Wolseley Hornet Special Club of Australia Inc

Hornet Special
Newsletter
Issue 92 March 2023

I thought you might be in-

terested in this photo.
It was taken some time in
the 1930s at Onslow in the
Pilbara, 1400km north of
Perth.
The woman in the photo
is my aunt Conny Hall. I
have a stack of old family
letters that I am hoping
will reveal more about the
car and its owner.
Regards Ron Wilson

1934 Hornet Special in the Pilbara

T he discovery some years ago of a 1932 Sanction 65 Hornet Special in the Queensland tropical rain forest at Kuranda
indicated a wide distribution of our cars, and now with Ron Wilson’s wonderful photograph in Onslow in the
north-west, one of the hottest places in Australia with a peak of 50.7 C, it’s clear that Hornets can go anywhere!
We hope that Ron can provide us with more information, and maybe the “bones” for another restoration still exist.

John Clucas has been Club President for 5 years and believes it would be good for the Club for someone else to take
the role at the AGM.

WHSCA Club Contacts

Secretary
AGM & H0RNET EXTRAVAGANZA
Margaret Cooper,
ph (07) 3312 2365
26th - 29th May page 2
President
John Clucas Also in this issue .....
ph +61 419 592 275
Editor Invitation to Cootamundra Sprints (September 2023) page 3
Henry Hancock,
‘32 & ‘33 Steering Refurbishment page 4
ph (07) 3878 2850
3 Gilia Court Indooroopilly Qld 4068 Club Annual Subscriptions due page 5
[email protected] Carla Jacques and Owen Dibbs - Hornet Owners page 6
Website
whscaorgau.wordpress.com
Gordon F G Lee, Leonard Lee and ‘Cammy’ Anderson page 8
INDEX of NAMES in Newsletters page 8
AGM & HORNET EXTRAVAGANZA
MANSFIELD VIC
FRIDAY 26TH MAY - MONDAY 29TH MAY 2023
Accommodation: Alzburg Resort: 39 Malcolm Street Mansfield 03 5775 7400
[email protected]
Please book your own accommodation online at www.alzburg.com.au to get our discount
Accommodation: $149 day per room (when booking use promo code: hornet23 for 10% discount)
Car & Trailer parking available at Alzburg
ALL MEALS AND ACTIVITIES AT OWN COST
Friday 26 May
Early arrivals – maps & info packs - walking tours, brewery(s), wineries
5.00pm Drinks Mansfield Hotel
6.00pm Annual General Meeting Mansfield Hotel
7.30pm AGM Dinner Mansfield Hotel
Presentations and after dinner speaker – TBA
Saturday 27 May
8.00am Breakfast main street
8.45am Show’n’Shine display of Hornets in main street – org by council
9.00am Mansfield Bush Market (food) in main street
11.00am Drive south to Jamieson
12.30 pm Visit Bimbi Car Museum
2.00 pm Lunch Jamieson – tour significant trees eg Redwood Sequoia
7.30pm dinner – Mansfield TBA

Sunday 28 May
8.30am breakfast Mansfield
10.00am Winton – 46TH HISTORIC WINTON incl
Hornet display
4.00pm depart Winton
7.00pm Dinner Mansfield
Historic Winton is Australia’s largest and most popular all-
historic motor race meeting. Featuring over 400 historic
racing cars and motorbikes from the 1920s to the 1980s as
well as a huge array of veteran, vintage, rare and unusual
vehicles on display.
Each year, Historic Winton presents historic displays
in the car park and competition paddock. Additionally,
there is a grand parade of display vehicles at lunchtime
on Sunday. These are selected by Austin 7 Club officials
on the Sunday morning by leaving an invitation ticket on
the wind screen,
Racing events commence at 8:30am with the parade
at around 12:30 and racing concludes at about 4:30pm
Sunday. Adult Entry: $55 (To be confirmed)

Monday 29 MAY TBA

Activities to be announced later.

Page 2 Hornet Special Newsletter

WEATHER Av Max 15.9C, Min 2.1C Precipitation 11days in May
DISTANCES
MELB to Mansfield - 210km SYD to Mansfield - 878km WINTON to Mansfield - 73km
TRANSPORT
Apart from road, there is a coach service, a small airport and a heliport for those needing to avoid the paparazzi.
ATTRACTIONS NEARBY
Ski Season @ nearby mountains, especially Mt Buller, begins 3 June
Ned Kelly – Stringybark Creek, Power’s Lookout, Greta & Glenrowan
High Country, King Valley & Milawa = views + wineries
ASSOCIATED ATTRACTION
Visit to Bill Russell’s HORNET WORKS in Ballarat the following Wed 31st May.
DETAIL ABOUT THE ALZBURG RESORT ACCOMODATION
The resort offers swimming, sauna, spas, tennis, games room.
Hopefully their special dome will be erected over the pool in
time for our visit, so bringing your bathers to an otherwise cold
place would be a good idea.
The 5 different room types are a little difficult to understand
so we’ve summarised them in table below.
Some are multiroom apartments which are very well planned
out and would suit couples going in together. They have a good
balance of privacy and friendly living space. The Deluxe 3bdrm
apartments are impressive in the separate old convent building
upstairs and have huge space and verandas. Worth considering.
Some of the king beds separate into 2 singles too.
The resort (and whole town) has staffing issues so there is no chef avail at resort. We’ll have breakfast elsewhere.
NB You must book online to get our group discount. However, you can phone Alzburg to get assistance doing this if
you would prefer.
NOTE: PLESE REFER TO EMAIL OF 27 FEBRUARY 2023 TO ALL FOR MORE DETAIL
For planning purposes we need to know numbers.
Please reply to as soon as possible to: John Balthazar by email: [email protected]

COOTAMUNDRA SPRINTS
SATURDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2023
The VSCCA invites you to participate in its annual Cootamundra Sprints for vintage and pre-
1985 cars. Please come and participate in one of the Club’s best and most relaxed motor
sporting events. We hear it said every year: ‘This is what motor sport used to be like’.

T
Mark it in your calendar, book your motel and then get the car ready.
he Vintage Sports Car Club of Australia has invited the Wolseley Hornet Special Club of Australia Inc. to
compete in the Cootamundra Sprints in September 2023. The 1.5km long, 18m wide,
Cootamundra Airport runway
Contact Jeremy Morris on email: [email protected] or allows
mobile: 0437
two cars883 098 run side
to safely
by side over the timed 400m.
Cars will be pre 1985, or at the
discretion of the Organiser and
will participate in either full speed
Issue 92 timed acceleration sprints or Page 3
regularity sprints. The latter
allows vintage cars to accelerate
over the
400m at any comfortable speed they choose and once a time has been given then the object
‘32, ‘33 Steering Refurbishment
A t the height of the Victorian lock-down, Bill Russell
asked me did I have any spare steering parts for a ‘32/’33
Hornet.
Yes, I have spare bits of the Admant steering from 4 (one is
a shorter column from a Morris), see photo to the right, BUT
the ’33 Sanction 81 saloons have the steering box in front of
the axle.
I had rebuilt the steering column and box on the “Kuranda” Sanction 65 WHS,
including machining an offset bush for the worm to reduce the free-play, and
I’d packed it safely away in the garage roof for when the car is ready.
Hmm … I thought …, before I give away any parts, I’d better check that I’ve
used the correct worm and wheel for a WHS and not a spare back-to-front
’33 saloon one. Part of my problem is that I had received that ‘Kuranda’ car
as a bent chassis and disassembled bits in 20 litre buckets.
So, I went to inspect Peter Baker’s Sanction 75 WHS to confirm exactly how
the steering should be set up. Shock! Horror! When I turn my steering wheel
to the right, the wheels will turn to the left!
I have now installed the correct worm and wheel in the box so that when
viewed from the top …. turn the steering wheel clockwise and the box wheel
turns anti-clockwise …. the drag link behind the axle moves to the left and the
wheels turn to the right. I now think that this is probably the original worm
and wheel from the car. The steering assembly is again safely packed away
in the garage ceiling.
Rebuilding the steering with an offset bush to bring the worm and wheel into
closer engagement.

Rebuilt steering box, column and steering

wheel on the Sanction 65 ‘Kuranda” car E ither the wheel can have a pair of offset bronze bushes or the worm can
have a new steel carrier bored with an offset. I have subsequently seen
that in the UK for MGs, a company installs an offset bush for the wheel
held in place by a clever toothed wheel and peg fixed to the underside, which allows for rotation of the bush and thus
adjustment of the engagement.
Sanction 65

F or the Sanction 65, I chose to offset the worm and the biggest difficulty
that I had was to determine the wear and therefore how large to make the
offset. There is a limit before the worm bottoms in the wheel, which would
then require grinding the outside of the worm.
Once fabricated with an offset a bit larger than necessary, the bush is rotated
to the best fit and locked in position by a grub screw installed in the hole that
locates the tab which locks the castellated nut holding the steering column
to the box.
I decided that a 0.4 mm offset should be enough and within the limits of my
Offset bush
machining, it actually measures 0.39 mm. When rotated to the position of
best fit (no play can be felt between worm and wheel), the offset is 0.3mm. At this point it is just firm, but with the
wear on parts of the wheel, it is a bit loose at other points. This firm point will be set at straight ahead.
Sanction 81’Elsa’

A fter correcting the Sanction 65 car, I decided that I should ‘operate’ on the ’33 Doctors Coupe, now named ‘Elsa’,
the steering of which had about 38mm of free play. Three years ago, when I registered it, that was the maximum
allowable and it was a bit less then, so it passed.

Page 4 Hornet Special Newsletter

 Originally it wandered noticeably on the road, but when
I very carefully set the toe-in to 1/8” with the Blockley
tyres, it tracks very straight even over road undulations
so steering correction is only occasionally necessary.
However, with the play in the steering one doesn’t feel
confident in passing too close to things in case the road
surface might suddenly upset it.
Pulling the steering column out, working on it and replac-
ing it took a week, but it was almost a joy, because while
several things had to be removed for access, everything
came apart smoothly.
I machined the bush for the worm with a 0.4 mm offset,
thinking that the wear would probably be similar to the
Sanction 65, but upon assembly found that the wear must
The completed Sanction 81 steering box
have been greater, and it ‘took’ the full 0.4mm.
Upon reinstallation in the car, I was a bit surprised to find that there is still 20mm of free play. Maybe I expected too
much because there is still design movement in the springs at each end of the drag link and the tie rod (done up tight
then backed off to the next split-pin position).
Now, driving around on the bumpy suburban roads that I know, it really doesn’t feel any different, probably because
it tracks so well, however hopefully on some of those really bumpy country roads at 80 kph (and a bit) it will feel
more responsive.
Henry Hancock

CLUB SUBSCRIPTIONS DUE BY 30 APRIL 2023

WHSCA - Belong to the Wolseley Hornet Special Club of Australia Inc. with access to our stock of second hand
parts for a very reasonable subscription, particularly if you take the Newsletter via email. Also have access to the UK
Club’s spare parts and other services and receive their Magazine by email.
All WHSCA members become affiliate members of the Wolseley Hornet Special Club (UK); have access to their spare
parts and other services; and receive the WHSC Magazine by email [For a portion of our annual subscription of GBP
7.50 = AUD 15]. Alternatively, become a full member of the UK Club and receive their printed & posted newsletter.
WHSCA Membership Fees 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023:
Non-member – newsletter only emailed $10
Membership – newsletter emailed + UK Affiliate $40
Membership – newsletter printed & posted + UK Affiliate $72
Membership – newsletter printed & posted overseas + UK Affiliate $75
Member (email newsletter) with Full UK Membership *$107 (if paid by 31/5/2023)
Member (printed & posted newsletter) with Full UK Membership *$139 (if paid by 31/5/2023)
*Subject to UK/AUD exchange rate (+$20 UK late fee if not paid by 31/5/2023)
Please forward your subscription by the due date to:
By bank transfer (strongly preferred) to:
Wolseley Hornet Special Club of Australia Inc
St George Bank BSB: 112-879
Account No: 469866952 The Club’s financial year ends in March, so to
Reference: your name make his yearly accounting easier, Club Treasurer,
Bill Trollope, requests payment not before 1st
Or by cheque or money order to:
April 2023.
Wolseley Hornet Special Club of Australia Inc.
C/- Bill Trollope, Treasurer
229 Bobbin Head Rd, Turramurra 2074, Australia
[email protected]

Issue 92 Page 5
Carla Jacques and Owen Dibbs
Carla Jacques (1891-1976) was one of the significant Hornet women. Her maiden name was Carla Vera Kortlang
Alexander. She was born in Melbourne in 1891, daughter of Charles Stuart Alexander, a merchant associated with the
well-known Melbourne trading firm of Sargood’s. He later moved to NSW where he established his own trading firm
of Stuart Alexander and Co., eventually dying in Armidale in 1943. Her mother was Dorette Kortlang, from Amherst,
a small gold mining town near Ararat in the Victorian Pyrenees. Dorette’s parents. Lorenz and Sophia, had come from
Oldenburg in Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) Germany to Victoria via New York in 1853.
Carla first married John Burton Dibbs, who was killed in France serving
with the Australian Forces in 1918. She then married Charles Alfred Jacques
in Sydney in 1919 and divorced him in 1931. Her son, Owen Dibbs, was
a product of the first marriage and her daughter, Sandra Carla Jacques, a
product of the second.
In June 1934, a burglar entered her flat in Darling Point. She explained to
the press that she was not frightened, as she always slept with a revolver
loaded with seven cartridges under her pillow, while her son had a loaded
rifle. She had fired above the burglar’s head to scare him, after the burglar
and her son had exchanged shots. She said the burglar then “vanished in
a second”.
Her first motor sport appearance seems to have been winning the RACA
Womens Trial in Sydney on May 24 1936 in her Hornet, followed by other
events in July and August that year.
The May event was an event for closed cars so she may have been in a coupe or WHS saloon.
She won a Trophy at the RACA in 1937 in the Hornet but in 1938 was competing in a 1292cc MG (probably a K or
N series)
Carla’s divorce papers were released by the NSW State Archives and published in the Sydney Morning Herald in
2012. Here is an extract:
IF MILLS & BOON is to your liking, some of the affidavits contained in 57,000 newly released divorce papers from
the 1930s make for entertaining reading.
In one of the documents, a letter was written to Carla Jacques on the Steam Ship Orvieto, bound from Australia to
London in 1927.
‘’Carla my love, Sweetheart I looked into your cabin from the outside at 7.30 and I saw your lovely self fast asleep.
Carla my darling it was perfectly heavenly, but oh my sweetheart I just hated leaving you then, for it was then that
you really needed petting. Yours, Billy.’’
The words were not from her spouse.
Two years later, romance shifted to Wyong,
and Mrs Jacques is in the company of a dif-
ferent suitor. Her husband, Charles Jacques,
a well-known Sydney solicitor and racehorse
owner, is away, according to neighbour Mr
Smith, who maintained Mr Jacques’s or-
chard.
‘’Mrs Jacques and Mr Ralph Pooley stayed
at the house on the night of the day they ar-
rived and I believe on the following night,’’
he said.
‘’On the day after they arrived they went
for a long walk along the road to the lake.
They came back in about an hour’s time
and they were skylarking together and had
draped themselves with flowers which they
had picked hanging them over their shoulders and heads and they went along with their arms around one another’s
waists laughing and joking as they went.’’

Page 6 Hornet Special Newsletter

 Her daughter Sandra Carla Jacques was a
glamourous model, and crooner at Prince’s Night-
club in Sydney, who appeared in several movies
including as Meg in the 1939 film Seven Little
Australians. The Maitland Daily Mercury of 22
October 1938 reported a dinner dance she gave ,
assisted by her mother, which showed she showed
“promise to develop into a charming hostess”.
During the war, she married then divorced Peter
Gibbes, and then In June 1950 ‘the titian haired
beauty’ married a Royal Navy Submarine com-
mander in England, and Lord Mountbatten was
a guest at the engagement party,  Sandra Carla
Jacques died in England about the year 2000.

Carla’s son and Sandra’s step brother was Group

Captain Owen Dibbs, born 1914, at 6 feet 5 said
to be the tallest man in the RAAF.
Dibbs full name was John Owen Parker Dibbs. He
was a career airman, Service Number 90, who joined the RAAF in 1932 at Richmond,
the first RAAF base to be established in NSW, which had been opened in 1925. He later
rose to Group Captain. He attended Kings School Parramatta and graduated as Bachelor
of Civil Engineering. After briefly serving as Assistant Shire Engineer at Gilgandra,
Dibbs became one of the first RAAF officers to be posted to England, in December 1939.
His squadron flew Sunderland flying boats.  During World War II, he was awarded the
OBE (Order of the British Empire) and was Mentioned in Dispatches (meaning he showed valour that was significant
enough to be reported to the King).
Dibbs had moved from Sydney to Melbourne with his Hornet Special just before the war and lived in the Eastern
suburbs.  He married Patricia Blayney at St Marks, Darling Point Sydney in 1943. At the end of the war in 1945, Dibbs
was appointed to RAAF headquarters in Melbourne and moved there with his wife. He died in 2000 and is buried in
the Queensland Garden of Remembrance in Brisbane.
On 30 October 1938 he entered a race at Parramatta in an MG owned by Mrs Carla Jacques. He was then described
as Ft/Lt Owen Dibbs, Victoria, so he seems to have moved to Victoria by then. As the military headquarters were
still in Victoria at that time, this may account for his move to Victoria, while still competing with his mother’s MG
in NSW.
We haven’t been able to precisely identify which WHS he brought but one candidate is the 1932 coupe on page 109
of the book.  This car was a closed car (as used by Carla) and it did migrate from Sydney to Melbourne about his time
in circumstances otherwise unknown. Where Dibbs lived was not distant from the location where later owner Lindsay
Dyer acquired the car. Perhaps Dibbs took over the Hornet Special when Carla acquired her MG.
The Daily Telegraph reported on 1 December 1938 that Carla and Dibbs
were off to the New
Year’s Day Grand
Prix races in South
Australia and that
Carla “looks after
the mechanical side
of the car and will
drive with her son in
the race”. This may
refer to the MG.

Bill Russell

Issue 92 Page 7
Gordon F G Lee, Leonard G Lee and MR. LEN KING NEW
‘Cammy’ Anderson R.A.C.Q. SECRETARY
In previous newsletters we have noted Gordon F G Lee driving a su- Mr Gordon Lee who has been acting
percharged 1934 Wolseley Hornet tourer with success in Queensland as assistant secretary, has been
speed events. appointed permanently to the position.
The Telegraph newspaper on Tuesday 20 June 1939 tells us that he Mr. Gordon F. G. Lee is well known
has been confirmed as the assistant secretary of the RACQ, having as a competition driver in local motoring
previously been a foundation member and the first secretary of the circles, and he was the first secretary
Queensland Motor Sporting Club and that “He had won more contests of the Queensland Motor Sporting Club.
than anyone else in the Club …..” and it also tells us that he was the
son of Mr. Leonard G. Lee. Mr. Lee is about 24 years of age and
is the son of Mr. L. G. Lee, of Doris
Leonard G Lee was the sales manager of Sneddons Motors Ltd. who Street, West End, who also was well
were the Wolseley agents in Brisbane from September 1933 until 1936 known in motoring circles.
(they merged with British Australian Motors in late 1934). See Newslet-
ter issue 54, June 2013, When Hornets first came to Brisbane. Mr. V. Winders, president of the
Queensland Motor Sporting Club, ex-
Another Telegraph article, three months later, on Friday 29 Septem- pressed pleasure at the appointment
ber 1939 talks of a “Speed Carnival” at Rosewood Track entered by of Mr. Gordon Lee. Mr. Lee, he said,
Gordon Lee (now was always interested in motor sporting
driving a Standard)
Speed Carnival at racing against C.
and was one of the foundation
members of the club. He had won more
Rosewood Track Anderson (Wolse- contests than anyone else in the club;
ley Hornet). and his knowledge of competitions
By A. L. VOWLES
We k n o w t h a t would be of great value. He always
Big track racing is expected to Chas. ‘Cammy’ endeavored to improve conditions for
attract another big crowd to Rosewood Anderson was a motorists and was a willing worker for
to-morrow afternoon when the second member of QHMC the sporting club, who frequently called
car and motor cycle speed carnival and that his car was upon him for advice; subsequent to his
will be held on the three-quarter mile the late Howard resigning the secretaryship owing to
racecourse circuit. Kenward’s 1934 the pressure of business.
Special now owned
The car racing promises to provide thrills,
by son Geoff. The Telegraph Tuesday 20 June 1939
especially the second heat in which K.
Kibble will will drive the fast Alvis Sports job There was another
in which he startled spectators at last Sun- race reported in The Telegraph on 1 August and with both Lee and
day’s practice. V. Trevethan’s Jitterbug Anderson racing, so Gordon and “Cammy” were well known to
Special also will be in this heat as well as each other – another link in the chain.
that consistent performer, T. Trevethan in Also interesting is that the John Pike at Rosewood Track who was
his Ford V-8. a very successfull competitor in the ‘30s in his Bugatti, Austin 7
Hec. Collett (Hudson) is in the first heat and Singer Le Mans, was ex-1934 WHS owner, Chris Pike’s father.
with M. Willbatt driving John Pike’s Austin Chris’s car is now owned by David & Yvonne Armstrong in SA.
Seven, and Gordon Lee (Standard). Claude
Barron (Wensum Vauxhall), C. Anderson
(Wolseley Hornet) and J. Howard (Morris 8/
40) comprise the third heat, with Vic. Winders INDEX of NAMES in NEWSLETTERS
(P and W Special), R. Eberie (Ford 10) and If you are interested in the people mentioned in WHSCA
R McDowell (Standard 10) in the fourth. Newsletters from Issue 1 to Issue 91, there is now an index
A novel car event ……… on our Website whscaorgau.wordpress.com .

The Telegraph Friday 29 September 1939

The Wolseley Hornet Special Club of Australia Inc. (Victoria, No. A0035489S) exists to encourage the preserva-
tion and use of Wolseley Hornets, Sports and Specials. The Club and its Committee take no responsibility for the
accuracy of this newsletter’s content nor for the consequences of acting upon any information published herein.