1929 Golden Arrow at the Beaulieu National Motor Museum

Reflecting on the Golden Arrow project

03 June 2021

Welcome to the final blog from the Golden Arrow research project brought to you by students from Bournemouth University. In this reflective blog we all wanted to say an enormous thank you to the National Motor Museum Trust for this incredible opportunity to work in collaboration with them regarding Golden Arrow. We hope you enjoy the testimonies on this incredible experience from each of us below.

Zoe

Working with the National Motor Museum for our Graduate Project has been a valuable experience. They warmly welcomed us and have trusted us to contribute to their existing project. They have been a massive help by providing us with digitised copies of their archival collection on Sir Henry Segrave and Golden Arrow. This allowed us to cement a background understanding of the context of the project. Our points of contact at the National Motor Museum have been Sarah, Patrick, and Dominic, all of whom have shown immense enthusiasm about our involvement in the project. The experience has been thoroughly enjoyable and eye-opening. We hope our collaboration with the NMMT on this project is well received and can pave the way for future Bournemouth University students to be given the same incredible opportunity to work with the National Motor Museum.

Bournemouth University student standing in front of the uni entrance

Fraser

I have absolutely loved working on this project and wish to say an enormous thank you to Sarah, Patrick and Dominic for their generosity of time, enthusiasm for our ideas, and collaboration through providing resources from the National Motor Museum’s Collections. A real highlight for me was being able to reveal the stories of the mechanics behind Golden Arrow, they were essential to its success! At some points, I felt like a detective, sifting through a mixture of documents from Ancestry and photographs from the Motor Picture Library as I attempted to put names to faces! I hope that our project signals the beginning of a strong partnership between Bournemouth University and the National Motor Museum.

Jo

Collaborating with the National Motor Museum has been a great experience: Sarah, Patrick and Domnic have all been wonderful, and flexible with the ideas we have presented to them. I think they have been surprised with how much we have done. Every time we present our findings to them, they always seem happy with the amount we have. Which helped to encourage us to create high quality outputs. All of them have been easy to contact and talk to, which has been such a helpful aspect. Working with students can sometimes be a startling premise. I’d like to think our own effort and enthusiasm for the project will drive forward further partnerships between the National Motor Museum and Bournemouth University students.

Harry

It has been a massive honour working with the National Motor Museum staff Sarah, Patrick and Dominic and the amazing project they set out for us. Throughout the project captured my interest throughout, especially when researching Segrave’s celebrity status before, during, and shortly after Golden Arrows success. Seeing his status grow rapidly in the newspapers captivated me and left me wanting to know more. The project overall has enhanced my ability to research and look towards sources that I never would have even thought of before, such as shipping documents and a wide range of local newspapers and advertisements. Even the obstacles that arose, such as identifying the mechanics, was a rewarding challenge that ended in great results.

Concluding Remark

Thank you to everyone who has been an enormous part of this journey. The outcome of our research can now be viewed in a special online exhibition Golden Arrow: The Roads Less Travelled. If you have any comments or contributions, please feel free to leave them below.