Club contact: Andrew Grant
andygrantrwg@yahoo.co.uk

                                     September 2023 – update

A good turnout for our current changeable weather and we are hoping to have some new recruits for our club soon.

Although our membership is growing, we still have room for new people and I would be glad to hear from any interested parties. We meet on the second Thursday of each month at the Llanishen Golf Club in Cardiff at 10am for coffee before starting the meeting proper at 10.30am. Lunch is available at the club and the great majority of the members stay for this excellent value meal.

     Our September meeting we had Roger James speaking on “Rolls and Royce in Pictures”

The talk was based on photographs and an old video about the origins of both Royce and Rolls showing the huge difference in their early lives with Rolls coming from a very wealthy family and Royce from abject poverty.

Rolls was very wealthy and a great risk taker while Royce was an amazing engineer.

Rolls established a sales business in the West End of London in 1902 selling French cars from Peugeot. Hearing about Royce’s skill they met each other in 1904 in a Manchester hotel and agreed to form a joint company. In 1905 their first production car was made being a 10HP MOSI.

Being a great risk taker Rolls was very keen to fly and bought a plane from the Wright brothers. Unfortunately he took part in the Bournemouth Air Show in 1910 and died as his plane crashed on landing and he became the first British air death in history.

Royce continued his career becoming involved in army cars and then airplane engines in 1915. He also created the famous Merlin engine with Reginald Mitchell which was later used to power Spitfires in WWII.

     Charles Rolls                                            Henry Royce

      1877 – 1910                                              1863 – 1933

Question Time :- Several questions were asked showing a keen interest in the subject and Roger explained that he has another 15 similar talks.

Please contact me for any further information at the e-mail address above or on 02920252422.

Please note the e-mail address above is not hyperlinked so please enter my address manually.

Andrew Grant (Secretary)