Book Review: Charles Rolls of Rolls Royce Author: Bruce Lawson, Reviewed by Diane Brandon
Most of us have collected numerous books about cars and therefore know how James Ward Packard, frustrated with the Winton, founded the Ohio Automobile Company in 1900 and began producing a better horseless carriage, the Packard. And who hasn’t read about two other renowned engineers, the Duesenberg brothers, who founded their automobile works in 1913 to build sports cars? Then there was Henry Ford, an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company, who joined with Edison to design and build a 26 HP automobile in 1901, which led to the legendary Ford Model ‘T’ and his considerable Ford Motor Company empire. In England, at the same time Ford, Packard and the Duesenberg lads were beavering away to design a better motor car, Henry Royce was doing the same. All of these innovative men, who went on to great success working on both sides of the Atlantic, were first and foremost hands-on engineers experimenting with their respective cars, competing in races and competitions as drivers, and often acting as their own mechanics. All were frustrated by the noisy, unreliable, fragile, smoky, early cars and in the process of sorting out those pesky problems, often by the side of those muddy early roadways, were inspired to build quiet, reliable and sensible machines. Royce, like the others, was frustrated with his shaky, breaky DeDion and Decauville machines and by 1904 in his small workshop, he produced the first of three 2-cylinder Royce automobiles. His Royce was far superior to anything else available in England and therefore he attracted the attention of another young motoring innovator, Charles Rolls, who had just established his splendid London car showroom. Rolls wanted to sell all the cars Royce could produce, badged as “Rolls-Royce”. Much of this history I had learned reading earlier Rolls’ biographies: the 1966 work by Lord Montagu, Rolls of Rolls-Royce, and one Dalton Watson published in 2007, by David Baines, Why Not? The Story of the Honourable Charles Stuart Rolls. When long-time friend, CCCAmember, and Rolls-Royce enthusiast, Jim Stickley, recommended this new biography, I was happy to add it to my library but, quite frankly, I doubted I would learn anything new. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a well-researched, and eminently readable biography, chock-full of previously unknown facts and images. Yes, Charles Rolls was known for cofounding Rolls-Royce and, yes, he was well-known as a pioneer in aviation and, yes, he holds the dubious distinction of being the first aircraft fatality, at Bournemouth on 12th July 1910. However, his short life was more than automobiles and flying machines. He was a bit of a contrarian, and in the late 19th century, born with the proverbial silver spoon, young Master Charles must have been a trial to his family. The family homes were more than stately. His family’s winter residence was a vast country estate built in 1776 on 1,000 acres near Monmouth, the ‘Hendre’. When compared to the scenes used in the television series 24