THEOPHILUS ALBERT DENHAM
DENHAM BROS
Theophilus Albert Denham was born in August 1888 at Taunton, Somerset, the son of Great Western Engine Driver Edward Denham and his wife Emma. The family moved around the country with their father's job, initially to the Mumbles near Swansea then, by 1901, to Stourbridge in Worcestershire. On the 1911 census Theo was still living with his parents in the Stourbridge area, and had a shop where he was a cycle-maker.
With the outbreak of the First World War he enlisted in the French Army and later the Army Service Corps as a Private, driving and maintaining motor vehicles in often appalling conditions of mud and under enemy attack. Like his brother Boss, who we shall hear more of shortly, he was lucky enough to survive the conflict, although their brother Lionel was not so fortunate. Towards the close of the war he was in the Royal Berkshire Hospital at Reading, where he met his bride-to-be, who was a hospital visitor and lived in Newbury, where her parents had a business in Bartholomew Street.
In December 1921 he announced to the public that he had set up a motor repairs garage at No. 1 Kings Road in Newbury. Apparently he was not a particularly good mechanic, but liked tinkering with things mechanical and re-building vehicles, which would be a recurring theme in the years to come.
Shortly after commencing with the garage, Theo acquired a trio of second-hand vehicles which, after overhaul, would form the basis of his passenger-carrying fleet. These were indeed a mixed bag, with AF 1344, a Star 20-25hp, new in June 1914 as a charabanc of W. Randell of Penryn, Cornwall, though it came to Denham via several other owners, during which time it had acquired a 12-seater front-entrance bus body.
The second was a Buick, with left-hand drive acquired from the Military Disposal Sales. The identity of this is not known, but what was originally a body intended for field ambulance work was adapted as a wagonette with face-to-face seating for ten and still with a centre rear entrance. It seems likely that Theo had been familiar with this type during his war service, and perhaps chose it because of that.
From ‘The Newbury and District Motor Services Story’ by Paul Lacey - with permission
He died at Howard Road, 1 November 1950 aged 62
