page_title: Daimler Company
section_title: From starting to stability
hierarchical_section_title: Daimler Company / Independent (1896–1910) / From starting to stability
caption_attribution_description: English: 1899 Daimler 12 HP, National Motor Museum in Beaulieu. British This car was bought new by Lord Montagu's father. It was the first car to be driven into the House of Commons Yard and the first all British entry in a foreign road race, the Paris-Ostend event in which it finished third in the Tourist Class. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, had one of his first ever motor rides in this car. The vehicle was restored by the Museum Workshops. Cylinders: 4 Price New: £775 Capacity: 3053cc Maximum Speed: 30mph Manufacturer: Daimler Motor Syndicate, Coventry Owner: Science Museum, London source of info
context_page_description: The Daimler Company Limited, prior to 1910 The Daimler Motor Company Limited, was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H. J. Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The company bought the right to the use of the Daimler name simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft of Cannstatt, Germany. After early financial difficulty and a reorganisation of the company in 1904, the Daimler Motor Company was purchased by Birmingham Small Arms Company in 1910, which also made cars under its own name before World War II. In 1933, BSA bought the Lanchester Motor Company and made it a subsidiary of Daimler.
  Daimler was awarded a Royal Warrant to provide cars to the British monarch in 1902; it lost this privilege in the 1950s after being supplanted by Rolls-Royce. Daimler occasionally used alternative technology: the Knight engine which it further developed in the early twentieth century and used from 1909 to 1935, the worm gear final drive fitted from 1909 until after the Second World War, and their patented fluid flywheel used in conjunction with a Wilson preselector gearbox from 1930 to the mid-1950s.
context_section_description: On 14 January 1896 Lawson incorporated The Daimler Motor Company Limited. A prospectus was issued on 15 February. The subscription lists opened on 17 February and closed, oversubscribed, the next day. The Daimler Motor Company Limited bought The Daimler Motor Syndicate Limited from Lawson's British Motor Syndicate as a going concern. Simms was appointed consulting engineer to the new business but was not to be on the board of directors, possibly because he had become a director of the Cannstatt firm.
  One of the duties assigned to Simms was to find a suitable location for the factory. Simms found the Trusty Oil Engine Works, a company in receivership whose six-acre site at Cheltenham included a foundry, a machine shop, and testing facilities. Simms recommended buying the works immediately since, with ready facilities and the availability of skilled workers, they could start up in a very short time. Instead, at the first statutory meeting of the company, held while Simms was overseas, Lawson persuaded the board to buy a disused four-storey cotton mill in Coventry which was owned by Lawson's associate Ernest Terah Hooley. Despite Simms' later protest and pleas to sell the mill and buy the Trusty Oil Engine Works, Daimler stayed with the mill as the site of Britain's first automobile factory.
  Delayed delivery of machines kept the factory unfinished throughout 1896 and into 1897. During 1896 Daimler sold imported cars from companies for which Lawson held the licences. Cannstatt supplied engine parts but the delivery of working drawings were delayed for months. Four experimental cars were built in Coventry and a Panhard van was dismantled and reverse engineered. Some Daimler engines, with details redesigned by works manager J. S. Critchley, were also made in 1896.
  The first car left the works in January 1897, fitted with a Panhard engine, followed in March by Daimler-engined cars. The first Coventry Daimler-engined product made its maiden run in March 1897. By mid-year they were producing three of their own cars a week and producing Léon Bollée cars under licence. Lawson claimed to have made 20 cars by July 1897 making the Daimler Britain's first motor car to go into serial production, an honour that is also credited to Humber Motors who had also displayed, but in their case their production models, at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1896. The Daimlers had a twin-cylinder, 1526 cc engine, mounted at the front of the car, four-speed gearbox and chain drive to the rear wheels.
  In July 1897, as a result of financial difficulty, Daimler began asking Lawson's Great Horseless Carriage Company to settle its accounts with them.  In the same month, they refused to send working drawings of their 4 hp motor frame to DMG in Canstatt. Lack of co-operation with the Canstatt firm caused Simms to resign as Daimler's consulting engineer that month. Also in July 1897, the company sold their launch works at Eel Pie Island at a loss of seven £700 or more.
  Ongoing difficulties with the Great Horseless Carriage Company and the British Motor Syndicate caused Lawson to resign from Daimler's board on 7 October 1897.  He was replaced as chairman by Henry Sturmey, who at the time was five days into a motor tour in his personal Daimler from John O'Groats to Land's End. On arriving at Land's End on 19 October, Sturmey became the first person to make that journey in a motor car.
  In July 1898, Gottlieb Daimler resigned from the board of the Daimler Motor Company after never attending a board meeting. Sturmey opposed the appointment of a proposed successor who, according to Sturmey, held no shares and knew nothing about the automobile business. A committee was brought in to investigate the activities of the board and the company.   The committee summed up the management of the company as being inefficient and not energetic and suggested that the company be reorganised and run by a paid managing director. When Evelyn Ellis and another board member did not run for re-election, they were replaced by E. H. Bayley and Edward Jenkinson, with Bayley replacing S
caption: 1899 12 hp[note 1] Daimler
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