Burston believed to be `Elgar's car'

From the archive, first published Friday 8th Jul 2005.

THE Morgan is clearly Malvern's lasting claim to fame in the automotive world, but the firm was by no means the only car-maker in town during the early days of motoring.

When artist and writer Catherine Moody saw the November 2003 issue of The Elgar Society Journal, she was intrigued by the cover picture, a photograph of Elgar and a friend riding on some sort of early motor car.

She decided to investigate, and her conclusions are published in the latest edition of the Journal.

Since Elgar's companion in the picture was Alfred E Rodewald, who died in November 1903, it was clearly taken earlier than that.

Miss Moody soon established that there were no fewer than three car makers in the Malvern Link area in the late 19th-early 20th Century - Morgan, Santler and Burston.

Morgan was quickly ruled out: the picture was taken too early and the vehicle looked very unlike the early Morgan cycle-cars.

"The Santler car seemed more possible since its date was earlier," she wrote. But a comparison of the photo with a restored Santler showed it was not so.

All records of Burston had been destroyed, according to one local history, but Miss Moody had once taught Geraldine Burston, a member of the family, at Malvern School of Art.

Geraldine Burston came up with enough documents to allow Miss Moody a good stab at identifying the car - a steam-powered automobile built in Burston's Newtown Road works in 1902.

"The fascinating qualities of the steam car is such that one cannot but wish it had been developed," writes Miss Moody. "Its minimal use of paraffin make it desirably green, and its use of water for steam makes it a model example of renewable energy"

Elgar at the Wheel is published in the latest edition of The Elgar Society Journal, to which Miss Moody is a frequent contributor.

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