Bernard Docker

Sir Bernard Dudley Frank Docker (9 August 1896 – 22 May 1978) was an English industrialist.

Bernard Docker was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, the only child of Frank Dudley Docker, an industrialist.

Docker was the managing director of the Birmingham Small Arms Company group of companies (BSA) from the early 1940s until 1956 and he also chaired The Daimler Company Limited. He was also chairman of the Anglo-Argentine Tramways Company. He became noted during the 1950s for producing show cars, such as the "Golden Daimler" (1952), "Blue Clover" (1953), the "Silver Flash" and "Stardust" in 1954. He was succeeded by Jack Sangster as Chairman of BSA, following a 1956 boardroom coup.

Docker's first wife was Jeanne Stuart (née Ivy Sweet), a British actress. They married in 1933 but the marriage was soon dissolved after pressure from Docker's parents.

Bernard Docker commissioned John I. Thornycroft & Company to build a yacht to his specifications. The yacht was completed in 1938 and christened MY Shemara.

MY Shemara was requisitioned by the Royal Navy at the start of the Second World War in 1939 and used as a training vessel for anti-submarine warfare. It was during a training exercise with HMS Shemara that the submarine HMS Untamed was lost with all her crew.Shemara left RN service in 1946

Docker commissioned Hooper & Co. to build a drophead coupé on a Daimler DE-36 chassis for display at the first post-war British International Motor Show at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in 1948. Named the "Green Goddess" by the press, the car had five seats, three windscreen wipers, and hydraulic operation of both the hood and the hood cover. After the show, the car was further tested and refined, after which it was kept by Docker for his personal use.

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