Britain's Daimler began in a disused Coventry cotton mill
An engineer building a cableway at the 1889 Bremen Exhibition spotted tiny railcars driven by Gottlieb Daimler's motors. Frederick Simms befriended the German inventor, secured British rights to his patents and set in motion a carmaker that would supply royalty, pass through Jaguar and Ford, and finally be dissolved in December 2025.
Simms first used the engines in boats; a launch he named Cannstatt began running on the Thames from Putney in May 1892. After Daimler-powered French cars shone in the 1894 Paris–Rouen trial, he planned a factory. Evelyn Ellis bought the first British licence to run a car under the patents, and in July 1895 drove his Panhard from Southampton toward Datchet, the first long motor journey in Britain.
Enter Harry John Lawson, a financier trying to corner every motor patent in the country. He floated The Daimler Motor Company in early 1896, and its shares sold out in a day. Simms favoured a ready-made engine works at Cheltenham, but Lawson steered the board to a four-storey cotton mill owned by an associate, which became Britain's first car factory. Machines arrived late, and the first car left only in January 1897.
Turmoil followed. Simms quit in July 1897 over poor co-operation with the German firm, and Lawson left the board in October. His successor as chairman, Henry Sturmey, was touring in his own Daimler at the time and became the first motorist to drive from John O'Groats to Land's End. Gottlieb Daimler resigned the next year without ever having attended a board meeting.
Stability came under the Birmingham Small Arms Company, which bought the firm in 1910. A Royal Warrant from 1902 made it the monarch's carmaker until Rolls-Royce displaced it in the 1950s, and it favoured unusual engineering such as sleeve-valve Knight engines and a fluid flywheel paired with preselector gearboxes. Jaguar bought it in 1960, after which the name gradually shrank to a luxury trim level; Ford dropped the marque in 2009.
Source: Daimler Company
