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A Club Is Born
A history of The Morgan Sports Car Club by Brian Downing

The old saying “From humble acorns do mighty oaks, or should I say ash, grow” is most certainly true of The Morgan Sports Car Club with its 4,500 plus members world wide.  The humble acorn, namely The Morgan 4/4 Club, started with a short paragraph on page 598 of 'The Autocar' on the 18th May 1951:-

Any Morgan owner interested in the possible formation of a ‘4/4 Club’ with a view to the organisation of, and the participation in, sporting events, is asked to write to D. Whetton, Rykneld Way, Littleover Derby, who is anxious to investigate the possible response to such a club.
J.A.C.

This was seen by, amongst others, R. G. Pritchard of Spondon.  He arranged a meeting in his sitting room with D. Whetton, J. Sutton Atkins and a few others.  They decided to invite those who replied to the notice in 'The Autocar' to meet at 'Ye Olde Flying Horse' in Kegworth for the inaugural meeting on the 30th of June 1951.
As about 20 enthusiasts turned up it was considered there was sufficient interest to start a club.  A second meeting was arranged at the same venue on the 21st of July 1951 and so The Morgan 4/4 Club was born.
The membership totalled 63 and the original officers and committee were:

President J.M. Sparrowe of Bournmouth
Chairman R.G. Pritchard of Spondon
Vice Chairman L.A. Willsmere of Sheffield
Sec. & Treasurer J.S. Atkins of Derby
Comp. Secretary D.V.J. Whetton of Derby

Committee W. Allerton of Chester
B. Carroll of Leicester
R.D. Hadley of London
T.A. Parkes of Pershore

The First Steps
Within a month the club had organised it's first event.  This took place on Sunday the 5th of August 1951 in the shape of a road rally.  With fine weather the competitors gathered at 'The Beech Hotel' in Burton-on-Trent.  The event consisted of a 72 mile drive along minor roads to Banbury.  They also managed to fit in a driving test on the county councils car park.  The day finished with a dinner at ‘The Whateley Hall Hotel’.

Three weeks later on Saturday 25th of August the club was invited to the second 750 Club’s six hour relay race at Silverstone.  With a four car team comprising of Jeff Sparrowe, Bill Parkes, Bill Allerton and J.S. Atkins they managed a very creditable second place to the powerful Vintage Bentley Team.  This was followed with a successful driving test at Queenford Aerodrome near Oxford on the 7th of October.
The first five months of the club finished with a night rally over the 1st and 2nd of December.  This event started from three different places, Manchester, Gloucester and Hereford and finished after 300 miles with a well earned breakfast at ‘The Bell Hotel’, Leicester.  If this were not enough they then held a Concours D’Elegance while the officials worked out the results!

The introduction of the Plus Four was greeted by the club committee with great heart searching as to whether such ‘revolutionary beasts’ should be allowed in the club.  After much discussion and rude remarks about tractors they were taken into the fold.  Could this have been an early signs of a name change?  The Plus Fours were indeed accepted, so much so that it was hoped to field a team of them in their second 750 Club Six Hour Relay race.

Throughout the fifties the club grew maintaining it’s enthusiasm for track events, rallies and treasure hunts. Although there were annual dinners, often combined with the AGM, it would seem that there were very few other social events.  This was probably due to the fact that there were no centres and members had to travel quite long distances to attend meetings.

Centres
In fact, the idea of centres started in the sixties.  The first centre to be formed, as far as I can ascertain, was the London Centre.  This apparently had two starts, the first was on Friday the 3rd of November at Jim Banbury’s home in Chelsea.  The second billed as The New London Centre Inaugural Meeting was held at W.A. (Griff) Griffiths Garage on the 29th of September 1965.  Next, the Northern Centre was formed, around the beginning of 1968 a founder member being Roger Rigden.  East Anglia gets a first mention in August 1969 with a letter from David Hepworth.
The number of centres steadily increased to the present day with around 40 world-wide.

The Dinner Dance
The one social function that has been with the club since the start is the annual dinner.  The first of these, although it was reported in the March 1952 edition of the magazine as “The Christmas Gathering”, was at ‘Ye Olde Woolpack’ in Warwick on the 15th of December 1951.  “A party of around 50 met for a good but rather expensive buffet followed by dancing to a somewhat erratic disc-jockey.  The Evening finished at 11.30 with guests going their many ways riding their Morgans”.
The following April saw the first AGM and Dinner combined.  This was held at ‘The Royal Hotel’, Leicester.  After the meeting had finished at 7.15, the dinner was described as “being far better than can be expected in these days of ‘hard times’”.
By April 1955 the AGM and Dinner were still held together. This time at 'The Warwick Arms Hotel', Warwick. The cost of the meal was 10/6d (52p).

Ten years later and the event now called ‘The Annual Dinner and Dance’, was held at ‘The Star and Garter’ at Upton-on-Severn on Saturday 20th November 1965.  40 members and their friends (total home membership then 120).  It was considered a poor state of affairs that only 3 of the 30 trophy winners were there to receive their awards from Mrs. Morgan.  The evening progressed with a cabaret consisting of Nick Capaldi with his accordion followed by some ‘astounding magic’ from Billie Magee.  A little light dancing rounded the evening of at 11.30.  This, of course, is what was meant by the ‘Swinging Sixties’!!
The first dinner to be held at ‘The Abbey Hotel’ in Malvern was on the 7th of February 1970.  There was a four course meal in the ‘New fully air conditioned Elgar Suite’.  The guest speaker was John Bolster, who was technical editor of ‘Autosport’.  There was space for 250 at a cost of 35 shillings (£1.75p) bed and breakfast was available at 1 guinea (£1.05p) normally 55 shillings (£2.75p).
We have been using the ‘The Abbey' ever since, with around 340 easily filling the, usually too hot, ‘Elgar Suite’ and often over spilling into the dining room.  The event has expanded over the whole weekend, now including the AGM and a spares fair and lunch time noggin on the Sunday.  More and more members staying from the Friday to the Monday.

Same Club, New Name
The first major milestone in the club’s history was the change of name.  The question is often asked why the car was called The Morgan 4/4, the answer is quite simply really, just a case of numbers, wheels 4 and cylinders 4.  With regard to the club, the 3 wheeler F type (3 wheels and 4 cylinders) was still in production so calling it The 4/4 Club would not confuse it with the already well established Three Wheeler Club.
However, the Morgan Plus Four had been seen at the Motor Show in 1950 and was road tested in the April 1951 edition of ‘The Autocar’ and until the introduction of the Series II in 1955 no 4/4's had been built since 1950.  By the time I joined the club in 1968 talk had been going on for quite a while about changing the name.  It was said that some Plus Four owners either thought that the club excluded them or would not join on principal.  Then the arrival of the Plus Eight sealed the fate of the name.

At the end of 1969 a two question referendum was held with the following results:
“Do members wish for the club to change its name?”
Yes 195 votes
No 122 votes
“If the Club's name is changed which of the indicated names would the members prefer?”
Morgan Car Club 121 votes
Morgan 4 Wheeler Club 39 votes
Morgan Sports Car Club 136 votes

These results were proposed and passed at the AGM in June 1970 and with effect from the 1st of January 1971 we were “The Morgan Sports Car Club”, with just over 600 members.  Then the debate began over changing the badge - but that's another story.

MSCC Ltd
The second milestone came in 1991 with the club becoming a Limited Company.  This had arisen mainly due to the fact that the Club was supplying spares through ‘The Register (Technical Services)’ and fears were that any failure of any such supplies could lead to litigation against the members.

Click here for a history of the Annual Gathering (MOG) over the years.