Once the participants in the 1896 Emancipation Run arrived in Brighton triumphant - if rather soggy - their achievement was celebrated with a banquet at the Hotel Metropole. Dinner tickets were free for participants and invited guests, and cost £1 / 1s for others (roughly £140 per head today). We can't decipher the recipient of this particular invitation - all suggestions welcome! UPDATE: Our heartfelt thanks to that unimpeachable source of information, the motoring author and automobile historian David Burgess-Wise, who tells us that the recipient was the London representative of the Irish Independent newspaper.

In his account of taking part on that original Run, Alfred Cornell later recalled: "It was raining and blowing a gale at Brighton as we got there. When making for Dupont’s stables the wind almost stopped the car, although on slow speed. Arriving at the garage there were many less cars than I expected to see; and, of course, they were all thoroughly dirty. There were large cakes of mud on parts of my car half an inch thick. On alighting I found I had for a long time been sitting in a puddle. However, I soon got restored to creature comfort, and I arrived at the banquet only a few minutes late. The function was very enjoyable, and many well-known men were to be seen there."

We note that invitees were asked to RSVP to the Hon. Secretary of the Motor Car Club, at 40 Holborn Viaduct, London, from where Harry Lawson ran his various enterprises, including the Daimler Motor Company. Sadly that area suffered greatly from bombing in WW2, and the original building no longer exists - the site is today occupied by a substantial modern office complex.