The first year - a 1915 Model
Let's start off by dispelling a myth spread across many Triumph books. The Model H was not the 1914 to 1918 dispatch riders machine for that period of World War One. The Model H was not available until February 1915, and therefore when Siegfried Bettmann received an order from the War Office for 100 machines on the Saturday in xxx it was 1914 models which were available for collection on the platform of the Coventry railway station on the Sunday evening, and those, and following such orders, were what the despatch riders rode until the superior geared Models H became available.
The Model H was Triumph's first model with a gearbox, where gearboxes should be mounted, although not having one of their own manufacture a Sturmey Archer 3-speed box was used.
Some Triumph books say that the Model H was named after Charles Hathaway who designed it. Well, Hathaway would have designed it, for he also designed the earlier models (not Mauritz Schulte, who was NOT an engineer), but it was only logical to be the H model (actually designated Type H) for the Types A through to G had preceeded it and H was the next letter of the alphabet!
Certainly well beloved of WW1 dispatch riders, but they did not coin the 'Trusty' term for Triumph had been advertising their "Trusty Triumphs" from very early in 1910.
