Mystère du lundi: une limousine élégante pour un ingénieur londonien

John Ferguson Haskins M.E., M.I.M.E., M.S.A. was an American engineer with a fascinating life and career but could not have been this car’s owner/driver. He did come to London twice, once in the 1850s to sell mowers and then staying between 1878 and 1890 as an American machinery/patent agent and company M.D., but he went back to the U.S.A. after that and died there, aged 60, in February 1893.

Few with Haskins’ initials were noteworthy in Edwardian London or subsequently, although there was a Dr. James Frederick Haskins who was a London church-music composer and organist but he died in June 1910.

If this is a Wolseley-Siddeley, the Haskins who owned it was small beer compared to Queen Alexandra and Prime Minister Asquith who both had one of their limousines. This looks like the standard limousine saloon, not landaulette, body fitted to 18, 20, 30 and 40 h.p. chassis from 1909.

Once in July, 1912, Frank Wells advertised his club photo-panalette documentation from 190, Ebury Street, which was the address of the Mercantile Press. It was a high-class lithographic and letter-press printer of books, catalogues, cards, programmes, tickets, etc. from late Victorian through Edwardian times and the Great War. Maybe Wells photographed the occasional car for them for printing. Between the wars, his studio was nearby at 40, Pimlico Road at the south west end of Ebury Street.

And, as to other meritorious occupants of Ebury Street: these, ahem, include me! Well, at least for a week in October, 1962, when I stayed with my aunt and her American actor husband who lived at No. 22, in the flat below the one Ian Fleming had once occupied. Knowing I was car-mad, they took me to the Earls Court Motor Show and when my uncle was recognised on the American stands, I got to sit in some “awesome” gas-guzzlers—push-button automatics were the in-thing that year…

The cars of photos one and two are the same, likely a Wolseley, but photo three is a different car; see the coachwork details.

The car is a Wolseley and likely their top of the line model.

It's not just a spare wheel cover that has been added, the wheels are of a different type in the second picture and are now of the "bolt-on rim" type, the originals look like locking-ring type. It's also had an update of the bulkhead lamps, probably from acetylene to electric. As an engineer I guess he was keeping up with advances in technology, much as we do with 'phones these days. Unfortunately I can't shed any light on the manufacturer, but I'm looking forward to updates from others.