Part 1 – Introductory letter

McLaren Connection with McLaren Vale.

Hi everyone,

 We have been working on a very exciting project for the last year or so and it is coming close to being launched. 

In the middle of last year by strange coincidence I was contacted by an Australian Winemaker in the McLaren Vale area.  He was a fellow Austin-Healey owner that my husband Mark has regular  contact with regarding Austin-Healeys.  He joined all the dots together regarding me and it turned out that,  firstly, he lives in Willunga, McLaren Vale area and secondly he loves Austin-Healeys just as Dad and Bruce did. And thirdly, his best friends just down the roads are related to Grandma McLaren and are part of the Moyle family. 

The Moyles, for those that don’t recall all the connections, are Grandma McLaren’s (nee Moyle) direct relatives and her brother Walter Moyle also came out to NZ and they also bought  a farm in Bradly Road in Helensville virtually opposite the McLaren Farm in Bradly Road.  Brother Walter also brought with him all the half brothers and sisters that made up the Day Family along with his own family of Moyles and many of those children spent around 10 -15 years in NZ before they returned to McLaren Vale. Some married into the Bradly Family and some of the Bradlys married into the Moyle or Day families.  And even I had to get out all the old books to get my head around all this and put all the family links together. 

Back to the project –  McLaren Vale Vineyard owner Tony Parkinson had always wanted to do a Bruce McLaren labelled wine following on from the release of a Sir Stirling Moss labelled wine vintage a few years back.   And that’s what we have been working on, a Bruce McLaren vintage.  The labels etc feature Bruce McLaren cars from his era and Tony very much wishes to make the McLaren Family connection with the area and tell the family story.  We are all fairly familiar now with the Ben & Frances story but it has been mostly kept in-house by family here in NZ and the Howie connection and real name has only been referred to vaguely – but everyone in the small towns of Willunga and the McLaren Vale area know all the details. 

With today’s world of genealogy and Ancestry.Com and DNA tests linking all this history together, we have decided that it is time that we put out an official “soft version” of the whole story and this will accompany the Wine Packs and it will also go out to the Motorsport Community as well.  The Trustees of the Bruce McLaren Trust gave their permission for this project to go ahead last year using the Bruce McL name and I hope that you as family agree that it is time this extraordinary tale and the real connection and legacy and connection with McLaren Vale is told. 

My first two reactions from friends in the Motorsport world was ‘wow’ – I always drank red wines from McLaren Vale as I thought the connection of the name was great – never for one minute even dreaming that there really was a McLaren connection.  Serendipity indeed, and I hope you are all comfortable with this decision and the story release along the lines of the draft attachment.   

Best regards,

Jan

Part 2 – details

McLaren Connection with McLaren Vale. (For the Wine Project)

Central to this amazing story is Benjamin Howie a.k.a. Robert Benjamin McLaren.

Born in 1872 in McLaren Vale, Ben, son of Robert Howie and Caroline Prior was one of five children and then a further five half-brothers after his father remarried when Ben’s mother died. In the late 1880s Ben made his way to Oamaru, NZ and worked on the grain farms and ships back and forth to Adelaide. A NZ romance ensued and there was a marriage in Oamaru in 1897, with the groom back on the boat the same day, with the bride to follow when circumstances and money for her trip was in place.

Back in Adelaide, Ben eventually found employment in Jamestown as a Hansom Cab driver and met Frances Jane Hockey (nee Moyle). Both had challenging upbringings, The South Australian sun shone brightly as Ben regularly took Frances to visit her mother in hospital. An amazing love story started to evolve. An elopement ensued and, to cover tracks and a trail of heartbreak, the two left Adelaide, went to Melbourne and caught the boat to NZ leaving behind large families on both sides.

They arrived in NZ 1900 where they started a new life together in Auckland and their names were given as Robert Benjamin McLaren & Frances Jean McLaren. They had taken the name McLaren from the place of Ben’s origins, McLaren Vale, South Australia. Between 1901 and 1912, Ben and Frances had no less than eight children.

Their second child, Leslie McLaren born in Auckland on 8^th September 1902 married Ruth Leigh Caundle and on August 30^th, 1937, their son Bruce McLaren was born.

Tragically, Bruce was lost to the motorsport world in 1970 but, remarkably in 1972, his Grandfather Ben McLaren turned 100. Around this time, the true origins of the McLaren name started to be revealed as Ben’s birth certificate could not be located and many of the old stories had conflicts of details.

It was a challenge to the NZ McLaren family to find their surname was really Howie – but it was still a good Scottish family and still actually from the McLaren Vale area. Over the years, many of the Moyle and Howie families have helped piece together this amazing story, and how families gather round to protect each other. The NZ McLaren family and connections with McLaren Vale and all the extended family of Moyles and Howies and the ongoing old stories and research continues to this day. And many in the family still refer to the beautiful McLaren Vale wines as “House Wine”.

Bruce is survived by his younger sister Jan McLaren, married to Mark Donaldson who lives in Ardmore, NZ, and by his daughter Amanda McLaren, married to Stephen Donnell and they returned to NZ in 2021. Both Jan and Amanda are involved with the Bruce McLaren Trust.

An extraordinary tale, a passionate love story, an outstanding family secret.

A significant – indeed serendipitous – international connection between the legacy of the much admired Bruce McLaren and the esteemed wine region, McLaren Vale.