Early Motor cars in Datchet: the First in England and the Fastest in the World

The Honourable Evelyn Ellis (1843-1913) was interested in the developing motor industry in France and Germany in the 1890s and became a pioneer in promoting it over here. A considerable hindrance to its progress was the legal requirement for a man with a red flag to walk in front of any self-propelled vehicle on a public road at no more than 4mph. This Act was designed to slow down steam traction engines as they and the machines they powered were moved between farms. Ellis deliberately intended to flout this law to expose its absurdity and hasten its repeal so that English motor manufacturers, and those (like himself) ready to invest in them, would be able to compete with firms such as Daimler and Peugeot across the channel. In June 1895 he ordered a motor car from the Paris firm of Panhard-Levassor, powered by a Daimler engine. It was taken across the channel and on by train to Micheldever station in Hampshire, from where he drove it up to Datchet with his friend Frederick Simms, a pioneering engineer in his own right. They were never actually stopped by the police but the Act was repealed in 1896 and celebrated by the first Motor Car Tour to Brighton, or the 'Brighton Run', when the speed limit was raised from four to twelve miles an hour. Simms had already bought the right to import Daimler engines in 1891 (at first used in boats) so he was ready to begin production of cars in 1896, with Ellis as one of the first Directors of the original Daimler Motor Company in Coventry. In 1897 Simms was instrumental in forming the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland (later the RAC), with Ellis as its first chairman.

From 1906 a very different sort of car, the Darracq 200 racer, was being housed at Datchet, in workshops at Home Farm at the far end of Holmlea Road (then Old Workhouse Road). The Darracq Company had built cars to enter the Gordon Bennett Cup trials in France, and then made a version, powered by a mammoth 200 horse-power, ninety-degree V-8 engine, designed to contest the land speed record. Near Marseilles at the end of 1905 the car recorded a world record of 109.65 mph, and it was then shipped to America to enter the Speed Tournament at Daytona Beach. There, driven by Louis Chevrolet, the Darracq achieved a new land speed record of 127.66 mph. Following world publicity of this record it was bought by the enthusiast Algernon Lee Guiness (who went on to become a director of the Sunbeam Talbot Darracq company) and was brought down to the workshops in Datchet, near to where the Guinesses lived at Windsor.

In 1910 the national land-ownership survey records that 'Hon. Lee Guinness' (either Algernon or his brother Kenelm) was the occupier of a building owned by Alfred Talbot the farmer, somewhere in the vicinity of Home Farm. These workshops, and the roads around Datchet, were used to tune and test the car which took part in speed trials in France and Germany as well as in England; Algy's 1908 record for a flying kilometre was not surpassed until 1922. After that the Darracq was stored away at the back of the workshop until it was sold as scrap, but Algernon later bought the engine back and kept it until his death in 1954. Over the last 50 years the car has been rebuilt to running order and will soon be making show appearances.

In 1906 an eyewitness described a test on the open road (now the A30) near Blackbush: We had no trouble from the police; actually they used to ask us when we would be there for they loved to look on - unofficially. I was very lucky to have a few runs with Algy, which were the biggest thrills I have ever experienced on any car, including the big Benz at Brooklands. Up to 40mph you felt shaken to pieces but at full throttle the air pressure on one's body was terrific. There were no floorboards and the seats were perched up high with absolutely no protection which made you hang on for dear life.

From about 1910, Algy's brother Kenelm Lee Guiness was also running a branch of his KLG spark plug factory at Home Farm. The business, which had its main production lines in Putney, was established in an attempt to improve the efficiency of the sparking plugs which Kenelm and Algy were using in their collection of cars. At Datchet they seem to have developed and assembled a specialist plug for low tension ignition. Between 1911 and 1914 another company was building complete cars here at Home Works: Grice, Wood and Keller's 'GWK' light cars and cycle cars. They were popular because of their economy, using 2-cylinder engines and a very unusual friction transmission drive. In 1914 production was moved to Maidenhead where it continued until 1926 when competition from the Austin Seven proved too much. What a contrast these cars must have been to the great Darracq beast stabled nearby!