Birtles and the Bean: an expedition re-enacted

Francis Edwin Birtles (1881-1941) was one of life's extraordinary people. In the portrait held by the National Library of Australia, he glares into the camera, bearded and bedecked in little besides a dust-covered cap and goggles, with a ferocity that is not altogether prepossessing. If Birtles was a hard man, he had to be—the feats he attempted, and completed, required hardiness, determination and a no-nonsense pragmatism.

Birtles was born in rural Victoria and while in his twenties became a keen long-distance cyclist. His rides started to attract press attention and soon he became a minor celebrity. Not averse to publicity, he started to keep written and photographic records of his travels. He progressed to cars in 1911, when the importer of the American Brush asked him to accompany their driver on the first ever trans-Australian motor car journey from Perth to Sydney. Becoming increasingly famous, he was later commissioned to undertake similar endurance drives for Ford and Oldsmobile, but in 1924 things started to get more serious.

Malcolm Henry Ellis was, at the time, political correspondent for Sydney's Daily Telegraph, and, as a loyal subject of King George V., was aggrieved by the tendency of Australian motorists to opt for powerful and rugged American cars over more delicate British ones. In a bid to promote British car sales, he engaged Birtles to accompany him in a drive from Sydney to Darwin and back in a Bean 14hp. The trip was successful, but did not satisfy Ellis, and when he was posted to England to serve as his paper's London correspondent in 1925, he devised a much grander plan. Having come to the view that British light cars actually weren't tough enough for Australia, he met an Australian engineer called Leslie Hinks, who detailed his specifications for the ideal Australian car and told Bean to construct it at his expense. The resulting Imperial Six was a two-ton monster with a 3.8-litre o.h.v. engine designed by Harry Ricardo.

Bean themselves had no faith in the car or expedition, dismissing Hinks as a man "not quite mentally normal," but Birtles and Ellis went ahead regardless, aided by an experienced long-distance motorist, Captain Eric Knowles. Birtles, it should be noted, had a notoriously abrasive personality and absolutely nothing in the way of mechanical sympathy, hence a) the need for a competent driver to accompany the expedition and b) the fact that no one who drove for Birtles once ever wished to do so again.

The trip failed. Knowles fell ill while trying to repair the back axle in Turkey. Birtles and Ellis staggered on through Afghanistan, dehydrated and gripped by malarial fever. In India, a terrible engine knock was traced to two big-end bearings, while Ellis had become a practically cadaverous. Riddled with several diseases, he was taken into hospital and was extremely fortunate to eventually recover. Birtles ploughed on for another 1,200 miles before the Bean finally expired.

Anyone else might have given up there, but Birtles was not one for being beaten, and in 1927 he attempted once again to become the first person to drive from London to Sydney, contenting himself this time with a specially-prepared Bean 14hp named Sundowner. This time, after months on the road, he was successful, and the car is preserved in the National Museum of Australia.

Just how hard could such a drive be? That is what the Daily Telegraph's editor, Matthew Benns, and cartoonist, Warren Brown, are endeavouring to find out. They have taken the wheel of a 1925 14hp and set off some weeks ago from London in a re-enactment of Birtles's landmark drive. On October 16th, they posted the following despatch: "Before too long, we’ve arrived at the border of Albania and Greece, where the Greek customs officers and border guards flock to the Bean for countless photographs. But in the midst of this, Matthew receives a 'phone call from Marios, our shipping agent in Athens—he’s found a container ship that can take the vehicles from the Piraeus to Alexandria—the only catch is it is tomorrow at 9.30 a.m. This means we now have to drive the full length of Greece from Albania to Athens—320 miles in a day—starting now. As Francis Birtles would say: 'My motto’s ‘Chance it!’' And chance it we will..."

We trust the Bean did everything it could to get its occupants to Piraeus in time, and that they are now speeding happily through Egypt en route for the Persian Gulf. We will follow this expedition with interest and wish Mr. Benns and Mr. Brown every success. Look out for further despatches.

Words: Zack Stiling
Photographs supplied by Mahmoud Ezzeldin