SOME EARLY HISTORY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 150, 21 December 1929, Page 29

SOME EARLY HISTORY

A RIDE IN 1896

AND POLICE PROSECUTION

; Overlooking a picturesque mill stream and approached by a leafy lane away from the bustle of the main road is ■what can be regarded as the cradle of the motoring industry in England. It is the mill and engineering works of Messrs; Arnold, and Sons, which not only turned out some of the earliest motors in England, but it was also from there that the agitation emanated for the removal of strange, restrictions which were placed on the motor-car in its infancy. It was only by'"the removal of those that this great industry was able to go ahead, and it is interesting to note that it is 33 years ago that the motor industry was emancipated then as a result of an unceasing and untiring campaign instituted and carnod forward by Mr. William Arnold one of the proprietors of the mill who' was one of the earliest sufferers from restrictive legislation placed on what was then known as the horseless' carriage. How Mr. Arnold fell foul of tlie law is told in a newspaper of 1806. Mr. Arnold had to answer summonses in connection with a rido which'lie took in his car on 18th January of that year. One summons was for being the owner of a locomotive which was not worked according to the rules and regulations prescribed by the law, namely, by not having at least three persons to drive or conduct the car, and one of them preceding the same by_ at least

twenty yards; another summons was for proceeding at a greater speed than two miles an hour, and for not having the name and residence of the owner affixed thereto.

"Instructing Constable Heard deposed that on 20th January, about 3 o'clock, he was looking through the window of his cottage, which is situated in the Maidstone road, Paddock Wood, when he saw a horseless carriage go past with two persons riding on it. The carriage was gqing at about eight miles an hour, and when it ascended the hill over the railway a large quantity of steam and smoke issued from beneath it. He at once went in pursuit. Half an hour afterwards he saw the carriage on the Maidstone road, and it was then going at a fast rate. Ho held up his hand and the carriage was stopped. Witness told Mr. Arnold, who was riding in the carriage, that it was a case coming within the meaning of the Locomotive Act. He asked him if his name was on the vehicle, and he replied in the negative. Defendant produced an Inland Bevenue Licence authorising him to use a four-wheeled carriage, and witness told him he ought to have three persons in charge. There was nobody walking in front of the carriage, and no persons except those who were in it."

On the -first summons there was a fine of as, and £2 Us costs; on tho second a fine of Is, and 9s costs, and

also the same on the third and fourth summonses. ._■ ;

This was the first car ever seen in Kent. It was a Benz brought ovor from Germany, the parent of the winner of the,recent Ulster speed race. Using this as a model, Mr. Arnold started to manufacture cars at East Peckham, and the workshop in which they were turned out is still in existence. One of the old engines is to-day at work in the mill, and the first car was only recently dismantled. -Another reposes in the South Kensington Museum as an historic relic of tho birth of motoring. Mr. George Mercy, who took an activo part in the construction of these early motors,' is still working at tho mill as general manager, and he has a fund of stories of the trials of the pioneers of the horseless carriage. . They "Vrero barred from the roads during certain hours of the day, and even after most of the restrictions had-been removed they were limited to four miles an hour in Kent. In the North of England they were allowed to speed along at 14 miles an hour. Captain W. A. Gladwin, who spent many years in Germany on the manufacture of the original Benz car and was the only Englishman among 1200 men in the factory, is also working at tho East Peckham nursery of the automobile after a romantic career, in tho course of which he has been a prisoner of war,'.ana commanded a coni--pany, after being released from an internment camp in Germany.