Tragic end of fast Eddie
Posing for the camera proudly in his sports car, Shropshire MP's son Eddie Stanier looks a classic image of a young RAF officer who lives for speed.
The temptation to call him Fast Eddie is almost overwhelming. And Eddie was to die at the wheel, but not at the wheel of his prized H.E.
H.E. was the make of his sports car - that is, Herbert Engineering of Reading, and while that bonnet mascot looks deadly, it's not clear if this was the official mascot design. Maybe some old car buff can clear up.
What we do know is that when he lost his life he was driving a 12hp Morris Cowley.
Edward Stanier was the third son of Sir Beville Stanier and had grown up at the family home at Peplow Hall, near Hodnet, although by the time of Eddie's death they had moved to The Citadel, Hawkstone. He was well known locally as "Master Eddie."
Various pictures of him are in the family albums in the possession of Sir Beville's grandson, also Sir Beville, although he goes as Billy. The handwritten captions incidentally variously spell his name as Eddy or Eddie.
Sir Beville senior had been the Newport MP, and ultimately Ludlow MP, but died in 1921, five years before Eddie's tragic death at the age of only 21.
Although he had been through pilot training in the RAF, he had changed direction and for some months had been articled as a pupil to Messrs. Balfour and Cooke estate agents in Shrewsbury.
The crash was at Battlefield at 10.55pm on July 13, 1926. He left the office at 5pm to watch the Shrewsbury School bumping races on the River Severn and then had dinner in Shrewsbury, and was presumably driving home.
A motorcyclist following behind him told the inquest - held at the Red Lion Inn, Battlefield - that near the turn to Battlefield Church he saw the car swerve and then roll over, coming to rest upside down. Eddie, pinned underneath, died of a broken neck.
The coroner, Colonel E. Cureton, remarked that "driving at a fast pace is a highly dangerous proceeding," although there was no real evidence that Eddie was going too fast and in any event a motor engineer said the maximum speed of the Morris Cowley was between 55 and 57mph, so it was no hot rod.
The jury's verdict was accidental death.
The funeral was at St Luke's Church, Hodnet, and Eddie was buried in the same grave there as his father.
