Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, OBE was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls and Claude Johnson, he founded Rolls-Royce.
English industrialist who, having met Charles Rolls, in May 1904, found they shared a common interest to manufacture and market the finest cars. Together, in 1906 they started the company, Rolls-Royce Ltd. Within a few years, at the onset of WWI, they turned to the production of much-needed reliable engines for aviation. After the war, they continued both as a manufacturer of luxury automobiles and airplane engines. In WWII, it was Rolls-Royce engines powered British aircraft in the “Hurricanes” and “Spitfires.”«
At age 15 Royce was an engineer apprenticed to the Great Northern Railway company at Peterborough, and by 1882 he was chief electrical engineer for Liverpool’s first electric street-lighting system. Two years later he moved to Manchester and started his own engineering business, which developed into Royce Ltd., manufacturers of electrically driven cranes, dynamos, and motors. In 1904 he built three experimental cars of his own design; their outstanding qualities came to the attention of the motor dealer C.S. Rolls, who soon agreed to take Royce’s entire output. Their firms merged in 1906 as Rolls-Royce Ltd.; the motor section of the business was moved to Derby in 1908. Royce was made a baronet in 1930