In terms of Franklin�s contribution to motorcycling, the main facts that can be gleaned from these disparate and fairly meager sources of information about him are these:
1. Born in Dublin in 1880, Franklin bought his first motorcycle (an FN) in 1903 and soon became prominent in Irish hill-climbs and sand races;
2. He graduated as an electrical engineer from the Dublin College of Science in 1908;
3. He was selected as a member of the British teams that competed in the International Cup races of 1905 (France) and 1906 (Austria), and he enjoyed JAP factory support - in the latter race he rode a JAP-powered v-twin that had been built specially for him by the factory;
4. Returning from Austria in 1906 by train in the company of other British team members annoyed at �irregularities� in the way this Continental event was run, Franklin was party to a conversation in which all present resolved to establish an alternative event on the Isle of Man beginning from 1907. These �Tourist Trophy� races are still being held, almost a century later;
5. Franklin competed in every Isle of Man TT race from 1908 to 1914. In 1911 he was a member of the Indian team that made the historic 1-2-3 clean sweep, being elevated to 2nd place after Charlie Collier (Matchless-JAP) was disqualified for making an un-authorised fuel stop;
6. Franklin became a Brooklands habitu� from 1910 until the track closed in 1914, regularly winning scratch races against stiff opposition, and also breaking records there in 1912 and 1914. The regard in which he was held as a racer and record-breaker is demonstrated by the fact that, of only about 6 to 10 eight-valve Indian racers ever made prior to 1914, the factory gave him one to ride at Brooklands yet they didn�t see fit to give one to Stateside Indian star racer Jake De Rosier;
7. Peter Hartley�s book relates that team-mate Oliver Godfrey credited Franklin, while at Brooklands, with experiments involving welding extra metal into the combustion chambers of his machine to produce a �squish� effect, pre-dating Harry Ricardo�s similar combustion-chamber work by about 10 years;
8. Franklin resigned from his tenured civil-service post in Dublin�s municipal engineering department to become Indian�s agent in Ireland (England�s agent was Billy Wells, the tall American with his hand on Le Vack�s shoulder in the p.68 illustration in The Vintage Years at Brooklands);
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