From the archives of Bob Montgomery, motoring historian.
REMEMBERING HAMMY: In the Golden Age of 1930s Irish motor racing, one outstanding figure is today little remembered, except by a handful of knowledgeable enthusiasts. Hugh Hamilton deserves better for in the brief five years between 1930 and 1934 he established himself as one of the outstanding ddrivers of his day.
Born in Omagh in 1905, Hugh Caulfield Hamilton was interested in cars and cycles from an early age. Indeed, when a neighbour acquired an early car, young Hugh, or 'Hammy' as he was more generally known, appeared and offered to wash it. When he was caught driving the car away, his excuse was that he was taking it home to wash it! After his father's death, his mother re-married and the family moved to England.
Hammy joined University Motors - the MG concessionaires - as a salesman and soon afterwards made his competition debut in 1930 at the wheel of a 4½ litre Bentley when he entered, and won, three races at the Easter Brooklands meeting. He placed third in the 1931 Brooklands Double Twelve Race but it was his fighting drive in the Ards TT Race of that year which made his reputation. Against established stars such as Campari, Birkin and Earl Howe, the Ulsterman placed as high as second before a broken valve rocker ended his race.
The Ards TT Race was perhaps to provide his greatest moment when in 1933 driving an MG he led the great Nuvolari for much of the race until a disastrous pit-stop cost him no less than 7¼ minutes and the lead.
An extraordinary fight-back then began and incredibly, Hammy re-took the lead. But on the last lap he was forced to stop for petrol, handing Nuvolari a 20 second lead in the process. Despite Nuvolari also running low on petrol on the last lap the Italian took the victory after six close hours of intense racing.
Opportunities now arose for Hammy to drive in Continental races where he acquitted himself with distinction. In 1934 Hammy made his Grand Prix debut in the Tripoli race driving a Maserati. Once again he demonstrated his outstanding ability, moving up to second place behind Achille Varzi before being side-lined with ignition problems. Over the rest of the season, Hammy took fifth at the Montreau GP and fourth in the Marne GP. At Albi he was second. Turning to the K3 MG, Hammy won at Pescara before heading with his good friend, Dick Seaman, to the Berne GP.
There, on the final lap, Hammy's story came to its end when his Maserati left the road and crashed into a tree. The post-mortem, however, showed that he had suffered heart failure before the accident.
Hammy was buried at Berne where the world's top drivers paid him their last respects. How good was he? It's generally acknowledged that it's impossible to compare drivers across the different eras of racing but I believe that in this case it's safe to say that Hugh Hamilton was perhaps the greatest Irish racing driver of any era.
"HIS HORRID MOTOR CAR": Although a number of cars had been imported into Ireland and Britain prior to August 1897, that date marked the real birth of the British motor industry with the first sale of a Coventry-built Daimler to a certain Major General Montgomery of Winchester. The event was sufficiently noteworthy for the Hampshire Chronicle to carry a detailed report of the two-day journey from Coventry to Winchester. In this report, it was recorded that "the riding was simply delightful, the swift, gliding, noiseless motion along the level roads particularly exhilarating."
Undoubtedly the Major General enjoyed his first experience of motorised transport, but it would appear that not all his friends and acquaintances shared his view. A female neighbour confided in a letter to a friend: "We never go to see the general now because he always wants us to go for a ride in his horrid motor car."