BMW and Rolls Note Rolls-Royce Founder’s Birthday

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Rolls-Royce Motor Cars marks the 144^th birthday of co-founder The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls on Friday 27 August 2021. In honor of the occasion, the BMW Group marque made a pilgrimage around London locations associated with the man’s life and career, capturing images of a RR Ghost at each stop along the way.

The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls was born  close to Berkeley Square on 27 August 1877. As the third son of Lord and Lady Llangattock, he was born into a life of wealth and privilege, going on to be educated at Eton and Cambridge and enjoying the freedom to indulge his passions for aviation and motor racing. By contrast, his business partner, Henry Royce, came from a humble background. (AutoInformed.com on BMW Group Design: Kaban at Rolls-Royce, Dukec at BMW; BMW Stops Sales and Leasing of Mini, 5-Series, X1 and Rolls-Royce models for Bad Seat Belts. No Accidents, Injuries Known; Rolls-Royce on CS Rolls’ Record Run in a Wright Flyer; Union Strike Saves Rolls-Royce Jobs in Barnoldswick)

The Itinerary Includes:

35 Hill Street, Mayfair

• The Hon Charles Stewart Rolls was born in this house close to Berkeley Square on 27 August 1877. As the third son of Lord and Lady Llangattock, he was born into a life of wealth and privilege, going on to be educated at Eton and Cambridge and enjoying the freedom to indulge his passions for aviation and motor racing.
• By contrast, his business partner, Henry Royce, came from a humble background. In 1876, aged just 10, he was working as a telegram delivery boy at the Mayfair Post Office. His ‘beat’ included Hill Street, so it is perfectly possible that he delivered congratulatory letters and telegrams to Rolls’ proud parents.

119 Piccadilly

• Until 1961, this Grade II Listed building on Piccadilly was the home of the Royal Aero Club, which Rolls co-founded in 1901 with Frank Hedges Butler, a leading London wine merchant, and Butler’s daughter, Vera. Rolls began his flying career as a balloonist, making over 170 flights and winning the Gordon Bennett Gold Medal in 1903 for the longest sustained time aloft. In 1910, he became only the second person in Britain to be awarded an airplane pilot’s license; that same year, he achieved the unique feat of being the first Englishman to fly an airplane across the English Channel, and the first aviator ever to fly non-stop from England to France and back again. Though now based outside the capital, the Royal Aero Club remains the national governing and coordinating body of air sport and recreational flying in Britain.

Royal Automobile Club (RAC)

• Rolls was also a founder member of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, which became the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) in 1897. It was a fellow RAC member, Henry Edmunds, who arranged the historic first meeting between Rolls and Henry Royce at the Midland Hotel, Manchester, on 4 May 1904. The Club’s Secretary, Claude Johnson, was Rolls’ business partner in his car dealership, C S Rolls & Co, and later became the first managing director of Rolls-Royce. The Club took up residence in its current home at 89 Pall Mall in 1911, a year after Rolls’ tragic early death in a flying accident, aged just 32.

14-15 Conduit Street

• This building on Conduit Street, which connects Bond Street and Regent Street, was the West End headquarters of Rolls-Royce Ltd for much of the twentieth century. From 1905 until his death in 1910, Rolls had his office here, and used it as a base for demonstration drives of early Rolls-Royce models. On 22 March 2010, its historic significance was marked with an English Heritage Blue Plaque, unveiled by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.

Berkeley Street

• Close to Rolls’ birthplace and one of the most prestigious addresses in London, Berkeley Street is regarded as the heart of Mayfair. Today, it is the site of Rolls-Royce’s flagship UK store, the first in the world to be transformed with the marque’s new corporate identity.