Breese, Sydney Salisbury I (1883–1974)

Sydney Salisbury Breese, the eldest son of the flamboyant society photographer and inventor James Lawrence Breese, combined the family’s characteristic mechanical ingenuity with a more reserved, practical temperament.

In 1906, together with his friends Charles Lanier Lawrance (of the French-descended Lawrence family) and Andrew Moulton, Sydney co-founded the BLM Company—their initials forming the name. The firm built small, high-performance automobiles, pioneering the use of the term “sports car.” Among their creations was the Pirate Runabout (below), assembled on the Lawrence estate for the youthful members of the Long Island “Pirate Club.”

Sydney’s sister, Frances Tileston “Tanty” Breese, an accomplished driver, was featured in an early advertisement for the Pirate, shown at the wheel with the family’s Southampton home, The Orchards, in the background. The BLM Company, though innovative, succumbed to the Financial Panic of 1907, which bankrupted many small ventures of the Gilded Age’s final decade.

Early Marriage and the War Years

Sydney met Elizabeth Alexandra Morton (left) at dancing school—he was an accomplished clog dancer—and they married in 1907. Their union, though socially well-matched, ended in divorce in 1919. The press, always eager to find moral symbolism in the private lives of the well-born, suggested that Elizabeth preferred “a life of frivolous gaiety,” while Sydney, hardened by wartime service, had become more serious and introspective.

During World War I, Breese worked for the Naval Aviation Service in Washington in the Construction Division, and later in Nova Scotia, where he assisted Alexander Graham Bell with experimental work on hydroplanes. His technical innovations included a vector sight for aiming devices and a design for training torpedoes, both showing the mechanical creativity that ran in his family.

Marriage to Paula Matsner

In 1921 Sydney married Paula Augusta Matsner, a Viennese-born classical dancer and humanitarian who had served as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross during the war. Their ceremony took place in the Ethical Culture Rooms in Manhattan, reflecting both partners’ humanist ideals. Paula had been educated at the Ethical Culture School and at Columbia University. After their marriage they spent the summer aboard Sydney’s yacht, the Filatonga, (right) cruising the Atlantic coast.

They had two sons: Sydney Salisbury Breese Jr. (1922–2006) and James Lawrence Breese (1923–2015).

Later Life and Legacy

After Paula’s death, Sydney married Barbara Patey Williams (1913–1997). He lived a long and varied life, bridging the worlds of early automotive experimentation, wartime aeronautics, and postwar technological development.

Sydney Salisbury Breese exemplified the inventive and exploratory spirit of the early twentieth century—an engineer, sailor, and sportsman whose quiet achievements balanced the flamboyance of his father’s generation.