Garage proprietor, pioneer racing driver, and WW1 flying hero

The organisation’s Chair, Gavin Bamford, recently came across an evocative old photograph from the late 1920s/early 1930s of the Leslie Porter Ltd motor garage on 20-24 Great Victoria Street, Belfast.

Gavin now recounts the remarkable tale of a motoring business co-founded by ‘a man who died twice’, once, wrongly reported, in a racing car, and once, heroically, in war.

Time passed and tragedy struck before trading started in the Great Victoria Street garage but Leslie Porter was just 18 years old when he set up the Northern Motor Company in 1899 with his friend George Coombe.

Following an exhilarating freebie around the city on 6th November 1901 in one of their cars, a Belfast News Letter reporter headlined his next day’s article - ‘The Coming of the Motor’!

The report welcomed the Northern Motor Company to its premises in 5 Montgomery Street where it was “already, we are pleased to record, doing considerable business.”

The article continued “the courteous head of the establishment, Mr Leslie Porter, a motor expert, has had considerable experience with all kinds of horseless vehicles, and is, in addition an electrical and mechanical engineer. One great advantage which the Northern Motor Company provide is that they will lend a motor car to any owner of horses for the purpose of enabling the animals to become accustomed to the machines”.

Sadly, the compassionate offer wasn’t apparently available to Belfast’s unsuspecting pedestrians!

In 1902 the company advertised a “new type of motor waggon…which will entirely revolutionise the present clumsy methods of vehicular traffic.”

Mr Porter was the original ‘petrol-head’, also into motor racing, big time! In 1903 he embarked on the Paris to Madrid motor race driving a 50 horse-power Wolseley together with his mechanic, Willie Nixon. But sad news was telegraphed to Belfast’s newspapers and the News Letter of May 25, 1903 advised its readers “motor car race fatalities are all very terrible, and the most shocking of them has unfortunately happened to a Belfast competitor, Mr Leslie Porter, of the Northern Motor Company. He was pinned underneath the overturned car, and burned to death, presumably being drenched with petrol from the reservoir. “One can only hope that Mr Porter had been so injured in the collision that he was instantly deprived of consciousness, and was, therefore mercifully saved from the agony of his death”.

Another local paper later added “…it was Mr Willie Nixon, of Cavehill Road, Belfast, who lost his life. The (original) telegram contained the statement that Mr Porter himself had been killed…. however, it was ascertained that he was safe, but that the intelligence with regard to Mr Nixon was true.”

Further reports outlined “the car driven by Mr Porter ran into a woman crossing the road, killing her instantly.”

As well as racing tragedies, 1903 brought commercial difficulties to the Northern Motor Company though 1904 saw the business move to larger and more central premises at 38 Chichester Street, Belfast.

Three years later on March 9, 1907 a headline in the News Letter stated “Motor Accident Near Belfast.”

The article continued “at an early hour this morning, Mr Leslie Porter, manager of the Northern Motor Company was admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital suffering from fracture of the ribs, caused by a motor accident near Balmoral. He is reported to be progressing satisfactorily.”

He recovered and in August 1907 Mr Porter left the Northern Motor Company and set up his own business - Leslie Porter Limited, Consulting Motor Engineers and Brokers, with an address in 38A Queen Street, Belfast. By the end of 1907 the new business was selling Humber and Daimler cars.

Following a well-reported management dispute the business moved to Howard Street in 1908, to premises described as the ‘largest garage free to customers’ with extra premises added in Brunswick Street in 1910.

In 1912 the company put Singer cars in its showrooms, with Arrol-Johnston vehicles arriving in 1913. On November 17, 1914 four WWI ambulances were built in Belfast with special Daimler ambulance chassis supplied by Leslie Porter Ltd.

Having already learnt to fly in 1915, Leslie volunteered and enlisted into the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in November 1915. He was promoted to Flight Commander on May 1, 1916 and then trained as a flying instructor.

In the first week of September 1916, while based at Sedgeford in Norfolk, Captain Porter was granted a period of home leave before being sent to the front.

He flew home to Carnalea in his bi-plane and performed several spectacular flying displays over Belfast and Bangor, where enormous crowds watched him looping the loop!

He returned to Norfolk and on October 22 led a small group of Sopwith 1½ Strutter aircraft behind enemy lines. Captain Porter’s plane didn’t return.

Initially the War Office intimated that he was missing and the Porter family harboured hope that Leslie was being held as a POW.

The car business continued, with Chevrolet and Ford added to its agency list, along with a new address in Great Victoria Street.

But the family was informed by the German authorities on October 24, 1916 that Captain Leslie Porter had died.

Mr Andrew Hunter Wilkinson was appointed managing director of the business.