorcycle designed by this sadly underrated engineering genius that we must concern ourselves. The first Kenilworth machine was a scooter powered by a Norman 142cc and on which the rider stood. It had one circle-type brake, no suspension, and was capable of a decent 15mph – which is probably just about as fast as you would want to go on it! In late 1920 the Kenilworth Miniature was introduced, which was essentially the stand-up scooter with a seat, although it did now boast two brakes. It won the praise of The Motor Cycle (although, as we’ve seen, that wasn’t hard), which proclaimed: “Altogether, the Kenilworth strikes one as being a thoroughly practical little machine that will stand much hard use and abuse, and which, by reason of its 80lb total weight, possesses exemplary docility and convenience. Its mudguarding might well be studied by some designers of more ambitions machines costing three times as much.”
The 1921 Motorcyclette had swept-up handlebars and leg shields but still no front suspension, while the 1923 version of the Motorcyclette vaguely resembled a NerA-Car, with the engine set transversely in the frame. It was claimed to be ideal “for the lady who has no previous experience with motorcycles and who wishes to substitute a pretrol-driven vehicle for her pedal cycle.” The final model was made in 1924 and – hurrah! – finally had front suspension courtesy of a set of Supreme forks.
About 550 Kenilworths were made during the five years it was in existence and 10 are known to have survived.