Francis Simpson - Bristol technical artist

Gerry Brooke looks at a new book about this brilliant artist, well known for his motorbike images

These wonderful drawings and photos, unearthed during a house clearance in Windmill Hill, once belonged to a technical artist called Francis Simpson.

You may have never have heard of him but a new book put together by Frenchay Museum gives us a valuable insight into this remarkably gifted man.

In the early years of last century, whilst living in Redland, Simpson worked in an architect’s office before joining Bristol Corporation and then the Inland Revenue.

A keen cyclist, by 1914 he had obtained a driver’s licence and turned his attention to motorbikes.

He was obviously bitten by the bug because two years later, when he was 30, Simpson left the Inland Revenue to join the Coventry magazine publishers Illife and Sons as a staff journalist and artist.

Their two flagship titles at the time were “The Motor Cycle” and “The Autocar”

At about the same time he bought his third motor bike, a Royal Enfield, for the princely sum of £42.00.

After the end of World War I, in 1919, Simpson came back to the West Country to work for Douglas motorbikes of Kingswood in their advertising department.

One sketch he did for the company was of a Scotsman riding a Douglas - a well known image used by the company for many years in different poses.

A few years later Simpson, now married to a Bristol girl, went back to London to work for Iliffe.

But he kept up his Bristol connections, including membership of the Bristol Motor Cycle and Light Car Club.

He would later become its press officer and Vice President.

One of the best, and surely most exciting, job he was given was the coverage of the prestigious Isle of Man TT races for which he did reporting, sketches and drawings.

After being made redundant in the early 1930s Simpson used his contacts to work as a freelance for Matchless cycles and motorbikes.

He also used his considerable skills to produce a full colour brochure for Imperial Airways.

Using his trademark sectioned views it even showed how the interiors of the aircraft were laid out

Another job was producing part lists and advertising for the Bristol Aeroplane Company

Work for many other companies, such as those involved in radios and boat building, followed.

Simpson would appear to have given up working as a technical artist in the late 1930s.

He died in 1975, age 90.

His notebooks, booklets, scrapbooks, press cuttings, badges, medals and drawings have now been deposited with the Bristol Record Office and saved for posterity.

Perfect in Every Part - the World of Francis Simpson, Technical Artist in the 1920s and 30s, is published by Frenchay Village Museum, Begbrook Park, Bristol BS16 ILP

The book, which costs £9.99 (by post £12), is available from the museum Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday afternoons.

For more details please ring Alan Freke on: 0117 957 0942