The Royal Enfield Owner's club

Royal Enfield was the among the first (if not the first) company to have an exclusively dedicated motorcycle club. It held its first meeting on November 16th 1924. It consisted of a motorcycle run starting at the King's Head Hotel towards the Redditch factory, where they were joined by other riders and went to Stonebridge for lunch. The picture on the left is at the start at the Hotel. The following prizes were presented: best kept sidecar machine, Mr.  H. Hughes, Redditch, prize consisting of a gallon of Adcol oil presented by Messrs. A. Duckham and Co.; best kept solo machine Mr. L. Ball, Redditch, prize consisting of a medal presented by Mr. Crowhill; machine with most useful "gadgets" Mr. H. Cadby, Birmingham, prize consisting of a tyre presented by the Palmer Tyre Company.

There was no sign up fee and the annual membership was 5 Shillings. The honorable secretary was Mr. A. W. Riley, of 100 Abbey Road, Warley Woods, Birmingham. Apart from organizing runs, I have not found much other activity by the club. For instance they did not appear to publish a newsletter.

The club dissolved in 1970 when the company closed down in England, for reasons that I was not able to ascertain. After all there were lots of Royal Enfield riders left in the UK. Perhaps riding motorcycles had become more of an activity for the youth, who were less inclined to the organized activities of clubs.

Interestingly sometime in the mid 1970's a Royal Enfield Owners Club sprung up in the US!

The club was restarted in the UK in 1978, and the newsletter, The Gun, has been published ever since.