From the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian
WF BRADLEY: Motoring writers are a funny lot. A handful achieve some sort of modest fame for their writings, but each generation seems to throw up one pre-eminent figure whose writings gain a respect not accorded to his follow scribes. The earliest such motoring writer, and perhaps the greatest of all, was WF Bradley.
William Fletcher Bradley was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire on March 8 1876. 'WFB' as he would be known in later life, loved the sea and dreamed of a career on the ocean waves. But his family endured hard times and after only a small amount of elementary schooling, WFB applied for a job, aged 12, in order to help the family finances. "We advertised for a boy, not a corpse" came back the reply reflecting his appearance and poor state of health. Not a promising start. The family moved to Leeds and, aged 13, WFB apprenticed himself to a printer for seven years. Taking night-classes in typesetting, shorthand and French, by the time he was 17 WFB had the highest qualifications available to a typesetter. During this time he also had ambitions to become a journalist.
At 20 he finished his apprenticeship, and bought a bicycle. Soon, he was getting stories printed in cycling periodicals before getting a new job as a compositor in Paris. He loved Paris and his health, never good, improved there, so that in April 1903 he married Maggie Nicol, a Scottish girl he had met in Leeds. Around the same time he had the idea of sending news items - translated from their French sources - to automobile magazines in the United States. The Automobile magazine took up his offer beginning a collaboration which was to last over 50 years. WFB also took lessons on a Darracq car and got his driving licence. But if any one event marked the start of his career as a motoring journalist it was the epic Paris to Madrid Race of 1903 on which he reported. As a result when the Daily Mail decided to issue a Continental edition, WFB was taken on as a proof-reader. This required him to work from eight in the evening until three in the morning, leaving him free to pursue journalism for the rest of the day.
In 1905, he moved to James Gordon Bennett's Paris edition of the New York Herald, covering the 1905 Gordon Bennett race. Soon after, in January 1907, he took up a job as assistant editor at The Automobile in New York. In America he took part in the 1907 Glidden Tour, while continuing to write for The Motor and L'Auto. On his return to France the following July he developed an interest in aviation and came to know all the great early pioneers of aviation. By 1910 he was an internationally respected authority on aviation and motoring matters, and had a ready market for his writings on two continents.
In 1913 he managed a team of four cars entered for the famous Indianapolis motor race. Under his direction the cars finished first, second, third and ninth - a remarkable performance which has never been equalled.
With the outbreak of the first World War he became an important influence writing about the suitability of military vehicles and following the war's end Fiat engaged him to operate its Paris press office. Two subsequent visits to Indy were less successful than that of 1913, but WFB now began to write for The Autocar, something he would continue to do for the rest of his long life.
Throughout the 1920s and '30s there was little of significance in the motoring world in which WFB was not involved: the Targa Florio, cross-continental proving drives, George Eyston's record attempts at Bonneville Salt Flats, the revival of the Vanderbilt Cup road races in America - all bore the hand of WFB. In 1940 he was interned by the Germans at great cost to his health. So much so, that in 1943, aged 68, the Germans gave him his freedom. Recovered, in 1947, he resumed his writing career, producing a series of landmark books about aspects of motoring history. His book Motor Racing Memories 1903-1921 is in particular well worth seeking out as a classic of motoring writing. WF Bradley, the doyen of early motoring writers died in 1969 aged 93.