Early history of this 1935 Armstrong Siddeley 17HP Sports Saloon

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This 1935 Armstrong Siddeley is one of the 112 Sports Saloon bodies fitted to a 17HP chassis by in-house coachbuilder, Burlington. It is one of two known to remain today. Major Alexander Gallaher, of the Fourth Royal Irish Dragoon Guards is believed to be the first owner of the car. That ownership lasted only three short years.

“After his ownership, I have no further history until the car arrived in South Australia in 1960, painted all black instead of its original pretty two-tone green paint scheme. In 1960 it was owned by a young Dr RJ Kimber in Adelaide who went on to become a well-respected haematologist. The car was donated as part of the initial collection of what was to become the Australian National Motor Museum in Birdwood, South Australia. But after a few years, it was replaced by better-preserved vehicles and sold from the collection. My father bought the car in 1972, in a very bad state, and twice started to restore it but did not proceed very far. In 2009 I inherited the vehicle after my father passed away and have been restoring it since 2018. It has had much of the timber frame remade by one of the two coach-building companies that are left in South Australia. The body panels have recently been repaired and it is almost ready to be painted.” This is what Paul Heuer from Adelaide, the current owner of the Armstrong Siddeley told us. The pictures show the Sports Saloon being brought back from a very sad state.

He would like to know more about the early history of his 1935 Armstrong Siddeley 17HP Sports Saloon (chassis 68625). What happened to the car after the death of Major Gallaher in 1938? And how did it get from England to Australia? There was talk that it got there via India during WW2 but up to this point, there is no evidence to support this.

Can anyone help out or tell us where we might be able to find information?

Major Alexander Gallaher

What Paul has already found out about the car and first owner Alexander Gallaher:

The history of my 1935 17HP Sports Saloon is unknown between 1935 and 1960. It is listed in the ‘Batch Book’ of cars coming out of Armstrong Siddeley Motors in 1935 as a two-tone car in green, delivered locally in England. It then appears in the ASCC data sheets in South Australia in 1960, painted all black with a green fine-line. I spent a few hours one evening recently seeing what I could find about the car’s first owner.

The ASM Batch Book records the car being delivered to a ‘Maj. A. Gallaher’ new from the factory. Note the spelling of the surname “Gallaher”, not the more common form “Gallagher”. A British Army Major should have appeared in records, perhaps from WW1, so I started in that area. I could find only one A. Gallaher in public documents from the First World War; a Lieutenant Alexander Gallaher. And it seems he was quite noteworthy!

My first clue came from a book about WW1 titled, “Meeting the Enemy” by Richard van Emden: Lieutenant Alexander Gallaher of the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards was brought down in this charge. His horse fell, pinning him to the ground until, in pain, he struggled free and crawled into a cowshed where three men were already sheltering. In no position to escape, they waited for the enemy to arrive.

Another passage from “Retreat and Rearguard 1914”, by Jerry Murland: From Lt Alexander Gallaher: "I saw a flash which seemed right in front of my eyes, and my horse went down. When I came round I was lying on my right side, with one leg under my dead horse. My head was bad . . . All was quiet for a moment. Dead and wounded lay all around and everything seemed strangely still."

The name of his regiment is quite distinctive, and leads to more information from the British National Archives:

Name: Alexander Gallaher

Regiment: 4th Dragoon Guards

Date of Service: 1908

Born: 1887

And that he also became a pilot, awarded an “Aviator’s Certificate”: Lt. Alexander Gallaher, 24 October 1913, Used a Bristol Biplane at the Bristol School, Larkhill, Salisbury Plain.

I next discovered Alexander Gallaher listed in the 1935 edition of “Who’s Who: Men and Women of the Time”, and he is now Major Gallaher: Gallaher, Major Alexander, D.S.O. 1917; M.C.; 4/7th Dragoon Guards; m. 1925, Valerie Elizabeth Haine; one d. Educ.: R.M.C., Sandhurst. Joined 4th Dragoon Guards, 1908; Captain, 1915; Aviator’s Certificate, 1915; Adjutant 2/1st Dorset Yeomanry; served with Egyptian Cavalry; Brigade-Major to R.A.F., 1918; served European War (Mons Star, 1914, Medaille Sauvetage, 1917, despatches thrice, D.S.O., M.C., wounded five times);

So the good Brigade-Major was married and had a daughter by 1935, and he was retired from the Army. It seems, from his membership of the Royal Automobile Club, that he might also have been interested in cars.

However, Major Gallaher did not enjoy his new Sports Saloon for long. The Glasgow Herald of 5th January 1938 reports the death of Major Gallaher thus: D.S.O. MAJOR FOUND DEAD IN FIELD A D.S.O. Major, who was wounded five times in the Great War, was found dead in a field at Stanmore, Middlesex, yesterday with a throat wound. He was Major Alexander Gallaher, aged 49, of Avenue Close, Avenue Road, Regent’s Park, London.

The Belfast Gazette lists the Major’s bequests in which his wife and daughter are named, making me wonder if Maj. Alexander was part of the Gallaher tobacco family. The Major’s listing in The Peerage also gives weight to that suspicion: Major Alexander Gallaher is the son of James Gallaher and Jessie Robertson Muir.

Some weeks later I was given some research conducted by a Robert Bulford from Queensland with a newspaper cutting from the Gloucestershire Echo of 6th January 1938. It reported that Mrs Gallaher told an inquest that Major Gallaher had ‘depression due to ill-health caused by war-wounds’. Sadly, Major Gallaher had taken his own life.

In summary I believe I now know who was the first owner of my car. Unfortunately for Major Gallaher that ownership lasted only a short three years, and there the trail goes cold. My father was told that the car came to Australia via India, but I have no evidence of that.

I will continue to try to trace the Major’s daughter and Robert Bulford to see if there are living relatives. The thought of a family photo, in a descendant’s collection, of Major Gallaher and his family gathered around the new car (which was a popular pose at that time) is quite enticing.

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