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Making History: The Rolls-Royce Centenary 1904-2004Tom Clarke UK © 2003
Author’s note: this article first appeared in the US Club’s Flying Lady part 1 Jan/Feb 2004 p.7198-7203, part 2 Mar/Apr 2004 p.7265-7271.
Early life
When the golden jubilee of Rolls-Royce was celebrated in 1954 (on 19 May rather than the precise 4 th) the Manchester Rolls-Royce agents Cockshoot Ltd arranged the day. Cars and aero engines were displayed in their central showroom, the second Royce engine was borrowed from the College of Technology and placed in Royce’s actual factory in nearby Hulme, workers from the pioneering days were fêted, and Lord Hives (Chairman of Rolls-Royce) came to see the display. The company was dominant in aero engines and their Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars were at a new peak in their prestige. The picture for the 2004 celebrations is more mixed. Royce’s Hulme factory is long gone, Cockshoot are no more, and Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars have gone their separate ways under new ownership. But the Rolls-Royce parent in Derby is again a world giant in aero engines and now marine propulsion as well. It is a legacy both Rolls and Royce would be proud of. Battling difficult odds and self improvement were two constants in the early life of Frederick Henry Royce. Little did he know, and nor did he intend, that his efforts would make his name synonymous with the finest engineering. It is doubtful that he was consciously setting out to scale great heights, but from an early age he was determined to succeed. It was a fitting reward for both the struggle before 1904 and the achievements that flowed after the meeting with Rolls that we are now celebrating. Rolls, on the other hand, did have strong notions of the mark he wanted to leave on the motor and aeronautical worlds. Together the men made significant history after their famous meeting.
Early lifeRoyce was born on 27 March 1863 at Mill House, Alwalton near Peterborough in Huntingdonshire where his father James (1831-72) had taken over the family’s lease of the sizeable flour mill. He had previously run the windmill at Castor from 1852-58. (Argument rages about the correct county. Alwalton, at the meeting of several borders in the Soke of Peterborough, was then in Huntingdonshire but was later on some maps as Northamptonshire. Royce took nearby Seaton in Rutlandshire as part of his title in 1930 when he was created a baronet.) The mill was water-powered from the River Nene and had also been converted to steam power by James or possibly by his father Henry William Royce, a corn miller and farmer at nearby South Luffenham, Rutlandshire. James was by all accounts clever but had lacked application since childhood. ‘Fred’ Royce particularly noted this trait in his later recollections. Following the collapse of the milling business in 1867 it can easily be imagined that uppermost in young Royce’s mind was the need to work harder than his father. Admittedly, the serious illness that James also suffered from, believed to be Hodgkin’s, played its part in his downfall. The family now fell on very hard times and eventually had to live apart to make ends meet. Royce's three older sisters initially went into lodgings in the village with their mother Mary (née King, 1829?-1904) and James took his eldest son James (1857-1921) and Henry, the youngest, to London to begin work at the London Flour Company which held a mortgage on his Alwalton mill. But it seems this was not immediately, and the "village" was not Alwalton but rather Ickleton near Saffron Walden. The 1871 census noted all the Royces living together at the Beer Shop in Frog, or Frogge, Street. Whether this indicates some work at one of the two mills in the village or refuge with a friend or relative is not known. Royce's mother Mary was recorded in the 1871 census as being 42, hence an 1829 birth, whereas the 1901 census gave her age as 79 implying an 1822 birth. Royce’s thrice-married paternal grandfather seems not to have given any help and emigrated to Canada around 1870, so succour was not forthcoming from that quarter. His great uncle Josiah Royce was a farmer and corn miller at Seaton and also seems to have kept his distance. His mother’s better-off parents not far from Alwalton did not help by taking in the female members of the family. The agricultural depression of the time had probably affected the extended family as well and by 1855 it seems only Mrs. Hannah Parker King was alive, listed as a farmer at North Luffenham. There is some possibility that James Royce and his sons lodged near the Old Kent Road in southeast London where by coincidence the Rolls family had considerable rental property. Henry had some initial education at the Croydon British School farther south. On 22 July 1872 James died in the Union House, a public poorhouse in Greenwich. Henry’s mother came to London and placed her son as a lodger with a London cowman and his wife whilst Mrs Royce worked and lived-in as a housekeeper (and later as a nurse) for a family in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. A maternal aunt in Fletton, Peterborough, spared what extra she could. It is thought this was Mrs Betsy King (b.1842) who, like her sister-in-law Mary Royce, was born in Empingham (also not far from Alwalton) and who later lived in Lincoln on her own means. Henry’s various jobs included selling newspapers for W H Smith & Sons at Clapton and Bishopsgate railway stations in 1873, and delivering telegrams from the Mayfair post office in central London. With only a year of education in between jobs his total school years came to three! He told a friend in later life that his aim in these early years was to become a mechanic. Royce’s first lucky break came when his aunt in Fletton agreed to support him at the Great Northern Railway’s ‘New England’ works in Peterborough where he began in September 1877, aged 14. This could not have been a premium apprenticeship, as has long been thought, because the large prepayment was not affordable. (Premium apprenticeships began at age 16 and usually went to boys with a reasonable education from middle class families who could afford the cost, such as W O Bentley who went to the Doncaster depot. ‘Premiums’ were not paid a wage.) Instead, it is believed Royce became a fitter apprentice there under Frederick Rouse (b.1830), an engineer of repute at GNR from 1851-1902. His aunt would have provided the difference between his meagre wage and his lodging and living costs. Many years later, in his application (though not in his own hand) to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Royce did claim it was a premium apprenticeship that he had begun. Sadly, GNR archives do not enable this matter to be clarified. In Peterborough Royce lodged with George Yarrow and his family in Stone Lane close to the town centre and railway. Their son Havelock, 20, was just a few years older than Royce but worked in a similar field as an engine fitter at the railway works. Old man Yarrow taught Royce many skills in the small workshop he had at his home and Royce also went to night classes in mathematics and English. In November 1880, when Royce’s aunt could no longer support him at the railway works, he went to live with a sister and her husband, Fanny and William Gerrard (a wool oil extractor), at 12 Ingleby Street, Kirkstall, Leeds. His mother Mary was already living in their house. He found work nearby as a toolmaker at Greenwood & Batley’s ‘Albion Works’, 1880-81. This firm (1856-1980) specialised in machine tools for the arms industry, ordnance, cannon, and electrical equipment. It was a tough regime with a 54-hour week, low wages, fines for late attendance, and a temperance pledge for those who could not hold their drink, but it was also experience of high engineering standards. Royce particularly recalled gaining his electrical knowledge whilst there, and probably at night classes as well. Interestingly, Etienne Lemoine worked there for five months during 1881-82. It is likely he was connected to the French engineering firm, which later made motor components. Our hero found his next electrical job with the Electric Lighting and Power Generating Co in London during 1881. This firm was lighting Moorgate, the first London street in the scheme, and was renamed the Maxim-Weston Electric Co in June 1882 after gaining rights to Hiram Maxim’s incandescent lamps and Edward Weston’s arc lamps. Royce lodged in the Old Kent Road and then in Kentish Town. In the evenings he attended lectures on electricity and physics given by Professors William E Ayrton and John Perry at the City & Guilds Institute in Finsbury. During 1881-82 the firm undertook the lighting of the Prince of Wales Theatre in the port city of Liverpool. As a result of this successful contract a subsidiary company was formed in October 1882, the Lancashire Maxim-Weston Electric Co Ltd of Peter’s Lane, Liverpool, with the aim of dominating electrification schemes in the north-west. Royce transferred to this new firm as ‘first electrician’ although it is not certain he went to Liverpool immediately. Aged only 19 Royce said he was there for ‘a short time’. From the start the new company was under-capitalised at £8,000 and this was exacerbated when two shareholders did not pay for the shares they had contracted to buy. The work undertaken from early 1883 included a private house and several electrification schemes in Liverpool which users rented from the firm. These rentals were insufficient, although an electrification rental contract in Manchester had, it seems, been worthwhile. Steamships and mines were also targeted for contracts. In the journal The Electrician for 27 January 1883 (p.262-3) reference was made to work done in Manchester under the control of Royce’s boss Whitworth. This is the earliest record of work Royce did in the city that would soon be his home although, sadly, the journal did not name the company or building(s) involved. In 1884 the Lancashire company chairman described their successful warehouse electrifications in Manchester as ‘simply beautiful’ and ‘they had lit up some magnificent warehouses’. By the end of 1883 the firm’s financial situation was becoming parlous although Royce was unaware, too busy maintaining theatre lighting and existing rental contracts. On 30 October that year Liverpool City Council approved the company’s street lighting tender. The system was switched on continuously from 24 March 1884. The parent company now proposed to buy out the insolvent subsidiary with a one-for-one share offer. The offer was accepted on 16 May 1884 and that same day the Lancashire company asked its parent company for a cheque to pay wages! Meanwhile, Royce had been encouraged by colleagues at the company to think about setting up on his own. This probably indicates that the parent company could not find work for all its former employees, either in Liverpool or back in London. In May 1884 the Maxim-Weston Co, as successor to the insolvent Lancashire company, began fresh negotiations with Liverpool City Council for new lighting schemes. The town clerk ‘expressed himself very favourably with respect to...the electrician and engineer’. In spite of this commendation Royce could not wait, unpaid, for contracts yet to be agreed. Aged 21 he left Liverpool shortly after and began his precarious existence in Manchester with about £20 of capital saved up (about £1,150 today). The move to ManchesterRoyce’s great uncle Charles Royce (of Seaton, Rutlandshire) had been a tutor from the 1820's in Alderley twenty miles south of Manchester and worked in the city itself into the early 1850's. It is possible there were still relatives in the area although Royce never referred to them later. Manchester was an industrial city of the first rank, dominant in the cotton trade. It was the home of the world’s first passenger train service and railway station (in Liverpool Road and still standing. The service was inaugurated on 15 September 1830 by the Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington and Robert Peel. Heavy industry was paramount and known around the world with a roll call of great names by the late 19 th century, Beyer Peacock locomotives, Mather & Platt, and Crossley (now part of Rolls-Royce). Much later still it could claim A Verdon Roe the aero pioneer whose Avro aircraft were to become famous. And the pilot John Alcock of Chorlton-cum-Hardy who, with Arthur W. Brown, born in Manchester of American parents, conquered the Atlantic in 1919. By the time of Royce’s arrival Victorian industriousness had tackled many of the city’s worst social conditions inherited from the late 18 th century. Fifty years earlier de Tocqueville had described the city thus: ‘The greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilise the whole world. From this filthy sewer pure gold flows’. It is a reputation Manchester has found difficult to shake off. Until recently it was accepted that Royce started in Cooke Street, Hulme, later associated with his cars. But these were large premises beyond his means and in fact it has now been established that he began in a small group of workshops at the bottom of Blake Street, just off Stretford Road and behind Cooke Street. He shared a space with William Sargeant, a salesman, who was possibly hawking Royce’s wares. An improbable partner perhaps for Royce’s flowering talent. He was far from alone in the electrical field. Sir William Siemens’ company Siemens Brothers began here in 1858. Smaller players included Ferranti, Dorman Smith making electric light fittings and instruments, and there was even Bertram Thomas of Hulme making electric starting switches. Hulme is an inner city area which developed rapidly after the Duke of Bridgewater’s nearby canal basin was completed in 1764 near the junction of the Irwell and Medlock rivers known as Castlefield (now an industrial heritage area). This teeming 400 acres housed 68,000 people in 1901. Hulme was a byword for bad housing such as the ‘back-to-backs’ with dank cellars, no outside areas or sanitation, and communal ‘privvies’ at the ends of the terraces. After 1844 new housing had to have access to toilets at the rear of each address. Royce’s workers would have lived in slightly better accommodation here and nearby. Hulme’s decline had already begun but it was not until after 1945 that the sad wholesale destruction of the area took place, in 1965 consuming what was left of Royce’s former works after wartime bombing. With his tiny savings Royce began modestly enough making electric doorbell sets (with the push button and wire) and speaking tubes, and soon added small indicator boards for summoning servants in the houses of the burgeoning middle class. He did not make the batteries (or Leclanch é cells as they were known). No surviving bells are known although a photograph taken with Thomas Weston Searle (1843-1908), who is believed to have been a later Royce salesman, shows a display panel of the devices in Royce’s range. By the end of 1884 or more probably early 1885 Royce had need of more capital and support. Quite how Ernest A Claremont (1863-1922) was induced to come up from London to become his only ever partner is not known but it is thought they had met there in the early 1880's when both attended evening electrical classes at the City & Guilds Institute. Their friendship, and youthful optimism, must have swept all doubts from their minds as they embarked on closely shared lives over the next thirty-eight years.
PartnershipUnlike Royce, the London-born Claremont grew up in a well-off upper middle class family. After a private education, some university attendance, and a three-year apprenticeship with the large electrical firm Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corp (with which the ‘godfather of Rolls-Royce’ Henry Edmunds was connected) Claremont worked briefly in London before joining Royce. He borrowed £50 from his father and loaned it to Royce who was obliged to repay it. Royce had £20 and thus £70 formed the basis for this curious partnership of F H Royce & Co. In spite of his background and the sources of support he could fall back on, Claremont adopted Royce’s spartan way of life in the tiny workshop. They slept in hammocks above the benches, vented their high spirits in wrestling games (one of Claremont’s passions), and cooked their meals in enamelling ovens, which Claremont later claimed caused the digestive problems they both suffered. By 1888 their workshop was now shared with George Benson, an organ builder, but they had also rented a storeroom and a tiny workshop towards the top of Blake Street. Things were looking up and later in 1885 Royce was able to afford lodgings in Talbot Street in adjacent Moss Side. Claremont was soon sharing this accommodation. Moss Side is a notorious area today but then it was quite respectable. In October 1887 Royce lodged his first patent, for a bayonet cap lamp socket. Others followed for switches and electric chandeliers. Claremont was getting into his stride as office manager whilst also able to undertake bench work. Six women assemblers had been taken on as their first employees and later Tom Jones became the first journeyman. Surviving Royce Ltd archives recently yielded details of the very first employees: ‘… attendance August 21 [1887], T. Mulcahy Sun. 5¼ [hours], E. Taylor Sun. 5¼, S. Kendall Sun. 5¼ ’. In July 1893 the partners secured a licence to make holders for Ediswan lamp bulbs sold by Edison & Swan United Electric Light Co (another firm with which the ubiquitous Henry Edmunds was associated).
Royce and Claremont had many opportunities in Manchester to learn about new electrical and mechanical developments. This was the heyday of Victorian inventiveness and one, H C Fleeming Jenkin (1833-85), had begun his own training in Manchester and developed the underwater cable that revolutionised trans-Atlantic communications. At the open meetings of the Manchester Association of Engineers the men could have listened to many eminent figures. In October 1884 there was a visit to the 100 yard long electric railway next to the nearby Cornbrook Telegraph works owned by M Holroyd Smith of Halifax. In 1885 W H Bailey, a renowned local industrialist, spoke on electric lighting and in 1886 Hans Renold, a name that will recur, gave a talk ‘System in engineering work’. The following year there was ‘Electric lighting from central stations’ by J R Williamson and in 1889 ‘Accuracy in mechanical construction’ by Samuel Dixon. By 1895 D Selby Bigge and G H Firth’s ‘Electricity in the future motive power in the textile industries’ covered precisely what Royce was doing. 1896 saw ‘Electric locomotives’ by Edgar Worthington and ‘Electric driving’ by Daniel Adamson. Then, in 1897, ‘Motor vehicles for roads’ was given by W Worby Beaumont, a significant figure in the development of motoring. ‘Patents and patent law’ was given by Joseph Nasmith, the eminent engineer of Patricroft. In 1901 ‘Electrical versus rope cranes’ by Daniel Adamson and, in 1902, ‘Efficiencies of electric cranes’ by R Matthews, were again on topics then besetting Royce’s company.
Moving upAt last the time arrived to have a bigger workshop and in December 1888 the move was made around the corner to 1 & 3 Cooke Street, large leased premises recently extended, with an extensive workshop reaching to the top of the Blake Street dead end. By now larger or more complicated products had been designed such as electro-magnets for the Hope-Jones organ, dynamos and electric motors, and all of Royce’s previous range was extended including arc lamps. Installation work was undertaken and soon became an important part of the business. During the 1890's exports increased markedly and major maritime lighting contracts with the Cunard steamship company were noted.
Royce moved house slightly south to Stamford Street, Old Trafford and in 1889 to Barton Street, back in Moss Side, so that his mother could join him. Claremont moved to a good house in Moss Lane East in anticipation of his marriage in January 1889. His bride was Edith Punt (1864-1954) of north London, daughter of a licensed victualler. It is not known how they met. There might have been a north London or church connection because the Punts, and Ernest's family, lived not far apart. The Punt family was of good Victorian size: apart from Edith there was Minnie (1867-1936), Florence, and the brothers Walter, Ernest and Fred. All except Walter lived at Bexhill, Sussex, in later life. Ernest ran his printing firm of Ernest Punt & Co. at 55 Jewin Street, London EC, later at 22 Barbican, and his firm’s ledger books were used by Royce Ltd, but whether this pre or post-dates the marriage is not clear. Prosperity followed the move to Cooke Street and by late 1893 plans were in hand for a further works extension. This was also the year the partners employed John De Looze who became company secretary and stayed until 1943. Claremont managed to enjoy his financial ease with his sporting interests and, later, service in the Yeomanry but Royce remained a workaholic, though perhaps not in March 1893 when he married Minnie Punt in London. He and Claremont were now brothers-in-law as well as partners. This was by all accounts a love match and also brought financial advantage. The Punt girls had legacies from their late father and were able to buy many shares in F H Royce & Co. when it became a limited company in June 1894. Loans followed later. Gracious living was achieved in 1893 when both couples moved to substantial houses in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, a new leafy suburb two miles south-east of Hulme. Only yards separated their houses and Claremont was adventurous enough to call his villa ‘Electron’ in recognition of his electrical interests and the effect electricity was having on late Victorian Britain. The two men also raised their standing by joining the same learned societies in London.
Royce crosses the ChannelIt was around the mid 1890s that Royce became aware of the first motor cars. A route back to these days comes through a James Peter Whitehead (1860-1932). He was a Manchester engineer and manufacturers’ agent specialising in textile machinery. On one occasion he was visiting a Continental customer and noticed some excellent Royce electrical equipment in use, a name he was unfamiliar with. Back in England he hurried to find Royce’s workshop and arranged to become an agent. Whitehead and Claremont became friends and in 1893 Whitehead came to live in the same street as Royce in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, around the corner from Claremont’s house. In 1894 he was called upon to invest in F H Royce & Co. Ltd, buying 500 shares from Royce and Claremont and becoming a director soon after. Also around this time Royce went with Whitehead to Mulhouse in Alsace, eastern France, which was under German control 1871-1918 and where Whitehead had arranged a meeting with his local agent. The area was significant in the textile industry with many mills and dyeing works. It is not clear what the reason for the journey was but promoting textile equipment and Royce’s electrical range is likely. In any event, Whitehead’s French agent turned out to be an early automobilist. He was certainly a rarity as there were only 125 cars in the whole of France by 1893. Over the next few days the agent’s car was used to take the three men on visits to local factories. It could have been a Panhard Levassor, Peugeot or Benz. On one run they had the inevitable close shave with a haycart, which rather unsettled Royce who had a nervous disposition. He told Whitehead he would not ride again in such contraptions and walked back into town. By January 1904 Whitehead’s business was big enough, now with several associates, for the formation of a trading company. Luckily its records have survived in Manchester, enabling a vital name to be added to the Mulhouse visit. The main English company formed was Whitehead, Sumner, Harker & Co. of Manchester. Its Mulhouse branch was Précheur, Sumner & Co, which controlled activities in France, Portugal, and Italy. The founder, Julien Précheur, is thought to be the agent whose car Royce experienced about ten years earlier. And it is likely he was also the new member of the Automobile Club de France listed in 1897 as ‘Julien Pécheur [sic], vice-consul for Hérault’. Soon after 1899, when Royce’s company was floated as Royce Ltd, Whitehead ceased to be a director and lost regular contact with Royce although he retained his investment. He met Royce again when the first Royce car was being designed in early 1903. Whitehead claimed Royce now told him he was so impressed by the saving of time in Mulhouse when the car was used that he thought he should make his own! Whitehead later got into business difficulties and in March 1915 was helped with a loan from Royce and Claremont of £400. Royce and Claremont went further - they found Whitehead a position at Rolls-Royce in Derby as head of Supplies Dept. (He was Chief Purchasing Agent, from at least 1913 until after 1929, although until 1916 he still travelled on behalf of his former agencies.) It seems likely a debt of honour was being redeemed for the early work Whitehead had done as a director in promoting Royce’s wares and, unintentionally, giving him his first experience of a motor-car. Perhaps it was this that turned his mind towards car manufacture. Whitehead died in May 1932. As for the reason Royce entered motor manufacturing, the Rolls-Royce historian Michael H Evans emphasises that the economic downturn from 1902 caused Royce to wonder what new product he could make that utilised his two skills - mechanical engineering from his cranes, and electrical engineering from his many other products. The motor-car beckoned. This coincided with the 1903 Motor Car Act, which further raised the speed limit and improved the administrative arrangements for motoring so that car driving and manufacture were both encouraged.
Bigger and better thingsBut there were other hurdles before Royce could turn to motor-cars. He had to persuade the ultra-cautious Claremont for a further enlargement of the company’s products, which required the next works extension erected in 1894-5 on the site of existing workshops at the top end of Blake Street. The decision had been taken to make cranes. One probably apocryphal account of this decision relates to a worker, Willis, who is believed to have been the second apprentice taken on. Willis’s sister Joanna had a toy crane that Royce later repaired and which got his mind turned to this product. One apprentice who did do well out of cranes was crane fitter Frederick Clifton Russell who left Royce to form Russell Newbery Engines in Altrincham ca 1905-09. Another who took advantage of the growing facilities was James Archer in the Hardening Shop. Around 1901-02 he had his assistant Tom White machine some bicycle gear parts at the Royce works for their inventor William Reilly of Salford. Because Reilly was committed elsewhere his device was patented through Archer hence the renowned Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub gear for bicycles which surely all of us have used!
In 1895 the partners took into their homes the children of their brother-in-law Walter Punt in South Africa whose wife had died some years earlier. Violet (1887-1988) went to the Royces and Errol (1889-1967) to the Claremonts. Neither partner had natural children because, at risk of sounding indelicate, their wives were very ‘Victorian’ in outlook and found the physical side of life anathema. The children brought great happiness to the Royces though not the Claremonts, so that Errol gradually spent more time at the alternative household. During 1898 the partners improved their living yet further by moving to genteel Knutsford, 15 miles south in Cheshire, and renowned earlier as the home of Elizabeth Gaskell the famous novelist. Royce built ‘Brae Cottage’, a substantial house with a large electrically-lit garden and, almost diagonally opposite in the same road, the Claremonts rented a large house.
1899 was a crucial year in their partnership and one that brought Henry Edmunds (1853-1927) to the fore with consequences for the future direction of the company. Although it has been suggested earlier that Claremont could have met Edmunds, ten years his senior, in London around 1880 it is probable that they met in Manchester around 1885. Here Claremont was sourcing Royce’s materials for his electrical products and he would have used the cablemakers W T Glover & Co. in nearby Salford for wiring. Amongst other interests Edmunds was managing director of Glover.
New works and a new directionThe Manchester Ship Canal linking the city with the port of Liverpool had been opened in 1894 with Royce equipment and engineering work playing a small part in its construction. 1895 saw Sir Humphrey de Trafford’s adjacent parkland being transformed into the Trafford Park industrial estate, Europe’s first and largest such project less than two miles southwest of Cooke Street. By the time of the F H Royce & Co flotation in March 1899 (renamed Royce Ltd in October) Royce and Claremont were well known to Henry Edmunds. The flotation was undertaken with expansion in mind and both Glover and Royce planned to build new factories in the Park. Whatever the association, Edmunds thought so highly of Claremont that in August 1899 he brought him onto the board of W T Glover & Co. By now Claremont was drifting away from his austere wife and in 1899 formed a romantic attachment with Clara J McKnight who worked as a typist at Royce Ltd’s solicitors Hockin, Raby & Beckton. She was to remain with him at his later houses until his death.
In 1901 Glover obtained a site in Trafford Park for new works. On 8 June 1901 Royce Ltd bought land opposite Glover and on 4 July 1901 work commenced on Royce’s large new crane factory, erected by the builder William Southern. The two firms were thus opposite each other on the main road close to the canal’s wharves. This neatly mirrored the way Royce and Claremont had shared their lives and domiciles. Royce Ltd’s crane work was transferred to the new site whilst electrical work continued at Cooke Street until small electrical production ceased around 1904. Claremont was able to keep an eagle eye on the works in Cooke Street, and the two in Trafford Park, from his city home, which was equidistant at the entrance to Trafford Park. Whilst Claremont was becoming adept at financial management for two large concerns, Royce had the demanding job of controlling design and production at the two sites of his company. New techniques for hardening the metals used were sourced from Brayshaw Furnaces & Tools Ltd, Hulme.
Also in 1901 both partners began their ownership of motor-cars at the suggestion of Royce’s doctor in Knutsford, Dr Theodore Fennell, who thought it would be good for Royce’s health. De Dion quadricycles were purchased by all three men. The ‘Acme’ and ‘Convertible’ models had a front seat for one passenger. Royce’s might have been secondhand because a designer who worked under Royce later recalled that he referred to ‘Jubilee’ in connection with this vehicle or that of his friends, perhaps a name resulting from Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee. It is not known if they commuted in these ‘cars’, or used trains.
The spark for the decision to buy might have been the April-May 1900 1,000 Mile Trial, intended to promote the motor-car to a sceptical British people. This highly significant event was organised for the Automobile Club by Claude Johnson, its secretary until 1903 when he joined Rolls’s new business after leaving Paris Singer’s City & Suburban Electric Carriage Co. It could even have led to an earlier meeting between Rolls and Royce than previously thought for Rolls and Henry Edmunds were amongst the many well-known Trial participants. The Manchester Automobile Club had been formed just prior to the Trial as a branch of the Automobile Club in London and Edmunds joined the newcomer (Royce joined in 1903). The cars arrived in Manchester on Friday 27 April and were exhibited in the Palm House at the Botanical Gardens all the next day only. Sunday was free for the drivers. On Monday the 30 th they continued north. The gardens were immediately opposite the entrance to Trafford Park and just a mile from Cooke Street. The gardens had also seen three cycle and motor exhibitions up to 1899. Almost certainly Royce and perhaps Claremont would have popped in to have a look and to meet their colleague Edmunds at least. Until mid 2005 it was not clear where the De Dion was acquired. Manchester’s first motor agency, established around 1896 as the Manchester Motor Corp of 1 Victoria Bridge Street, Salford, seems at first a likely source. They were agents for Benz and Panhard according to their sign but MMC, Allard (later Rex), Hurtu, Decauville, and Pennington were also known. But their records do not list any sales to Royce. A more local possibility was at the bottom of Blake Street, Hulme, where F D Nawell ran his business selling Premier cycles, motor tricycles and petrol. Another agent Royce could have used was John Newton of Princess Street, Knutsford and Deansgate, Manchester from 1901. Newton was the first person to sell cars in Knutsford, including De Dion. During 1901 or 1902 his Knutsford premises became Grice’s cycle and motor shop. A Grice descendant recalled recently that Royce had the key to Grice’s garage so that he could work on his car there. Royce never had a garage at his home Brae Cottage so Grice’s generosity must have been helpful. However, information from the descendants of William Prince, a cycle and motor agent of The Wheeleries, 198 Stretford Road, Hulme has established that it was an English Beeston De Dion that Royce bought. Prince had exhibited a Beeston motor quadricycle at the 3 rd Cycle and Motor Show held at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Old Trafford, 17-25 February 1899. The Humber company of Beeston, Nottingham, held the licence to manufacture the De Dion quadricycle.
The De Dions did not produce the required health benefit and in late 1902 Royce was overwhelmed by his intense work and poor nutrition into a state of nervous exhaustion. Dr. Fennell now recommended a long rest and Royce and Minnie therefore sailed to South Africa to see her relatives, returning after ten weeks later that year, refreshed for a while at least. Royce had been buying motor engineering books since at least September 1902 some of which he probably studied during the voyage. It can be concluded that by the time Royce returned from South Africa he was converted to the usefulness of the motor-car and took a further step by purchasing a Decauville 10 hp. 1902 was also a time of difficulty for Royce Ltd. The company was now capitalised for the huge sum of £170,000 and cranes had been supplied at home and abroad in great numbers. Royce’s sizeable business was now being threatened by cheaper foreign competition and the post-Boer War recession. Royce would not compromise his quality and instead had begun to think of diversification. It is unclear whether the partners’ diverging paths were arrived at amicably. Claremont’s considerable voting strength on the Royce Ltd board was perhaps reduced by Royce’s even greater holdings. But it is inconceivable that Claremont could have retained his position at Rolls-Royce until 1921 and kept up good family relations in Manchester without full acceptance by Royce.
Buying the first carRoyce’s choice of the Decauville might have been influenced by two popular books: first, Robert Moffat Ford’s highly detailed ‘The motor car manual’ was published in 1899 and by 1901 was in its third edition of 255 pages. Ford’s Motor Car Co of 168 Shaftesbury Avenue, London held the agency for Decauville and the wonderfully-named Eureka car; second, the Badminton series ‘Motors and motor-driving’ compiled by Alfred Harmsworth (later ennobled as Lord Northcliffe and a major force behind the scenes at Rolls-Royce) was published in April 1902 and was an immediate success. Rolls himself contributed a chapter. In his own chapter for the book Harmsworth singled out three small cars in particular, the De Dion, Darracq, and Decauville. It was a Decauville 10 hp grey tonneau that Royce chose, probably in late 1902 or early 1903. It is not clear if it was bought before or immediately after the holiday in South Africa. Royce described it as the ‘time saver’. The 10 hp model was launched in France in late 1901 and introduced to England in March 1902. Incidentally, noisy though the Decauville might have been, Royce kept his until at least 1906, two years after his own make appeared. In these early years 1902-05 of Royce’s motoring he recorded that he drove 11,000 miles. There has been speculation that Royce’s Decauville was originally owned by William J. Crampton of London, and ‘Huntington House’, Sawston near Cambridge, the electrical pioneer and friend of Edmunds. However, he was still in possession of his 10 hp in January 1903 when it was used in the Non-Skid Trials (to test tyres and chains for the then slippery roads). By July 1904 his car, now with different wings and thus probably modernised, was registered A-1230 and he was again listed with a 10 hp in 1905. A recent disclosure from Crampton family papers shows that Royce’s Decauville was one of the first four imported in 1902, the others being for the agent Moffat, a Mr. Kincaid, and Crampton himself. Royce’s decision to make an improved car soon followed and by May 1903 he had agreement to proceed, so it is said, from Claremont and the third director, Richard Dodson Hulley (b.1862) at the crane works. He was on the verge of creating one of the most famous names in engineering history. Claremont had seen how Royce had moved into cranes in 1894 and now, contrary to the 1899 flotation prospectus, was intent on making motor-cars. This was the time to distance himself and Claremont seized it. In April 1903 he became managing-director of Glover’s when Edmunds became its Chairman, but Claremont remained Chairman of Royce Ltd in a part-time capacity. Glover’s were about to be ruled as a ‘benevolent dictatorship’ by ‘a strict disciplinarian who used spectacular methods’ so one wonders if Royce Ltd. workers had been guinea pigs earlier!
Early car manufacture in ManchesterLegislation in 1865 had severely restricted the use, and thus the development, of motorised vehicles in Britain. Speed was limited to 4 mph in the country and 2 mph in towns. In addition, three people had to be with a vehicle with one walking out in front with a red flag. In 1878 a small concession permitted the attendant out front to walk without the flag! It was not until 14 November 1896 that what became known as the ‘Emancipation’ Act came into force (now the date of the annual London to Brighton Run). The attendant was dispensed with and 12 mph was permitted. Britain had already seen a huge rise in the manufacture and use of bicycles and it was several of their manufacturers who took advantage of the new Act to design motor-cars. There were some advanced designs, such as the Lanchester, but generally British makers were well behind the French and Germans whom they could only copy or buy engines from. Many early makes were re-badged creations from proprietary French components. No wonder the French dominated the British market for so long. Racing, too, was prohibited in Britain, which further held back development. How familiar was Royce with the motor-car at the time of the 1900 Trial for example, or when he began to make his own? Manchester was then hardly full of motor-cars, foreign or locally-made. However, many ventures were springing up although none that would later threaten Coventry’s position as the centre of the motor industry. Through his business contacts, and magazines, Royce would have become aware of fascinating developments virtually on his doorstep. Many of these new makers required bicycle-type chains and a world famous maker of these was a local, Hans Renold. Royce had assisted Renold on manufacturing problems with his new roller chains requiring accurate layout and presswork. Cycle & Motor World for 24 July 1897 p.569 noted that ‘Hans Renold invented a silent gear chain for motor cars’. The first car made in the city was claimed to be the Holland, just one made in nearby Longsight ca 1895 by Frank Holland, an electrical engineer, and his brother William both of the Rowsley Arms Hotel, Beswick. It was designed for them by the patent engineers R James Urquhart & Bolle at 57 Deansgate (ie Barton Arcade) in central Manchester where several cycle and motor agents were soon to be found. With a tubular steel frame and walnut body by Cockshoot it was said to have two cylinders of 6” and a tin carburetter. Also active in 1895-96 was F Clarke of New Moston. He made a two-cylinder engine bolted onto a bicycle wheel. Measuring 2¾” x 6” and geared 1:1 it propelled the bicycle in a series of jerks when tested in August 1896. The device was displayed in 1912 when the short-lived museum of historic vehicles was formed in London. And there was also the Marshall, which started life as a Benz-based French Hurtu, and later became the Belsize, made at Belsize Works, Clayton from early 1899. Marshall & Co had bought the Belsize Cycle Company’s works in 1897. Two Marshalls completed the 1900 Trial. In 1906 the company was floated and expanded rapidly. In 1897 John Edward Thornton (1865-1940), who was well-known for his Thornton-Pickard camera company in Altrincham, established the Thornton Motor Co. Ltd at Worsley Mills off Egerton Street in Hulme. This was so very close to Royce’s own works and here Thornton made at least two Thornton three-wheel forecars by 1900, using an engine of his own design. Another three-wheel forecar was the Century Tandem air-cooled 2¾ hp in 1899 made by the talented Ralph Jackson and Arthur Firth of the Century Engineering & Motor Co at Oakfield Road, Altrincham (coincidentally the street where Thornton lived). This later became the well-known three-wheel Eagle Runabout from 1903.
George Hindle was a well-known owner of a single-cylinder Imperial, made by W Turner’s cycle shop at 291 Stretford Road (again very close to Royce). By 1900, now known as the Imperial Autocar Manufacturing Co. Ltd of Erskine Street, Hulme and later at Rusholme until 1905, a 7 hp tonneau was in preparation for the February 1901 Show. Also near Royce was the Trafford Motor Co at Christ Church Square, Hulme. From at least 1901 they made bodies and wheels for cars. Other companies announced their plans but subsequent developments are sketchy. For example, in February 1899 it was announced that Baxendale & Co of Miller Street in the city were to make motor tricycles. And The Autocar for 27 May 1899 revealed that Sir W H Bailey & Sons of Bridgewater Canal Works in Salford were to make motors. A slightly less early car was the Turrell from late 1900. This was a 7 hp 2-cylinder horizontally-opposed, based on the Accles-Turrell of Perry Bar, Birmingham, and with what J O H Norris of Cockshoot recalled as a ‘comic’ gearbox. Charles McRobie Turrell, the engineer and insurance consultant formerly with the motor monopolist Harry Lawson and the Coventry Motor Co, formed Accles-Turrell Autocars Ltd. in January 1900 at Brown Street, Manchester. Pollock & Macnab Ltd in nearby Ashton-under-Lyne were the actual makers until Thomas Pollock branched into other engineering with J G Accles. Curiously, a brochure for 1901 on the Turrell Light Car was issued by the Pollock Engineering Co. of Ashton under Lyne. By 1902 the Turrell was being made in Manchester by the Autocar Construction Co Ltd of Openshaw and called the Hermes. It was now a 15 hp 2-cylinder with four speeds. The company also sold the Saracen 5 hp steam engine. The Empress car was being made in Manchester by Frank Smith from at least 1901 and was sold by the wonderfully-named Mr F Zorilla. Two local industrialists, Frank J and Harry Gresham of Gresham & Craven crane makers, had an experimental chassis built in 1901 called the Heatley-Gresham, designed by H Heatley of London. It was fitted with Cockshoot’s first motor body (number 6356), a rear entrance tonneau. (However, a claim is also made that Cockshoot’s first body was on the 1895 Holland car.) Apart from Rolls-Royce the best known motor-car maker associated with Manchester was Crossley of Openshaw, stationary engine makers. Although their motor-cars did not appear until the February 1904 Show it is clear they were building their first cars from late 1903 in the same period that Royce was experimenting. The Crossley was designed by J S Critchley and utilised a French chassis fitted with a Crossley two-cylinder engine. The first actual car in the city regardless of origin was claimed to be a French-made Cambier for J H Pemberton ca 1897. At the same time an 1896 Lutzmann owned in Lancashire was known in the city with Charles C Goodwin. Also active in the city was the dubious US inventor Edward J Pennington with his designs for a ‘raft’ (platform base) car. Not far away in Oldham Fred Rothwell, of the cycle maker Eclipse Machine Co, began making cars. During 1905 A J Adams became their designer, having left Royce Ltd where he had been draughtsman for the first Royce cars. Also in Oldham the first Bradbury car was noted in 1898. Such was the industrial side of the Manchester motor scene as Royce might have known it. But he disregarded all the local makes. He rejected, if he even considered, the local Marshall although his partner Claremont had a tangential link - his mistress from 1899, the Clara McKnight already referred to, was sister of George Walter McKnight the chief designer at Marshall ! (Marshall were later to employ another ex-Royce designer, one George Tilghman Richards.) Royce probably rejected another new Manchester make when he chose the Decauville. This was the Horbick produced in nearby Pendleton from 1902 by Horsfall & Bickham, textile machinery makers. Their first car was a single-cylinder Benz type with belt drive, a dated system. Two- and three-cylinder types followed in that year. By 1907 they were producing a six-cylinder.
Patterning some of his design on the Decauville, Royce and his small team moved towards their goal. Ernie Wooler (1888-1969, resident in America from the 1920's) was taken on in May 1903 as Royce’s first specifically motor apprentice. His father Herbert was already working as a Royce Ltd salesman. In September 1903 a two-cylinder engine was run for the first time. By early 1904 the first 10 hp Royce car was ready for coachwork, the common rear-entrance tonneau type. This was made not by Cockshoot, the best known local name, but by the modest Hulme concern of John Roberts which would have been cheaper and easier to monitor. In February ‘Royce petrol motor-cars’ appeared in the list of products on company stationery. 1 April is recorded as the first public run of the complete Royce car, chassis 15196 (itself an order number in a Royce ledger), although it must have been tested without a body earlier. The day was a Friday, coincidentally All Fool’s Day and Easter Good Friday. For years afterwards 31 March was quoted instead! Royce was now ready to sell his cars, initially direct. It cannot have been as quiet as tradition would have us believe because F D Nawell, who rented his stable in Blake Street to Royce, recalled that ‘everybody knew when it was coming’! Rolls comes to townOn Friday, 27 April 1900, the Hon Charles S Rolls was leading the 1,000 Mile Trial in his speedy 12 hp Panhard during the Birmingham to Manchester leg. From Buxton in the Derbyshire Peak District he reached the Cat and Fiddle pass (later a favourite spot for testing Rolls-Royce cars). Whilst descending the twisting road, treacherous even today, Rolls managed to jettison his personal driver/‘mechanician’ Alfred J Poole and some luggage. Rolls was not best pleased at having to stop for him. Poole, who later lived in America, was to harbour a grudge over this incident for many years. Together again, they reached Macclesfield at the bottom and sped on towards Manchester and their destination, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Old Trafford. So much for Rolls’s first arrival. He was to know this area better from 1904 when he became part of the Rolls-Royce story.
In these early years the name Henry Edmunds always appeared at crucial moments, never more so than now in the lead up to the great meeting itself. Not a director of Royce Ltd as has often been claimed, nevertheless he took an interest in Cooke Street when he heard accounts (no doubt sceptical) about what was being built there from his colleague on Glover’s board, Ernest Claremont. Edmunds was a pioneer motorist who had driven in the 1900 Trial and who had business interests and good contacts both in London and the north. One of these was Rolls (1877-1910) selling French cars in Brook Street, Mayfair, with a repair depot in Fulham, west London. Edmunds had a track record of bringing people together in various fields, rarely to his financial advantage. He saw immediately that the Cooke Street car he went to observe was of a quality that would appeal to Rolls, who Edmunds knew was seeking a British-made car, although its two-cylinder configuration was not Rolls’s ideal. The other difficulty was that whilst Royce was amenable to discussions in Manchester, Rolls was not. He probably did not quite believe the reports and photographs he had been sent from the north by Edmunds on 26 March and did not want to find time to go there. Rolls wanted his name on a car and playing ‘hard to get’ might have increased his leverage. On the very day in March that the Royce car photographs were sent to London, Rolls sent a letter to William Weir of Glasgow (now the Weir Group) enquiring about the manufacture of cars. Weir was making Darracqs under licence for the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race. Weir’s reply invited Rolls up for discussions and to see progress but no further contact is known. Rolls’s hesitation about Royce did not deter Edmunds. Instead, he borrowed Royce’s first car for a trial of anti-skid devices in London, during April and May 1904, on behalf of the Parsons Non-Skid Co of which Edmunds just happened to be Chairman. He knew that using the Royce would ensure Rolls saw it during the trial. The gamble paid off. Before the trial was even over Rolls had taken the initiative by writing to Edmunds to suggest an early May meeting in Manchester.
The first Royce chassis photographed at the Cooke Street works, one of several photographs shown to Rolls during March 1904. (Courtesy of Rolls-Royce plc)
This took place over luncheon on Wednesday 4 May 1904 at the new Midland Hotel in St Peter’s Square. The hotel was itself a monument to Victorian virtues and aspirations, but with the luxury the Edwardian age was to exemplify. Rolls and Edmunds arrived at London Road station (now Piccadilly) and not the impressive Central Station behind the hotel. Interestingly enough, Royce did not involve Claremont in this crucial meeting and Rolls did not bring his business manager Claude Johnson. Perhaps neither of the principals thought much would come of it.
Down to businessThe second Royce car, destined for Claremont’s use, was ready during April and would have been used for Rolls’s visit including no doubt a test drive by Rolls. He had probably already tried the first Royce then still in London at the Sideslip Trials. The third and final Royce was being completed on the floor at the Cooke Street works. Rolls and Royce quickly established a rapport during their meeting and Rolls’s technical fluency would have assisted their verbal agreement to co-operate. Many forget how knowledgeable and experienced Rolls was, including in some manufacture. He was a major exponent of all things motoring in those pioneering years. Not long after leaving Cambridge University in 1898 Rolls became involved in small scale trading, and some engineering projects, in the stables behind his parents’ palatial London town house, ‘South Lodge’ in Knightsbridge. He combined this with a great deal of motor racing and ballooning. By early 1902 he had patented an engine design and later that year founded C S Rolls & Co at ‘Lillie Hall’ in Fulham, west London, now that he had a London agency for Panhard & Levassor cars (though he sold and repaired a great many others). In 1903 he assembled from French parts a 6 hp car called the Rolls ‘Populaire’ but this was not the breakthrough he sought. There is no doubt that Rolls had always had manufacture in mind and now, unable to do this himself, he needed a partner.
There is evidence that Royce already had designs for a four-cylinder Royce to show and this would further have enticed Rolls who wanted bigger cars. Although historians attribute agreement on the car’s name, and a contract, to this first meeting it is more likely that only broad agreement was reached that day. We know for example that a draft written agreement was ready in August and that the signing did not take place until 23 December. Perhaps both men were holding out for the best deal, although Rolls was already submitting orders to Royce Ltd for the early chassis. To Rolls’s tutored eye the 10 hp Royce would have seemed a sound rather than remarkable car (borne out perhaps by four out of the twenty made being with us today). Compared to developments in France and Germany it was a modest technical achievement. There has to have been something in Royce the man, and his manufacturing approach, that at last made Rolls say ‘this is the one’. When Rolls returned to London from the Midland Hotel, or soon after, he was loaned the first Royce for assessment and for use as a demonstration car during the summer. For Royce there was now the pressing matter of getting cars into production, with up to 150 workers at the Cooke Street works. In late August the world’s first Rolls-Royce car was complete, still with the rounded Royce radiator, for the American Paris Singer of Devon and London. This was Rolls’s first sale for the new marque. He had many more orders in hand but few cars. Cooke Street laboured to make two cars available for the Paris Salon in December. Meanwhile, three-, four- and six-cylinder models were also developed in the period August 1904-March 1905, by now with the Rolls-Royce radiator that is so familiar. It is worth a moment’s diversion to revisit ‘that’ radiator. Historians have noted the general similarity in design with the little-known Norfolk car of the time. On 7 March 1904 the 1 st Annual Manchester Motor Show was opened at St James’s Hall, Oxford Street by the 20 th Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot, a pioneer motor manufacturer. Amongst the cars was the Norfolk made by Abel Blackburn & Co. of Cleckheaton. Royce would surely have attended this show! The earliest likely date for Royce’s version is August 1904. Royce had always said that a good way to proceed was to take the best and improve it and this outlook was to serve the company well for decades to come, in fact for one hundred years. Let us pay tribute in this centenary year to Royce for the early Manchester struggles and beyond, and to Rolls for creating the groundwork of ‘the best car in the world’. They made the name Rolls-Royce pre-eminent.
Acknowledgements: particular thanks to Paul Tritton’s pioneering work on Edmunds and on Royce’s early days, and to Mike Evans (Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust) for many suggestions. |
Clan Foundry Belper
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