Humphrey Cook

16/3/1893 - 3/8/1978

Record updated 16-Mar-23

Humphrey Cook was a wealthy gentleman racer who provided the finance to Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon to start ERA.

Humphrey Cook
Humphrey Wyndham Cook, born in Chelsea in 1893 and was educated at Harrow and Oxford.

He inherited a large fortune at the age of twelve when his father died leaving him the thriving family wholesale drapery firm, Cook Son & Co.. However after an early visit to his father’s business, the young Humphrey decided that not only was he not cut out (excuse the pun) for a career in textiles but that we wasn't cut out for a career in anything else for that matter!

Described as "a large, shy and very modest person", he started racing in 1914 at Brooklands with a 10.6 litre Isotta Fraschini painted in black and red stripes. Red and black became his racing colours and in 1921 raced a Vauxhall 30/98 known as “Rouge et Noir”.


Humphrey Cook in his 1919 5 litre Indianapolis Ballot at Brooklands in 1922.

For 1922 he raced 5-litre, 8-cylinder Ballot that had been built for the 1919 Indianapolis 500. The following year, he acquired one of the 1922 TT Vauxhalls, which became Rouge et Noir II. Humphrey campaigned the Vauxhall for the next couple of years. Later it was supercharged by Amhust Villiers and renamed the 'Vauxhall-Villiers Supercharge' and was raced by Raymond Mays.


Humphrey Cook at the wheel of “Rouge et Noir II” the 1922 Tourist Trophy Race.

The Vauxhall was replaced by a twin-cam 16-valve Aston Martin, before Humphrey joined the 'Bentley Boys' finishing a fine third in the 1929 Six-Hour Race at Brooklands with Leslie Callingham at the wheel of a 4.5 litre Bentley. He joined the Aston Martin team that raced at Le Mans in 1931 but after about eighteen hours a front wing fell off and they had to retire.

In 1933 with Raymond Mays and Peter Berthon. Cook not only financed the operation but was Managing Director and one of the racing drivers. They decided to concentrate on the 1.5 litres supercharged voiturette class with the two of them as the works drivers. The first cars were based on a conventional chassis frame usually powered by a 1.5-litre twin cam engine with a Rootes-type supercharger funning on Methanol.

In 1934 Humphrey Cook had won a handicap race at Brooklands with an 1,100cc model.


Humphrey Cook competing with E.R.A. R1 at Syston Park in 1935

In 1935 four cars were entered for the voiturette race at the Eifelrennen on the Nurburgring circuit in Germany and gave a very good account of themselves. Raymond Mays won the race at an average speed of 68.99 mph, with Rose-Richards 3rd, Dick Seaman 4th and Humphrey Cook 5th. In 1938, although ERAs continued to be successful in the UK, their domination of the voiturette class abroad was overtaken by Maserati.

The cost of running the works, and full racing programme, was beginning to become a problem for Humphrey Cook who had already spent over £200,000 supporting the venture and money was getting short. So in 1939 Humphrey withdrew his funding and the ERA Club was formed with a subscription fund to help maintain the works at Bourne. Unfortunately this did not bring in sufficient money and the works was closed.

During the war, racing came to an end, the Company site in Bourne was sold for aircraft component production and Company closed.

In 1946, ERA Ltd was officially re-registered in Humphrey Cook’s home town of Dunstable and moved into premises on London Road. Then late in 1947, Leslie Johnson bought the virtualy obsolete ERA Ltd from Cook along with one of the E-types. ERA's main business became research and development consultancy, and to further its reputation Johnson planned an F1 car for the new 2.5-litre formula.

The F1 project was a disaster and Johnson eventually suffered a heart attack and retired from business. In 1953 the project was sold to Bristol Cars who subsequently developed it into the successful Bristol 450 Le Mans car.

Humphrey Wyndham Cook died 3rd August 1978 aged 85 and is buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Penn, Buckinghamshire, his wife Anne, who pre-deceased him, is buried with him.

Additional sources: David Weguelin's The History of English Racing Automobiles and William Boddy's The History of Brooklands Motor Course.

historicracing.com

<