Thatcham blue plaque for Harry Lester MG cars and Monkey Stables racing team

Plaque for engineer and wartime inventor revealed on Wiltshire Tyres building

A BLUE plaque dedicated to the designer of a legendary racing car and wartime engineer, as well as Thatcham being a “home to innovation”, was revealed recently.

The plaque was unveiled on the Wiltshire Tyres building on the A4 on Saturday to mark the life and work of Harry Lester.

Mr Lester was an engineer and wartime innovator who developed the Lester MG T51 in Thatcham for the Monkey Stables racing team.

The plaque in his memory was unveiled by town mayor Mike Cole and Phoebe Mitchell of Wiltshire Tyres.

The last Lester MG made at the Thatcham garage by Mr Lester was present for the unveiling, along with owner Stewart Penfound and author of Harry Lester, His Cars & The Monkey Stable.

The site was chosen following a number of suggestions and votes from the public last year.

Thatcham Historical Society chairman Dr Nick Young said: “Harry Lester was an innovator and one many will remember.

“He designed a car that went on to become legendary, the Lester MG.

“I think it is all too easy to forget history and innovation, especially when it is within living memory as we tend not to think of it as history.

“The plaque not only recognises Lester, but also highlights the fact Thatcham was and is home to innovation.

“The hope is people will see these plaques and want to know more, for example they might want to know more about Lester, or find out more about the 1930s Art Deco building it is attached to or more about racing history.”

Although he was born in Middlesex in 1903, Mr Lester’s father was from the parish of Thatcham.

After leaving school, Mr Lester went into welding motorcycle frames before moving on to MG cars at their Abingdon garage.

The Lester MGs were marketed as being “improved” production cars.

He was called up to the war effort in 1940 for the Special Operations Executive, working on gadgets for undercover agents in northern France.

He designed the prototype for the Welbike – a small folding bicycle designed to be parachuted behind enemy lines – and was used by Commando and Marine units on beach landings at Anzio and Normandy as well as the Parachute Regiment during Operation Market Garden.

After the war Mr Lester returned to producing cars and in the 1950s he moved to Thatcham, buying a garage at 10 Bath Road, now the Wiltshire Tyres building.

He continued developing racing cars for the Monkey Stables racing team of young amateur racers lead by Jim Mayers.

The team enjoyed great success in their first year, 1952, including winning the team prize at the first nine-hour race at Goodwood, and the team in Mr Lester’s cars placing first, second and third place on one occasion.

Mr Lester sold the Thatcham garage in 1972 and retired to Crookham Common, but kept an office in the garage and stayed on as a consultant.

The Lester plaque is the third to be unveiled in the town in three years.

The first was placed in 2018 to mark where Britain’s first mail coach changed horses at the King’s Head pub between Bristol and London on August 3, 1784.

The second is on Thatcham Parish Hall and marks the first women to be elected to Thatcham Parish Council, Anna Munro Ashman and Isabella Pike (nee Clark) on April 7, 1919.