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LewPalmer
USA
3242 Posts |
 Posted - 25/09/2010 : 03:22:34
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Today, while I was a bit bored at work, I decided to do some internet research on Henry William (H.W.) Allingham of Airline Coupe and Allingham Coupe fame. I stumbled on a quick reference to an H.W. Allingham, a lieutenant in the British Navy, being wounded in the battle of Passchendaele in WWI. This led me to additional searches referencing Allingham and Passchendaele which uncovered a wealth of references to the man who was the oldest survivor of WWI, for a short while the oldest living human on earth, and who died only in 2009 at the age of 113. You can search youself for the references, but just one example is http://hubpages.com/hub/Death-of-Henry-Allingham---Veteran-of-World-War-I-and-Original-Member-of-Britains-RAF
A couple of the articles make vague reference to him entering the coachbuilding trade as an auto body designer ultimately ending up working in that trade for Ford at Dagenham,
The name is the same, the timeframe is right, the profession is correct.
Could this be the very same man who designed the Airline and Allingham Coupes???? If so, I will never forgive myself for not discovering this earlier and taking the opportunity to visit him when I was last in the UK in 2002.
Lew Palmer
Registrar, NAMMMR |
Edited by - LewPalmer on 25/09/2010 03:23:03 |
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Colin Butchers
United Kingdom
1487 Posts |
Posted - 25/09/2010 : 10:27:16
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You and me both, Lew !
The old gent lived locally in an RAF Nursing home and the local and national papers were full of Henry Allingham stories when he died a few months ago.
Had I made the connection, I could so easily have met up with him for a chat about M.G.s rather than aeroplanes !
This sums up my life, I'm afraid Full of lost opportunities.
Best wishes,
Colin B. |
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Vitesse
United Kingdom
234 Posts |
Posted - 25/09/2010 : 22:57:45
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I don't know whether it covers his non-military life, but Henry Allingham did write an autobiography called "Kitchener's Last Volunteer": this quote, probably sourced from it, is from his obituary in The Independent -
"After the war Allingham joined an aircraft firm and moved to Edinburgh to work for Price's, an engineering firm where he worked for 12 years, before joining Ford at Dagenham."
And this is from The Guardian:
"He was formally discharged from the RAF in April 1919. Then he joined the Ford motor company, and later Rolls- Royce, working as a coachbuilder."
The Guardian's is the only obituary I found that mentions Rolls Royce though - others suggest he remained at Ford. |
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LewPalmer
USA
3242 Posts |
Posted - 26/09/2010 : 01:21:51
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Several other sources mention he started with Ford in 1934 staying until his retirement in 1960. It has been documented also that after the war he was engaged in the design of medical instruments which he tired of and took up the trade of coachbuilding. So I am interested in those few years between 1930 (WWI plus 12 years) until 1934. There is no reason to believe he could not have established himself as an independent designer for those few years. I have visited H.W. Allingham's London offices (10 Stratford Place) which is now a school of music, so at some point in time prior to the advent of the Airline and Allingham Coupes in 1934, someone with that name and his roots in design did occupy those offices.
The book "A - Z of British Coachbuilders" by Nick Walker, however, describes both predecessors and successors of H.W. Allingham as a company in which it would appear Allingham himself was a principal, so maybe all of this is my wishful thinking feeding off pure coincidence.
Lew Palmer
Registrar, NAMMMR |
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rodb
New Zealand
260 Posts |
Posted - 26/09/2010 : 08:19:31
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Lew
Listed in the book CARBODIES the complete story, by Bill Munro, published 1998, on page 27 and 28 there is a section called HENRY ALLINGHAM ROVER BODIES AND THE AIRLINE COUPE.
A paragraph reads ”Coachwork designer Henry W Allingham was commissioned by Rover to find suitable firms to provide the range of bodies, and Carbodies was one of the nine selected.”
This is dated about 1931.
The last paragraph reads –“ although Henry Allingham, the man who had set up the original contract between Rover and Carbodies, had designed a ‘streamlined’ two-seat fixed-head coupe, named the Airline, which bore a close resemblance to the Rover streamlines, and Carbodies was commissioned to supply over forty of these little coupe bodies, of highly complex internal structure, for three MG models. Most were PA Midget from 1934, but there were six for the six-cylinder N-Type MG Magnette in the same year, and just one on the T-Type Midget”
This may suggest Henry W Allingham was in business on his own?
Rod Brayshaw NZ
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