Rolls met Royce at the Midland Hotel in Manchester in 1904, when Rolls was 27 and Royce 41. No two men were likely candidates for partnership. Charles Stewart Rolls was a blue blood, the son of Lord and Lady Lang attock of Monmouth, a wellborn lad who took his engineering degree at Cambridge before setting up shop in Mayfair as an importer of European cars, The son of a poor miller, Fredrick Henry Royce sold newspaper on the railway platforms at Alwalton before being helped through trade school by an admiring aunt who enjoyed his tough analytical mind. At their first meeting, Royce told Rolls they should builds cars together. Rolls agreed and the rest, as they say, is history.
Few partnerships have endured the ups and downs of the Rolls Royce partnership. The more adventurous of the two, Rolls was a keen balloonist and aviator, becoming the first to fly the English Channel nonstop in both directions. But tragedy struck in 1910 when Rolls crashed in a competition at Bournemouth, becoming the first Englishman killed in a flying accident. Bent but not broken, Royce pressed on alone and designed and built Eagle, Hawk, and Falcon piston engines for the World War I.
Royce died in 1933 at the age of 70, but not before laying the foundation for all that followed. Cars were the backbone of the business between the two wars. The factory was moved from Manchester to Derby, where cars were built with names like the Phantom and the Silver Ghost. The low point came in 1971, when bankruptcy forced Rolls Royce Motors Lid. But more and more, air craft engines became the driving force behind the Rolls Royce name.
Today, Rolls Royce holds a 20% share of a worldwide market estimated to be worth $15 billion a year and growing at a steady rate of 5% a year. Rolls Royce engines are now used by more than 300 of the world’s airlines and more than 700 executive and corporate airlines, In August 1989, a Qantas Airlines 747400 powered by four RB211524Gs flew the longest nonstop commercial flight in history when it flew 11,185 miles from London to Sydney in just over 20 hours, The latest and largest RB211 is called the Trent and is being described as the world’s “most powerful turbofan,” ranging in size from 65,000 to 95,000 pounds of thrust. If Rolls Royce seems to be boasting, it may because it has quite a bit to boast about. Besides aiming for very high thrust engines, Rolls Royce is in the midst of developing a quieter engine. The noise levels of these engines are such that we could ‘operate them in and out of Washington National Airport during curfew without penalties.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 14, 1990
