Later Life
Siegfried Bettmann’s success enabled him to become President of the Coventry Liberal Association. A Freemason and founder member of Coventry’s Chamber of Commerce, he was also a Justice of the Peace and in 1913 became Mayor of Coventry, the first non-British subject to have the position.
His German origins resulted in him being removed from this position on the beginning of the First World War.
In 1914 Siegfried Bettmann founded the Annie Bettmann Foundation with his wife to help young Coventry men and women between the ages of eighteen and forty who wished to start a business. Preference was given to ex-servicemen and the fund, which is still in existence, was extended subsequently to include grants for further education. Bettmann also commissioned a memorial for the 66 employees of the Triumph company killed in action during the First World War, built in Coventry's London Road cemetery in 1921.
The Triumph Motorcycle Company became one of the most famous motorcycle marques of the world and Bettmann retained an association with the company until his death. Siegfried Bettmann died on 23 September 1951 at his home "Elm Bank", Stoke Park, Coventry.
Read more about this topic: Siegfried Bettmann
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)