1904 Rolls-Royce 10hp
Submitted by admin on Friday, September 25, 2009
This was one of the best cars in the world at the time, and it is still one of the most expensive, after Bonhams sold it for $7.3m in London in 2007.
Ballooning
Submitted by admin on Monday, June 15, 2009
About to take off
Rolls was a pioneer aviator and his interest in aviation began, initially, by flying balloons, both gas and hot air, and he made over 170 ascents, even taking his mother with him on some ascents..
Throughout the year of 2010 there will be ascents from the places in Monmouth where Rolls flew from.
The Rolls Exhibition at Monmouth’s Nelson Museum & Local History Centre
Submitted by admin on
Monmouth’s town museum will be staging a special exhibition to mark the centenary of Charles Rolls’ death. Based upon the extensive collection of Rolls family material in the museum, the exhibition of photographs, memorabilia and documents will run from late January 2010 until the end of July 2010.
As well as dealing with Charles Rolls’ life, achievements and legacy, the exhibition will also look at his family and their involvement with the history of Monmouth.
Thanks to generous funding from Rolls-Royce plc, the museum is planning a programme of formal and informal learning activities from September 2009, using the Rolls story as the launch-pad to pursue historical, technological and skills-based themes
Taking Off
For further information contact Andrew Helme; andrewhelme@monmouthshire.gov.uk
Rolls Meets Royce
Submitted by admin on Monday, June 8, 2009
Henry Royce was a miller’s son from Huntingdonshire who had founded his own manufacturing company in 1884 in the Manchester district of Hulme, making domestic electrical fittings.
In the 1890s, he diversified into electric cranes and by the beginning of the 20th century Royce had started to, build motor cars simply out of interest in a corner of the Hulme workshop. One of the directors of his company, Henry Edmunds, bought one of the cars and was so impressed that he mentioned it to a friend, Charles Rolls, who ran a car showroom in London.
Rolls and Royce arranged to meet at the Midland Hotel in Manchester in May 1904, where they agreed that Royce would produce the cars and then sell them exclusively through Rolls’ showroom.
By 1906, business was so good that they decided to into manufacture cars together in association with Rolls’ partner, Claude Johnson, and they established the Rolls-Royce company.
Charles Rolls, the Engineer
Submitted by admin on Saturday, June 6, 2009
For those who think that Rolls was simply the front-man to Royce’s practical-hands-on knowledge, they would be quite wrong. Rolls attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Mechanical and Applied Science and because of his fascination with engines, he was nicknamed Dirty Rolls.
When he was eighteen in 1896, he went to Paris to purchase his first car, a Peugeot Phaeton, and at the same time he joined the Automobile Club of France.
It is thought that his Peugeot was the first car based in Cambridge, and one of the first three cars owned in Wales. Rolls was a founding member of the Automobile Club of Great Britain.
