The car in our Snapshot is an example of the third Benz model, introduced by Carl Benz in 1894 after his original Patent-Motorwagen of 1885 and his Viktoria of 1893. The Velo was officially named the Velocipede, and remained in production between 1894 and 1902, with a final count of over 1,200 produced.
This particular car has a bee-keeping connection. William Woodley (1845-1923) of Beedon in West Berkshire, was a pioneer in ‘modern beekeeping’ (the practice of keeping honeybees in removable-frame box-hives rather than the traditional English practice of keeping bees in straw skeps), the owner and operator of Britain’s largest bee-farm, a prolific writer and an owner of this car, registration BW 37.
Woodley was very critical about the harm motorised vehicles inflicted upon bee-forage; nonetheless he owned BW 37 from 1906.
Woodley’s writings in The British Bee Journal and The Bee-keepers’ Record show his aversion to the horseless carriage. In 1907 he wrote: “The Motor Nuisance. — I have often wondered why bee-keepers never refer to the nuisance which these horseless carriages are to those bee-keepers who live on a main road, where motors pass every few minutes, raising clouds of dust, which must of necessity settle in the nectaries of flowers in gardens, in the hedgerows, and for some distance in the fields adjoining the roads in question. Another injury is done to bee-keepers by the road authorities, who now cut many of the hedges down close to the banks, so that motorists can see each other coming. A few years ago these were white with blossom at the beginning of June, now there is practically no May bloom, while some farmers and land agents also closely cut every hedgerow and boundary, which still further curtails our breadth of forage.”
His feelings didn’t soften a year later, when he referred to motorists as “petrol fiends [who] had disturbed the quietude and freshness of our sylvan highways.”
It seems perplexing why Woodley purchased a motor car when he considered them to be a nuisance. Charles Heap shed some light on this conundrum: he wrote, regarding his visit to Woodley during the summer of 1910, that Woodley “found [a car] necessary to keep since he established an out-apiary some miles from Beedon.”
The last mention of Woodley using his car was in 1911. He wrote: “On Saturday, January 28th, we had a beautiful day, more like May or June than January, every hive in the home apiary was in full force, some gathering natural pollen, and after lunch I ran the car up to my out-apiary and found every stock alive and on the wing in goodly numbers.”
The car found its way, probably around 1912, into the possession of Elizabeth Goodman, William Woodley’s daughter, who lived at Beedon Hill House. The Science Museum, searching for an historically significant car for its collection, approached her about its possible purchase. On 27 July 1912 its Board of Education wrote to her: “Your name among others has been given to the Board by the Secretary of the Motor Museum as having in your possession an early Benz car that you are willing to dispose of.”
The Museum purchased the Benz Velo for the nation in 1912. Today the Science Museum still owns the car, and it is on loan to the National Motor Museum.
Image displayed with the kind permission of the Haynes Motor Museum.
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