A blue plaque for Triumph founder

November 2015

Siegfried Bettmann | Triumph Motorcycles
 

It's taken a long time, but Triumph founder Siegfried Bettmann has finally been awarded a blue plaque. Or perhaps we should say a "commemorative" plaque.

Why? Because there are numerous "blue plaque" schemes in the UK, and for some people, it's only the English Heritage plaques that count.

All the rest are considered ... well, pretenders. But no doubt The Coventry Society, which is behind this particular plaque, would disagree.

Siegfried Bettmann was born in 1863 and came to England in 1885 (or 1888 according to some sources). He started work at Kelly & Co founded by Frederic Festus Kelly. The firm produced business directories. You can think of them as Victorian Yellow Pages (but if you're British and of a certain age, you'll be familiar enough with Kelly's Directories).

Bettmann stayed at Kelly & Co for a while perfecting his grasp of the English language and familiarising himself with British customs. Then he moved to The White Sewing Machine Company, married an English woman, and consolidated his roots.

By around 1886, Bettmann had started a bicycle firm that soon became the Triumph Cycle Company. Moritz "Maurice" Shulte, a German engineer, happened along at that time, and the two men had much in common, not least their interest in bicycles, the fact that they hailed from the same city (Nuremberg), and that both men were intent on settling permanently in God's Own Country.

Operating from Much Park Street, Coventry, their first motorcycle was produced in 1902, and most of the rest of Triumph's illustrious and rocky history is well known by most of you Sumpsters.

What's less well known is the fact the Bettmann entered local politics and became a city councilman in or around 1907. In 1913 he moved up a gear and became Lord Mayor of Coventry. But within a year, Britain was at war with Germany—and was also at war with pretty much everything that was German. Including Bettmann.

German Shepherd dogs soon became Alsations. People named Schmidt or Schmidtz became Smith. King George V changed his name from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. The Canadian city of Berlin, Ontario, became Kitchener. And the Yanks started called "hamburgers" "liberty sandwiches". Mercifully, hamburgers became hamburgers again when things calmed down a little.

▲ Triumph founder Siegfried Bettmann photographed in 1913 when he was Lord Mayor of Coventry. Here's a timely reminder that immigration can sometimes lead to wonderful things happening...

Bettmann, we understand, was hounded from office. The anti-German sentiment was not merely strong but was a weeping wound, and from that point onward his life largely descended into obscurity until he died in 1951.

John Young "Jack" Sangster bought Triumph in 1936 paying £50,000. Siegfried Bettmann maintained his links with the firm until he died. Maurice Schulte left the company in 1919 and was dead within a couple of years.

Well Bettmann, at least, has been finally recognised, albeit by a relatively small number of people. We looked (briefly) into the rules governing the English Heritage Blue Plaque Scheme Award, and as far as we can tell, Bettmann is eligible. But the English Heritage scheme is, apparently over-subscribed. And anyway, who really needs anyone else to endorse his or her name on a plaque nailed to a brick wall?

Not us.

Unquestionably, Siegfried Bettmann punched above his weight, both politically and industrially. But his real interest was never in motorcycles, or even car production (that began in 1921, and ended in 1936). No, Bettmann was a bicycle man, a businessman, and something of a politician.

If you want to look to the men who really put Triumph motorcycles on the world map, you have to look to Jack Sangster, Val Page, Edward Turner, Jack Wickes, and Bert Hopwood. Nevertheless, Bettmann was the founder, and if you ever pass his plaque (in North Avenue, Stoke Park, Coventry), you might give him a passing toot. Preferably on a Triumph.

For a German, this man made a pretty good Brit.

— Big End