Bernard Docker

Sir Bernard Dudley Frank Docker (9 August 1896 – 22 May 1978) was an English industrialist.

Bernard Docker was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, the only child of Frank Dudley Docker, an industrialist.

Docker was the managing director of the Birmingham Small Arms Company group of companies (BSA) from the early 1940s until 1956 and he also chaired The Daimler Company Limited. He was also chairman of the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company.^[1] He became noted during the 1950s for producing show cars, such as the "Golden Daimler" (1952), "Blue Clover" (1953), the "Silver Flash" and "Stardust" in 1954. He was succeeded by Jack Sangster as Chairman of BSA, following a 1956 boardroom coup.

First marriage

Docker's first wife was Jeanne Stuart (née Ivy Sweet), a British actress. They married in 1933 but the marriage was soon dissolved after pressure from Docker's parents.^[2]

MY Shemara

MY Shemara seen at Southampton Docks.

Bernard Docker commissioned John I. Thornycroft & Company to build a yacht to his specifications.^[3][4] The yacht was completed in 1938 and christened MY Shemara.

MY Shemara was requisitioned by the Royal Navy at the start of the Second World War in 1939 and used as a training vessel for anti-submarine warfare. It was during a training exercise with HMS Shemara that the submarine HMS Untamed was lost with all her crew.^[5] Shemara left RN service in 1946^[6]

Green Goddess

1949 Daimler DE 36 "Green Goddess" drophead

Docker commissioned Hooper & Co. to build a drophead coupé on a Daimler DE-36 chassis for display at the first post-war British International Motor Show at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in 1948. Named the "Green Goddess" by the press, the car had five seats, three windscreen wipers, and hydraulic operation of both the hood and the hood cover. After the show, the car was further tested and refined, after which it was kept by Docker for his personal use.^[7]

Six other chassis were bodied with similar bodies. These were all called "Green Goddesses" after the original, which was exhibited with jade-green coachwork and green-piped beige leather.^[7]

Second marriage

His second wife was Norah Collins (née Norah Royce Turner), a former showgirl he married in 1949 as her third husband; she was the widow of Sir William Collins, the president of Fortnum & Mason, and widow of Clement Callingham, the head of Henekeys wine and spirits merchants.^[3]

The Dockers were often objects of ridicule because of the ostentatious flaunting of their wealth. In the 1950s they bought and lavishly redecorated Glandyfi Castle in Wales.^[8] The comedian Frankie Howerd often referred to people as "looking a bit like Lady Docker".^[9]

Docker Daimlers

Blue Clover, the 1952 show car

Golden Zebra, for the 1955 Paris Show

Sir Bernard Docker commissioned a series of Daimlers built to Lady Docker's specifications for the show circuit.

1951 – The Gold Car (a.k.a. Golden Daimler)

The Gold Car was a touring limousine on the Thirty-Six Straight-Eight chassis. The car was covered with 7,000 tiny gold stars, and all plating that would normally have been chrome was gold.^[10] This car was taken to Paris, the United States and Australia

1952 – Blue Clover

Also on the Thirty-Six Straight-Eight chassis, Blue Clover was a two-door sportsman's coupé

1953 – Silver Flash

The Silver Flash was an aluminium-bodied coupé based on the 3-litre Regency chassis. Its accessories included solid silver hairbrushes and red fitted luggage made from crocodile skin.^[11]

1954 – Star Dust

based on the DF400 chassis

1955 – Golden Zebra

The Golden Zebra was a two-door coupé based on the DK400 chassis.^[12] Like the Gold Car, the Golden Zebra had all its metal trim pieces plated gold instead of chrome, beyond that, it had an ivory dashboard and zebra-skin upholstery.^[12][13][14]

Separation from Midland Bank

In January 1953 the chairman of Midland Bank asked Sir Bernard for his resignation from the board of directors.^[15] Docker, who had been a director of Midland Bank since 1928, refused to resign.^[16] The board of Midland Bank notified its shareholders that they were to be asked to remove Sir Bernard from the board at the annual general meeting being held that February.^[15][16][17] The chairman stated that it was not in the bank's best interest to be associated with the publicity surrounding Sir Bernard.^[16] Sir Bernard replied to the shareholders that the publicity stemmed from three court proceedings, all of which had been either settled or found in his favour.^[15][16]

In late January, Sir Bernard resigned from the board of Midland Bank with immediate effect, claiming there was a rumour of an impending charge for a currency offence.^[18]

Separation from BSA

At the end of May 1956, Bernard Docker was removed from the board of Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA), and was replaced as chairman of BSA by Jack Sangster. The company, which owned the Docker Daimlers, had the Dockers return them.^[19][20]

The issues leading to the removal of the Dockers stemmed from the extravagant expenses they presented to the company, including the show cars made available for Lady Docker's personal use, a £5,000 gold and mink ensemble that Lady Docker wore at the 1956 Paris Motor Show that she tried to write off as a business expense as she "was only acting as a model" at the show,^[20] and Glandyfi Castle, bought with £12,500 of BSA's money and refurbished for £25,000, again with company money.^[8]

Decline and death

Without their main source of income, the Dockers began to run out of money. In 1965, Bernard Docker put Shemara on the market for £600,000; it was eventually sold for £290,000.^[21]

In 1966, the Dockers sold their estate in Hampshire and moved to Jersey in the Channel Islands, becoming tax exiles.^[3]

Bernard Docker was placed in a nursing home in 1976, where he died on 22 May 1978.^[22][23][24] He was buried beside his wife's grave site in the Callingham family plot in the churchyard of St James the Less, Stubbings, near Maidenhead in Berkshire. Clement Callingham, Lady Docker's first husband, had been buried on the other side of her grave site.^[9]

References