68 EDITION 198 JAGUAR MAGAZINE
Jack Bryson
JAGUAR'S REAL BARRON
Jack Bryson was Jaguar's most entrepreneurial distributor according to
Sir William Lyons, and its biggest until the US arrived.
He was born in very humble circumstances, not as 'Jack Bryson' and not in Australia!U
TTER THE NAMES 'BRYLAW', ‘BRYSON’ AND
‘Jaguar’ in the same sentence to serious devotees
and they will recognise the business behind the
phenomenal sales successes of Jaguar post-War
‘down under’. They will almost definitely know the
name Jack Bryson too. Australia was Jaguar’s largest export market,
even surpassing the USA, until the end of the 1940s. That's when
British industry was getting back on its feet, and desperately needed
to export its products to win government permits for essential
materials, including steel. Very few new cars were sold in Britain.
After Standard Cars in Australia told William Lyons they could
not see a market for more than 200 Jaguars a year, he turned to Jack
Bryson in Melbourne to become his distributor for Victoria and New
South Wales. Bryson immediately told Lyons he would take every
right hand drive Jaguar he made. Brylaw Motors were appointed
the distributors for New South Wales, Victoria - and Tasmania!
Sir William told us Jack Bryson was the most entrepreneurial
person he ever did business with, an incredible pronouncement from
a man not inclined to outlandish claims. Their warm relationship
was mutual, and pivotal in times of crisis. They were born in the
same year, were not from gentry families, and neither had a tie to the
motor industry. Both had three children, and each would lose one
son driving a Jaguar to endurance motor race meetings.
At the end of his life in 1971, Jack Barron Bryson was a massively
respected captain of industry in Australia. He was also an immensely
wealthy man who hosted major national politicians and decision
makers at his magnificent Melbourne mansion in plush Brighton.
It sat on prime acreage flush with a sandy Port Phillip Bay beach.
The assumption would be that he came from 'old money', and
used that to expand the family pile - no, wrong!
He was extremely private, and didn’t open up about his life. Even
his children didn't know a lot about him before ‘Jack Bryson’ was
invented. It took eldest son John to bring the bare facts out, and a
massive amount of research by John, his family, plus this magazine,
to unearth shock after shock because he started with nothing.His ancestry is complex, but how he ended his life so successfully,
and respected by his peers internationally defies all odds.
It starts with Trevor Raymond Shailer or Morton in New Zealand,
the illegitimate son of single 30 year old Dunedin woman Ada
Morton. She had him secretly in Timaru - he became Jack Bryson.
Ada's family had direct Maori heritage via her mother, and UK
nobility, her father being a carpenter when trade qualifications were
rare. He later became a commission agent. Her grandfather was
Sir David James Hamilton Dickson from Roxburgh in the Scottish
Borders, while her parents emigrated from Islington in London.
Because of prudish Victorian attitudes when births outside
marriage were frowned on, Trevor was quickly farmed out to the
Barron family on the North Island. According to John: “Rather
than a foundling, Trevor was a giftling."
Iris Ruby Barron, the youngest of their eight children became his
surrogate mother, even though she was a mere ten years older. Trevor
understood his Maori connection, and strong cultural loyalties
remained with him, but he never relinquished the Barron name.
His adoptive father was jockey, horse trainer and horse dealer
Alexander ‘Sandy’ Huntly Barron from Havelock. A colourful man.
In 1876 he was charged with knocking over two Maori women while
drunk on a horse, stated he didn’t mean to cause distress but was
fined £5/6/6! In 1880 he filed for bankruptcy in Napier, and by 1891
was living in Gisborne married to Australian Louisa (McGirr), born
in South Yarra, Melbourne in 1861. Young Trevor was raised by her
and Sandy and he loved them as his legitimate mother and father.
Trevor Raymond Barron had two birth registrations - 1901 at
Timaru, and in 1902 he is recorded again as a new birth in Auckland,
probably when he joined the Barrons. Years on ‘John Bryson’
recorded his Trevor Barron birth as being in Auckland in 1901.
His birth mother Ada married his birth father Percy Henry
Shailer in 1911 in Melbourne. He was 12 years younger than Ada,
and they had two more children who were Trevor's full brother and
sister. Against the odds, the siblings had a relationship, and Ada
Shailer nee Morton, remained in Melbourne where she lived untilWORDS - LES. HUGHES - JOHN BRYSON
PHOTOGRAPHS - JOHN BRYSON - JAGUAR MAGAZINE