[BITList] FFlat out on the Flats

[John Feltham]

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Denly,  Albert William  [Bert]  (1900-1989), motorcycle racer and motor engineer, was born in Wisley, Surrey, on 1 June 1900, the only son of James Denly (d. 1918), a bricklayer's labourer on the Wisley estate, and his wife, Ellen, nee Woolger (1865/6-1920). Aged fourteen he left the local village school to become an apprentice to the butcher in Byfleet. One of his tasks was to deliver meat to the customers, which he did on his Douglas motorcycle. His riding style brought him to the attention of both the local magistrates and one of the famous engine tuners, Daniel O'Donovan, at the local Brooklands race circuit. O'Donovan needed a replacement 'jockey' to assemble and test the Norton Brooklands engines for the factory. The engines were shipped from Birmingham, and checked and installed in a racing frame so that performance certificates could be issued.

Denly accepted this job reluctantly but in July 1923, only three months after he had first ridden on the Brooklands track, he won the prestigious and arduous 200 mile race on a 500 cc Norton. That August he teamed up with Nigel Spring to take eighteen long-distance world records for Norton. By the end of O'Donovan's reign as works team manager in 1926 Denly had taken over 110 world records. In 1927 Nigel Spring took over as Brooklands team manager for the Norton works and in the next two years captured a further seventy-two world records for the Norton factory. In 1928 Spring and Denly moved from Norton to AJS, for whom Denly captured a further 122 world records. In total Denly achieved over 300 motorcycle world records in eight years as a factory team rider at Brooklands and Montlhery.

Denly was a diminutive figure but, like Freddie Dixon, was immensely strong and light. His weight was below the minimum weight for riders, so in his first 200 mile race he had to carry lead ballast nailed to the soles of his boots and in a cushion carried around his waist. For this reason he did not ride the 1000 cc motorcycles such as the V-twin AJS which could have gained him the outright land speed records. Such records were regarded as freaks by most works teams, who were more impressed by longer-distance records. The hour record (the distance that could be covered in one hour) was regarded as demonstrating the durability of the machine at high speed, and in 1927 Denly was the first rider to do more than 100 miles in the hour on a 500 cc motorcycle, the fifth time he had taken the record. This was especially significant as most of a team's income came from bonuses from the suppliers.

Most of the efforts of the teams for which Denly rode were put into winning races at Brooklands, since the machines were developed there. Denly won three 200 mile races and three Brooklands championships between 1923 and 1930. That year saw the end of the lucrative bonus system and the terminal decline of manufacturers such as AJS, which went into liquidation in 1931, and also saw Denly's retirement from motorcycle racing. He had married on 14 December 1929 Louisa Elizabeth (1906-1981), daughter of George Davis, coachman. They had two sons.

Denly had become a highly skilled engineer and was recruited by the driver George Eyston, initially as his team's race engineer. By 1935 he had become chief engineer for the car which Eyston used for his attempts on the land speed record. Denly also drove the cars and in September 1935 he, along with Eyston and Chris Staniland, took the twenty-four hour world record at Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, in Spirit of the Wind. Denly co-drove with Eyston at Bonneville in November 1937 when Spirit of the Wind took the twelve hour and 2000 mile records. Eyston envied Denly's stature as it meant that he could have padding in the cockpit which was a snug fit for him. Denly continued his record breaking on four wheels and raced MGs at Brooklands where he also developed them for the MG company's customers.

During the Second World War, Denly used his experience of aero-engined record breakers to develop the use of the Isotta Fraschini engine in motor torpedo boats. After the war he became Castrol's race engineer and helped with the Eyston MG in which Stirling Moss took world records at Bonneville in 1957. One of the outstanding motorcyclists of his era, he was considered possibly to have been too much of a 'gentleman' on the track to flourish in later competitive periods, and was reserved about his achievements. Latterly resident at Petworth, Sussex, he died at the Royal West Sussex Hospital, Chichester, on 21 October 1989.

Roger Bird 

Sources  R. Bird, A glimpse of the vintage years of motorcycling at Brooklands (2008) + database of programmes and articles, Brooklands Museum + C. Mortimer, Brooklands: behind the scenes (1980) + awards and corresp., Denly family collection, priv. coll. + census returns, 1901, 1911 + b. cert. + m. cert. + d. cert.
Likenesses  photograph, 1923, Brooklands Museum, Weybridge, Surrey [see illus.] · Barratts, group portrait, photograph, 1925, PA Images, London




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