Harold Hartley

Record type: Motorsport Biographies

Biography: Mounts: Junior – Velocette
Senior – Velocette

Age 51, Harold Hartley is a motor engineer and lives near Beverley, Yorks. He has a very long experience of the Island, dating back to the 1929 Amateur T.T. in which he was fourth in the 350 c.c. class.

He was third in the 1931 Junior Manx, and fourth in the same year’s Senior race. He turned to the T.T. in 1936, finishing seventh in the Lightweight race on a Rudge, a position which he occupied again in 1939. In all he has ridden in seventeen T.T. races and has won eleven replicas. His Lightweight Rudge (which he rode on eleven occasions) was certainly a machine with a histoy, for it was basically the model on which Jimmy Simpson won the 1934 Lightweight.

Twenty-eight years after his first race over the Mountain Course on a Velocette, Harold is returning to it this year “for a last ride” on a Velocette! His machine for both races has a Mk VIII frame and wheels, with a “works” double-knocker engine and gearbox. He is entered by Messrs T. W. and T. H. Carter (Engineers).
(TT Special, 5 June 1957, p.24.)

Mounts: Junior – Velocette
Lightweight – Rudge

Age 41, occupation Motor Engineer, home, Hessle, E. Yorks. Was a Staff Sergeant in R.E.M.E. during the war and spent four years overseas.

Rode in the M.G.P. as long ago as 1931, finishing 3rd in the Junior and 4th in the Senior. In 1937 came seventh in the Lightweight T.T. and repeated this in the 1939 Lightweight. Last year, finished second in the Ulster Road Race.

Mount: Lightweight—Hartley-Rudge.

Age 49, Harold Hartley is a motor engineer, and lives near Beverley, East Yorks. He has a very long experience of the Island, dating back to the 1929 Amateur T.T., in which he was fourth in the 350 c.c. class.

He was third in the 1931 Junior Manx, and fourth in the same year’s Senior race; he turned to the T.T. in 1936, finishing seventh on a Rudge, in the Lightweight race. In all he has ridden in 16 T.T. races, and in ten of these he rode his Lightweight Rudge.

It is certainly a machine with a glorious history, for it is, basically, the mount with which Jimmy Simpson won the 1934 Lightweight! Although the Rudge is now 20 years old, it is still going well, and has been brought up to date by the addition of an Al-Fin barrel and other modifications, including Hartley’s own design of rear springing.
(TT Special, 16 June 1954, p.16)

Both his machines are private entries. The Velocette is a new 1947 model and the Rudge is a famous “veteran” – a 1932 model, the actual one ridden by Jimmy Simpson in 1934 when he won the Lightweight.
(TT Special, 9 June 1947, p.14.)

Name Variant: Harold *Hartley

Competed in

Comments