Responsibility for the overall inadequacy of this history rests with the compiler, and it is a statement of fact, not an excuse for a mediocre document, to say that the disappointingly numerous gaps in it are at least partly attributable to the surpassing reticence and modesty of the men who were Martinsyde: Helmuth Paul Martin and George Harris Handasyde. They sought no publicity and did not even advertise their products in the early years of their partnership. Indeed, one of several mysteries about the firm is what it subsisted on in the pre-1914 period, for its products did not seem to sell in significant numbers.