Monday mystery: a look through Grandma's magnificent photograph album

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We are always pleased to receive some mystery car photographs, but we are positively ecstatic with this latest batch. Tim Lawson has been in touch with us to see if we can help him to find out what was lurking in his grandmother's motor house during the prosperous reign of King Edward VII. He tells all he knows at the moment:

"I have recently been engaged in a project to digitise my grandmother's photograph album containing images taken between 1904 and 1911, so my queries could well come under the heading, "Pre-War Cars." My grandmother captioned them all and was obviously well ahead of her time, not only in the number of photos she took but also the subject matters she chose. I have attached images of three cars. I wonder if your readers may be able to identify them for me, please? Interestingly for me, the one with the registration beginning AH 5 shows my father at the wheel—he was born in 1906 and I was born when he was 53—with my grandparents, aunt and chauffeur.

I've often wondered about what these vehicles may be so I hope that someone looking at the images, and with more knowledge than I on the subject, may be able to help."

Tim never knew his grandparents, Rudolph and Esther Levy, but was able to learn a bit about them from his father: "He never spoke about his mother beyond saying how much he’d loved her. I can’t remember Dad talking about his father other than telling me that he gave him £400 when he went up to Oxford to cover all his accommodation, food, booze, books, &c., for the three years he was there reading law.  When he came down, my grandfather demanded that he join the family textile business—there was much of that in the north-west in those days—rather than him going to the bar which is what he really wanted to do. Anyway, they were not short of money."

From looking at some of the other photographs, it becomes apparent that Mrs. Levy really was a remarkable woman. These motoring snaps show that she was a competent photographer, but from her other pictures it's clear that she actually had a rare talent—not just technical competence, but an excellent eye for composition, too. Though we stray from our main topic, we cannot help but share some of Mrs. Levy's other pictures, which include a study of a very graceful lady golfer in full swing and some beautifully evocative shots of some salty old fishermen going about a hard day's work, looking not unlike figures from a painting. Tim adds: "It is evident that my grandmother was very gay, in the old-fashioned sense. She was also, I think, way ahead of her time as she took lots of photos indicating her interest in people, not just boring shots of family members looking stern! Every photo is captioned, often humorously."

We were interested to note the various vehicle registrations, as K is from Liverpool, AH is from Norfolk and Y is from Somerset. The Levys lived in the Liverpool area—Tim's father was raised in Southport—and K 391 was photographed in North Berwick. Mrs. Levy did a lot of photography around Norfolk, too, mostly around the beaches and golf courses of Sheringham, but also at Sandringham. Tim adds: "I believe my grandfather was something of a bully and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that she had a ‘friend’ in Sheringham." The Y-registration is a little surprising as none of the pictures were taken near Somerset. Other, non-motoring, photographs were taken as far afield as the Pyrenees and St. Moritz.

The beautiful Edwardian actress and singer Lily Elsie was among Mrs. Levy's friends and she smiled for the Levy camera all wrapped up for a day out in a big landaulet. Mrs. Levy was a bit of a thespian herself. During the Great War, she tended to wounded soldiers and alleviated their suffering by staging amateur dramatic productions.

Tim concludes: "When you think how different photography was in those days, her efforts were really quite special. I admit to having used Photoshop to clean them up—hopefully not too much—to get rid of fingerprints (never touch old photos), foxing and such like."

We are really grateful to Tim for sending us pictures not just of such a high-quality, but which also show some of the most magnificent cars on the road during the Edwardian era. Our first thought when looking at AH 5... and K 391 was that they might be Napiers, because there can be few other cars of the period of British manufacture which were so grand and majestic, but on closer inspection we don't think they are. Then again, K 391 does look rather a lot like a Mercedes of circa 1904, and we think that would have been a likely choice for a prospering industrial family, especially if they had, perchance, read Alfred Harmsworth's 1902 book Motors and Motor Driving. If we're right about K 391, we still need your help with the others. It's a fascinating puzzle and we'd be very appreciative of any answers.

Words: Zack Stiling; Photographs: Tim Lawson

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