George William Patchett

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

Career In his early career, he competed as a motorcycle racer for motorcycle manufacturers such as Brough Superior, McEvoy and the Belgian arms company FN. At Pendine, 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 arms manufacturer František Janeček, founder of the JAWA motorcycle company, to work as an engineer and a racer. Due to the economic recession Janeček wanted to build a cheaper motorcycle than their 500cc model. Patchett's contacts with the Villiers company enabled a new Jawa 175 Villiers to be designed around the Villiers 175cc two-stroke engine which proved very popular.

Patchett was an amateur photographer and took photos and films of the Nazi Occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939. At the outbreak of World War II, Patchett returned to England and started work under the auto-engineer George Lanchester at the Sterling Armaments Company in Dagenham, Essex, helping to gear up manufacture of the Lanchester sub-machine gun. On his way out of Prague he managed to throw prototype samples of Janeček's new anti-tank device over the wall of the British Embassy.

In 1966, the 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.