BOB MONGOMERY PAST IMPERFECT HENRY ROYCE and Charles Rolls - the men who gave their names to arguably the most famous cars the world has ever seen. But who were they and how did they come to build "the best car in the world"?
Frederick Henry Royce was born in 1863 the son of a Peterborough miller, who died when he was nine, leaving the family destitute. With only one year of schooling Royce sold newspapers at railway stations before becoming a telegraph boy. His mother found work as a housekeeper and an aunt managed to raise the then considerable sum of £20 a year so that he could take up an apprenticeship with the Great Northern Railway locomotive works.
But circumstances changed after three years and Royce had to quit his training and seek another job. Eventually, he found work with a Leeds firm of tool-makers who were supplying the Italian Arsenal. Then he got a job with an electric-power company in London, before returning to Liverpool.
Having saved £20 he set up as an electrical engineer with a friend, Ernest Claremont, who added a further £50 capital. Starting with a small workshop in Manchester, within 10 years FH Royce Company had become a £30,000 public company. Then Royce purchased a French-built Decauville motor car.
Having studied it in detail, Royce decided that he could build a better vehicle. It was this vehicle that was to lead to his meeting with Charles Rolls and the foundation of Rolls Royce. Charles Rolls was a noted aviation and ballooning pioneer and was selling cars from a showroom in Mayfair, London.
Henry Edmunds, who knew Rolls through the Royal Automobile Club, wrote in the spring of 1904 a now-famous letter: "My dear Rolls, I have pleasure in enclosing you the photographs and specifications of the Royce car, which I think you will agree looks very promising. . . knowing, as I do, the skill of Mr Royce as a practical engineer, I feel sure one is very safe in taking up any work his firm may produce".
The two men met, and as a result the new company of Rolls Royce came into being. Success came quickly, but Royce's health failed, and in 1910 he became seriously ill shortly after Rolls was killed in a plane crash.
Royce's illness was the result of years of malnutrition and overwork, but luckily the firm had employed Claude Johnson who was effectively running the company. Johnson realised Royce would not survive long if he continued working long hours, and arranged for him to move to a villa in the south of France, where he confined himself to design work.
From there Royce directed the engineering side of the company, personally testing new models until his death in 1933. Royce was a brilliant self-taught engineer who influenced all forms of transport and raised the standards of thought, particularly in the field of engineering technology, as well as raising quality standards by a process of non-stop improvement.
Next week: Charles Rolls