The first talk of the 2014 -15 season by the Friends of the Manchester Centre for Regional History will be given by Dr Craig Horner, and looks at motoring as a sport in and around Edwardian Manchester.
The Manchester Automobile Club represented the new clique of wealthy owners and provided opportunities for its members to take part in activities as diverse as hill climbs, days out and trips to Ireland to follow the Gordon Bennett race.
The club was also intended to offer support and protection, identifying, for example, the few places where petrol could be had in Manchester.
However, while the magazines and newspapers carried articles and pictures of the upper classes at play in their clubs, there was a thriving body of motorists of more modest social station.
Motor bicycles, cyclecars, and a huge second/third/fourth-hand market meant more and more people were getting in on the act. It is this group, with their tents, sleeping bags and blankets who were the real advocates of the new motoring.
