George William Patchett (23 December 1901 - before 31 December 1974) was a British motorcycle racer and engineer.

Career

In his early career he was a motor cycle racer for motorcycle manufacturers such as

Brough Superior Brough Superior ( ) motorcycles, sidecars, and automobile, motor cars were made by George Brough in his Brough Superior works on Haydn Road in Nottingham, England, from 1919 to 1940. The motorcycles were dubbed the "Rolls-Royce car, Rolls-Roy ...

, McEvoy and the Belgian arms company FN. At

Pendine Pendine ( cy, Pentywyn, "end of the dunes") is a village and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales. Situated on the northern shore of Carmarthen Bay and bordered by the communities of Eglwyscummin and Llanddowror, the population at the 2011 censu ...

, Wales he won the Welsh TT in 1925 and the Welsh TT sidecar in 1927 on Brough machines. In 1930 he was recruited by the

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

arms manufacturer

František Janeček František Janeček was the founder of Jawa motorcycles and an important figure in the development of the Czech motorcycle industry. He died on 4 June 1941. Early life Janeček was born on 23 January 1878 in Klášter nad Dědinou, a small villa ...

, founder of the JAWA motorcycle company. Janeček wanted to build a cheaper motor cycle than their current model. Patchett's contacts with the Villiers company enabled a new JAWA model to be designed around the Villiers 175cc two-stroke engine which proved very popular. Sterling SMG

On the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Patchett returned to England and started work under the auto-engineer

George Lanchester George Herbert Lanchester (1874 – 13 February 1970) was an English engineer. He was one of three brothers who played a leading role in the early development of the UK auto-industry. In 1909, following the departure from full-time involvement ...

at the

Sterling Armaments Company The Sterling Engineering Company Ltd was an arms manufacturer based in Dagenham, famous for manufacturing the L2A3 (the 'Sterling submachine gun'), ArmaLite AR-18 and Sterling SAR-87 assault rifles and parts of Jaguar cars. The company went bankrup ...

in Dagenham, Essex, helping to gear up manufacture of the Lanchester sub-machine gun. On his way out of

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

he managed to throw prototype samples of Janeček's new anti-tank device over the wall of the British Embassy. By 1942, he was leading a design team to design a new sub-machine gun to the army's specification which was referred to as the "Patchett Machine Carbine". After successfully taking part in extensive army trials in the mid to late 1940s it was adopted by the British Army to replace the Sten gun and known by them as the 9mm Sterling sub-machine gun

L2A1 The L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle, officially "Rifle, 7.62mm, L1A1", also known just as the SLR (Self-Loading Rifle), by the Canadian Army designation C1A1 (C1) or in the US as the "inch pattern" FAL,Especially on the American surplus market. is a Br ...

. A modified version, the

L2A3 The Sterling submachine gun is a British submachine gun (SMG). It was tested with the British Army in 1944–1945 as a replacement for the Sten but it did not start to replace it until 1953. A successful and reliable design, it remained as stan ...

, was the very popular Sterling Mk IV which saw service until the 1990s. In 1966, the British High Court awarded Patchett £116,975 (£ as of ) for the British government's use of the machine gun he patented. The same amount was awarded to Sterling, which had sued for half a million pounds. Mr. Justice Lloyd-Jacob referred to Patchett as "a distinguished inventor and valued designer" in making the award.

References

English engineers Firearm designers British motorcycle racers 1901 births 1974 deaths {{UK-bio-stub