Great Britain was, along with France, one of the pioneers of the automobile. In 1896, the outdated Red Flag Act ends. This Red Flag Act, instituted in 1878, established that mechanically propelled vehicles must be preceded by a man (at first 60 meters and, later , 20 meters) with a red flag. And the vehicle, to adapt to the man, should not exceed 4 miles per hour (just over six kilometers per hour). Of course, the law no longer only limited speed in an outdated way (there were already vehicles in the last decade of the 19th century that reached 25 km/h), but also the evolution of the automobile.
Thus, after being repealed, a flourishing industry was immediately launched. That same year, 1896, the Daimler Motor Company was founded in Coventry, and between 1895 and 1914 brands such as Napier, Albion, AEC, Crossley, Riley, Austin, Morris, Standard, Armstrong-Siddeley, Ford, Vauxhall or Rolls-Royce.
The latter is born from the endeavor of two men. The first is the engineer and inventor Henry Royce, who has run a small crane factory in Manchester. The first cars manufactured by Royce (1904), were two twin-cylinder and one three-cylinder, of which three, sixteen and three units were built, respectively.
And the second is the also engineer, and well-known “sportsman”, Charles Stewart Rolls, representative in England (he was a skilled salesman), of foreign brands such as Panhard, Minerva and Mors, and one of the most active fighters against the Red Flag Act .
It would be Henry Edmunds, director of Royce Ltd, who introduces Rolls to Royce, within the framework of the Royal Automobile Club. And from a historic meeting on May 4, 1904 at the Midland Hotel, Manchester (also organized by Edmunds), both work on an agreement that is signed in December of that year and for which Rolls is responsible for marketing all the cars that Royce makes.
In 1905, Royce production consisted of three models: a 15 hp three-cylinder, a 20 hp four and a 30 hp six-cylinder. The bodies are made by Barker and the chassis come from the Manchester factory. That year, a Rolls driven by Percy Northey placed second in the prestigious Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, behind John S. Napier’s Arrol Johnston. The following year, Rolls himself wins with 20 hp, averaging 53 km/h, ahead of Bablot’s Berliet. A Rolls also wins in New York and the Scottish Trial.
And it is already known that after the drop of the checkered flag sales arrive. Thus, in the first catalog published by “CS Rolls & Company”, from 1905, a long list of famous clients is already mentioned, such as the Prince of Romania, the Duke of Manchester, Prince Potenziani or the Baron of Zuylen, president of the «Automobile Club de France»
With the four-cylinder, Henry Royce establishes the values of what the brand will be: meticulous design and demanding manufacturing.
Charles Rolls in his Wright airplane
And it would be the first car that carried the “RR” together. Henry and Charles, although they had commercial relations since 1904, but it will not be until March 16, 1906 when they join their names to found the legendary Rolls Royce Company.
brand foundation
The papers are distributed and thus Rolls (29 years old) is the technical director; Royce (43 years old), the chief engineer; Johnson, the commercial director; and Ernest Claremont, the company’s president. The capital of the new firm is 60,000 pounds at the time, of which 10,000 are provided by Rolls.
In the autumn of that same year, at the London Motor Show, Rolls-Royce surprises by presenting the “Silver Ghost”, a revolutionary model both for its technical quality and for the quality of its manufacture. The press showers it with praise and the sales success is such that the Manchester factory cannot keep up with the demand and it is necessary to build another one in Derby. Of the first thirty-six Silver Ghosts built, eight were shipped to the United States and one to India.
Henry Royce or the constant search for perfection
To demonstrate its reliability, in May 1907, it covered the 650 kilometers between London and Edinburgh, without stopping. And, under the supervision of the Royal Automobile Club, for fifteen weeks it makes the London-Glasgow route uninterruptedly (15,000 miles) with four drivers who alternate at the wheel, and without having the slightest breakdown. Its good fame was such that the Silver Ghost remained in production for sixteen years, until 1925.
a mysterious accident
Charles Stewart Rolls will always be attracted to new challenges. Thus, after abandoning car competitions, he became passionate about ballooning. And in 1906, in the Gordon Bennett Cup for hot air balloons, he is fourth. In the year 1909 he meets the Wright brothers, who invite him to fly his plane. Rolls, now only dreams of flying. Seduced by the new invention, in a short time he became one of the best pilots of his time: success in the automobile field and success in aviation. His life smiles at who, years ago, his colleagues at Eaton called “dirty Rolls” (Rolls the dirty) because of his love of engines.
On June 2, 1910, he is the first aviator to cross the English Channel, round trip non-stop, on a Wright two-seater. With this same apparatus (to which some stabilizers have been added), on July 11 he participates in an exhibition in Bournemouth. Suddenly the plane dives and crashes: Charles Stewart Rolls becomes the first victim in the history of British aviation and the eleventh in the world. The cause of the accident is a mystery. Officially it is said that it had been due to a rupture in the tail of the device. However, the accident seems to be attributable to a failure of the carburetor that did not have an atomizer: a true paradox of fate since Royce had been the first to build a carburetor, for automobiles, with an atomizer.
The tragedy will have a second consequence. Royce, already exhausted by work issues, falls suddenly ill. He fears for his life and the doctors recommend rest. From that moment on, without abandoning his work, Henry Royce shares his time between the English coast, where he spends the summers, and the Côte d’Azur, in Canadel, near Toulon, where he lives during the winter months in a villa built according to the plans that he himself has drawn.
The outbreak of World War I leads him to make an important decision. Royce, who at the time had opposed the wishes of his partner, who wanted to have introduced the brand in the field of aviation, decides to build his first aircraft engine to be followed by many more. This a new activity in the company, will even surpass in importance that of the car itself.
In 1930, Royce is ennobled with the Order of the British Empire, and a year later the company absorbs Bentley Motors Limited.
On April 22, 1933, Henry Royce died at the age of 70, in West Wuthering, Sussex. A mechanical genius, Royce not only innovated, he also sought that mechanical perfection on which the entire legend of the brand that manufactures “the best car in the world” rests.