Walter Owen Bentley, (16 September 1888 – 13 August 1971) was an English engineer who founded Bentley in London. He was a motorcycle and car racer as a young man. After making a name for himself as a designer of aircraft and automobile engines, Bentley established his own firm in 1919. He built the firm into one of the world's premier luxury and performance auto manufacturers, and led the marque to multiple victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After selling his namesake company to Rolls-Royce in 1931, he was employed as a designer for Lagonda, Aston Martin and Armstrong Siddeley.
Early life
Bentley was born on 16 September 1888, in Hampstead, London. He was the youngest of nine children. His father Alfred Bentley was a retired businessmanGRO UK Register of Births DEC 1841 1 198 MARYLEBONE and his mother Emily (née Waterhouse), daughter of T. G. Waterhouse, was born in Adelaide, Australia.UK Census 1911, 80 Avenue Road, Hampstead. RG14PN616 RG78PN22 RD8 SD1 ED26 SN260H. G. Pitt, 'Bentley, Walter Owen (1888–1971)’, rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; May 2006 As the son of a prosperous family he was privately educated at Clifton College"Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p247: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948 in Bristol from 1902 until 1905, when at the age of 16 he left to start work as an apprentice engineer with the Great Northern Railway at Doncaster Works.
Locomotives
The five-year premium apprenticeship with the Great Northern, which cost his father £75,Bentley Drivers Club Early Years taught Bentley to design complex railway machinery and also gave him practical experience in the technical procedures to cast, manufacture, and build it. He later recalled: "The sight of one of Patrick Stirling's eight-foot singles could move me profoundly."W. O. Bentley My Life and My Cars, 1967, London, Hutchinson & Co While with the Great Northern, he came close to realising his childhood ambition to drive one of their Atlantic express locomotives, when at the end of his apprenticeship he acquired footplate experience as a second fireman on main-line expresses.Obituary The Times 14 August 1971 page 14 "My longest day", he said, "was London to Leeds and back, on the return journey doing Wakefield to King's Cross non-stop for 175 miles. This was a total day's run of 400 miles, entailing a consumption of about seven tons of coal, every pound of it to be shovelled. Not a bad day's exercise." He completed his apprenticeship in the summer of 1910 but decided that the railways did not offer him enough scope for a satisfying career.
Motorcycles In 1909 and 1910, Bentley raced Quadrant, Rex, and Indian motorcycles. He competed in two Isle of Man Tourist Trophy races, on a Rex in 1909 and as a member of Indian's factory team in 1910. He did not finish in either event; in 1910, his Indian's rear tyre burst on the second lap.
Theoretical engineering study, taxi company employment After he studied theoretical engineering at King's College London, he took employment with the National Motor Cab Company, where his several duties included overseeing the maintenance of the fleet's 250 Unics. He was fascinated by the cabbies' ingenuity at fiddling the meters.
Entering the automobile industry In 1912, Bentley joined his brother, Horace Millner Bentley, in a company called "Bentley and Bentley" that sold French Doriot, Flandrin & Parant cars.Parissien. Page 65. Dissatisfied with the performance of the DFPs, but convinced that success in competition was the best marketing for them, Bentley was inspired by a paperweight to have pistons made for the engine in aluminium alloy. Fitted with the alloy pistons and a modified camshaft, a DFP took several records at Brooklands in 1913 and 1914.
Aero engines
At the outbreak of World War I, Bentley knew that using aluminium alloy pistons in military applications would benefit the national interest: they improved power output and ran cooler, allowing higher compression ratios and higher engine speeds. As security considerations prevented his broadcasting the information to engine manufacturers, he contacted the official liaison between the manufacturers and the Navy. That man, Commander Wilfred Briggs, would be his senior officer throughout the war.
Commissioned in the Royal Naval Air Service, Bentley was sent to share with manufacturers the knowledge and experience he had gained from the modifications to the engines of the DFP cars he sold in Britain. Following his first consultation, which was with the future Lord Hives at Rolls-Royce, the company's first aero engine, named the Eagle, was designed with pistons of aluminium instead of cast-iron or steel. Bentley next visited Louis Coatalen at Sunbeam, with the result that the same innovation was used in all their aero engines.
Bentley also visited Gwynnes, whose Chiswick factory made French Clerget engines under licence, and he liaised between the squadrons in France and Gwynnes' engineering staff. When they proved unwilling to implement Bentley's more important suggestions the Navy gave him a team to design his own aero engine at the Humber factory in Coventry. Designated the BR1, Bentley Rotary 1, the engine was fundamentally different from the Clerget except in the design of the cam mechanism, which was retained to facilitate production. A prototype was running in the early summer of 1916. The bigger BR2 followed in early 1918.
In recognition, Bentley was awarded the MBE. After he was invited in 1920 to make a claim, which the Clerget licensees contested unsuccessfully, the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors awarded him £8,000.
Bentley Motors
After the war, in early 1919, Bentley foundedBentley Drivers Club Vintage History Bentley in small premises in London with Frank Burgess (formerly of Humber) and Harry Varley (formerly of Vauxhall). Clive Gallop joined the team as an engine designer to help develop their straight-4 engine. The 3-litre engine ran for the first time in New Street Mews, Baker Street, London. A plaque marks the building in what is now Chagford Street. Bentley's first complete Bentley 3 Litre car began road tests in January 1920 and the first production version, made in Cricklewood, was delivered in September 1921. Its durability earned widespread acclaim.
Bentley's motto was "To build a good car, a fast car, the best in class." His cars raced in hill climbs and at Brooklands, and the lone 3 Litre entered by the company in the 1922 Indianapolis 500 mile race and driven by Douglas Hawkes finished thirteenth at an average speed of 74.95 mph. Bentley entered a team of his new 3-litre modified and race-prepared cars in the 1922 Tourist Trophy, driving himself in Bentley III; the only team to finish, they received the Team Award, thereby launching Bentley's reputation; Jean Chassagne (later himself a 'Bentley Boy') on a 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam winning outright.Kelly, Robert (1966). T. T. Pioneers. The Manx Experience. p. 166 Bentleys set many records at the Le Mans 24-hour races, with "Bentley Boy" Woolf Barnato the only driver to win all three times he entered.
In 1923, when a rather sceptical Bentley was persuaded to attend the inaugural Le Mans race, he saw John Duff and Frank Clement's private entry take fourth place.
A Bentley 3 Litre won at Le Mans in 1924. Neither of the two Bentleys entered in the 1925 race finished it, but subsequent models won again in 1927, 1928, 1929, and 1930, with the factory team managed by Bentley's old school friend Richard Sidney Witchell. Ettore Bugatti is said to have commented that Bentley made "the fastest lorries in the world".
With Bentley Motors Ltd. in financial difficulties, and the company's board of directors critical of Bentley, Kimberley diamond magnate Barney Barnato's heir Woolf Barnato purchased the business's assets and became chairman.
Bentley continued his design work as Barnato's employee. The racing version of the Bentley-designed six-cylinder Speed Six—the road car was introduced in 1928—proved to be the most successful Bentley in competition, and won Le Mans in 1929 and 1930. In 1929, against Bentley's wishes, Barnato approved the development of a supercharged, "Blower" version of the 1927 4½ Litre. Tim Birkin's brainchild, the car was made in separate, purpose-built workshops, away from Bentley, in Welwyn Garden City. As Bentley had feared, durability proved poor and the car failed on the track.
Although Barnato continued racing Bentleys with distinction, and even though the company sold a hundred of its 8 Litre model, which was launched as a grand car for the ultra-rich in October 1930 (Bugatti sold three of his equivalent model, the Royale), the Great Depression took its toll. By July 1931 Barnato's financial support had dwindled, and Bentley Motors went into voluntary liquidation. On 10 July a Receiver was appointed to the company.Receiver Appointed of Bentley Motors Limited Re Bentley Motors Limited; London Life Association Limited v. Bentley Motors Limited, And Woolf Barnato The Times 11 July 1931 page 4 Bentley's company had accumulated losses of £136,220 and had worked through three fortunes including Barnato's.Graham Robson, 60 years of Bentley, Thoroughbred and Classic Cars, September 1979
With an intention of reentering the luxury motorcar business, Napier & Son entered negotiations as prospective purchasers.
Cricklewood productionW. O. Bentley, An Illustrated History of the Bentley Car 1919–1931 1964, London, Allen & Unwin
Year3-litre4-litre-litre-litre8-litreTotal 1922 145 145 1923 204 204 1924 403 403 1925 395 395 1926 295 58 353 1927 140 127 267 1928 45 273 99 417 1929 8 260 129 397 1930 138 126 264 1931 50 56 100 206 1931+ 4 6 10 Total 1,639 50 733 539 100 3,061
506 of the 3-litre cars were 'Speed Models' and 15 '100 mph Models' 54 of the -litre cars were supercharged 171 of the short-chassis -litre cars were 'Speed Sixes'
Rolls-Royce Limited, Derby
However, Bentley's arch rival Rolls-Royce had been disturbed by the 8 Litre's encroachment upon the market segment of their Phantom II. To prevent Bentley continuing as a competitor Rolls-Royce's agents made an offer, posing as the British Equitable central trust to avoid alerting Napier and inflating the price.Parissien. Page 67. As a result Rolls-Royce was able to buy the company, topping Napier's bid at the last minute. They announced the acquisition on 20 November 1931. Bentley described in his biography how he found out about the purchase by Rolls-Royce. His wife had returned from a cocktail party, where she overheard a man saying something which she understood to mean that his company had recently taken over Bentley. Later in the party she managed to find out from her hostess that the man’s name was Arthur Sidgreaves. “Who is he”, she asked her husband. “He’s the managing Director of Rolls-Royce”, Bentley replied.Reese, pp. 193, 194
The old business had not troubled to register their Bentley trademark; Rolls-Royce took immediate steps to remedy that omission. Cricklewood was closed during 1932. Thereafter production was from Rolls-Royce premises in Derby and, postwar, Crewe.
Rolls-Royce had acquired the Bentley showrooms in Cork Street, the service station at Kingsbury, the whole establishment at Cricklewood and Bentley himself. This last element was disputed by Napier in court, but without success. Everything was sold but some 8-litre chassis which were taken to Derby. The name alone was to be kept and used for a smaller economy car but that prototype proved to be as complex and expensive as the bigger Rolls-Royces and its development was halted.
Bentley believed Barnato had bought a substantial shareholding in Rolls-Royce just before pulling out his support while visiting New York. Barnato was invited to become a director of the new Rolls-Royce subsidiary, Bentley Motors (1931) Limited.