Sam Ratcliffe, Motorcycling History

 

Sam Ratcliffe was born in Horsley Woodhouse, near Nottingham, on April 29th 1895, and left school at the age of 15 to work in a local colliery. From then until after the first war, he worked together underground with his brother. The Ratcliffe brothers became specialists in "driving" - making tunnels in rock by drilling, blasting and digging out the resulting rubble by hand. Their letterhead says, "upward sinking a speciality" - a tricky job creating a vertical shaft from the bottom up, working overhead all the time with high risk of injury from falling rock.

 

Sam's personal papers contain an index of his working life which shows a gap between 1921 and the start of the next job in November 1923. Could he have taken 2 years time out for competitive motorcycling?

 

The earliest evidence we have of Sam's interest in motorcycling is in "The Motor Cycle" of October 30th 1919, which recorded his participation, together with George Brough ("GB"), in the Liverpool MC Wales 1 day trial on a 5 hp W.E.Brough machine. Perhaps it was then or slightly later that GB first started to work on the idea of a "Brough Superior". According to Sam's sister Wyn, he spent a great deal of time in various pubs with GB, and the design of the logo with the linked g and S was worked out with GB and the boys over a pint or several at a local somewhere.

Ronald Clark's book reports that GB first ran a B-S in the London-Land's End in 1920, but we have no records of that event. However, in the MCC London-Land's End Trial of 25-26th March 1921, Sam (entry no. 69) and Harold Karslake entered on ohv "90 bore" solos R6384 and AU4359; GB drove the very first Brough Superior (according to the later catalogue caption) with the HP2122 plate, as an outfit. Sam's bike, R6384, was brand new; registered on 17th March, there can't have been much time for running it in. "The Motor Cycle" reported that the introduction of Porlock and Lynton hills the previous year had created "interesting controversy" with "…many disconcerting rumours regarding the condition of the two hills, which, by some, were said to be unclimbable a few days before the start". There is no account of how Sam fared on Porlock, but he was reported to have showed up very well on Lynton, despite having to avoid stranded sidecars. All three bikes finished in the medals; photos of the three in front of the Land's End Hotel were duly taken (right), and the "threesome" photo was used in a Brough catalogue either that year or in the year following. Close examination of Sam's bike, R6384 shows the headlight missing - bit of a disadvantage for an overnight run - and one of the two stays which originally held it in place has fallen off too. The "Motor Cycle" report refers to much damage noticed on the bikes at the Launceston lunch break after the hills, so perhaps we may assume Sam did have a spill on Porlock. The result was only good enough for a silver medal, neither Sam nor GB having met the speed schedule on the Porlock section. We have lost the medal. As for R6384 itself, the registration was voided in February 1930 at which time it was with Derbyshire County Council. No further trace of the bike has been found.

 

Sam competed in the Nottingham and District MC & LCC East Midland Centre Championship Reliability Trial on July 3rd 1921 over 121 miles and was awarded a gold medal certificate. GB also competed in that event; his certificate was among those auctioned at Stafford in October 2003. Sam was also awarded a cup for the best performance by a Derby club member in the A.C.U. Championship. It is probable that he participated in many more events during the year. The cup and the MCC Land's End medal were cited in a B-S advertisement that appeared in "The Motor Cycle" on July 14th 1921.

 

1922 saw an expanded entry in the MCC London-Land's End with seven entries. However, only Sam (entry no. 20) and GB rode B-S solos, the other five being sidecar outfits. The weather was bad with rain and high wind, and the remains of the previous week's heavy snowfall in the West Country. Perhaps GB and Sam stuck together to show off the two solos. According to Mike Budd's research, "The newly introduced Beggars Roost had a maximum gradient of 1 in 3.64. After a number of riders had attempted the hill there was a roar, and two riders in close company charged round the bend at speed - they were GB and Ratcliffe, giving the spectators a thrill." Both won gold medals that year, and I still have Sam's. However, I have no photos, and no further details of the bike he rode.

 

We have no news about competition work in 1923; however Sam crops up again in an 800-mile test of the new SS80 which was published for the "Motor Cycle" on 12th April 1923. He was the passenger in the combination; the main part of the run was from London to the hills of North Devon, at the same time as the Land's End Trial was in progress. Turning at Lynmouth, they climbed Countisbury in second gear - according to the test report, spectators said they had never before seen anybody make so fast an ascent. The following day they accompanied the returning Land's End competitors back to Porlock, got snarled up in the returning traffic, and managed to burn the cork clutch inserts out from over enthusiastic use of the engine's power on the hill. Nevertheless the Brough got a good endorsement from the tester, and the report was published in the 1924 catalogue.

We are fairly certain that 1924 brought another new bike for Sam, in the form of a 4-cam KTCY-engined SS80, in the new Le Vack designed frame. He collected AU9945 on 26th August from the works. It was a combination with the sporting tourist sidecar, including a hood - maybe a strange choice for the man whose competition work had been exclusively on solo mounts, until we take into account that his first son John was 4 years old at the time. Evidently intended as family transport, we have no record of this Brough being used in competition. Perhaps there was no more time for competitive motorcycling. The bike passed out of family hands and its whereabouts were unknown to us until November 1983, when Mike Leatherdale gave us the known history. For many years Mr A. Onions of Church Eaton in Stafford owned AU9945. He sold it in 1970, after which it changed hands four times - perhaps because the restoration task was so daunting. Ian Driver, Dr. Palmer and Dave Burgess owned the bike before it passed to Robbie White, who kindly agreed to transfer it back into the family on 4th July 2001after an expert restoration by Tony Cripps, as you can see in the photo. AU is now a regular visitor to the Annual Rally.

 

My research still needs much more work. For that reason, the article is combined with an appeal to you. Please take a look at the list below and let me know if there is anything you know or anyone you know who might help me further. I promise to update the history with any new discoveries, and you will - if you wish - be acknowledged as well as thanked!

 

Steve Ratcliffe

Please email me at stephen.ratcliffe@gmail.com

 

Acknowledgements

 

Information sought